>Food delivery doesn't necessarily let you share delivery routes, either.
Right, that's my thinking (and anyone is free to steal this idea with my encouragement): there should be a way for someone to commit to some dish, started at some time, and then others can "hook" onto the order for a discount. Then you get economies of scale: it costs a lot less than O(n) to batch it up to n orders.
That's a surplus that can be shared between the tech platform, the restaurant, and the end user.
Similar logic for delivering that same food to people who are close to each other.
> there should be a way for someone to commit to some dish, started at some time, and then others can "hook" onto the order for a discount
This is how Uber Eats already works in Toronto.
There is a section in the app with restaurants that have orders already in progress and with a timer on each one and if you order within that limited time, the delivery fee is $0.
Ritual kind of does what you're describing without the delivery. They're targeting offices. One person orders and the rest of the office is alerted. The first person picks up orders for anyone else that puts an order in within a few minutes.
Right, that's my thinking (and anyone is free to steal this idea with my encouragement): there should be a way for someone to commit to some dish, started at some time, and then others can "hook" onto the order for a discount. Then you get economies of scale: it costs a lot less than O(n) to batch it up to n orders.
That's a surplus that can be shared between the tech platform, the restaurant, and the end user.
Similar logic for delivering that same food to people who are close to each other.
Earlier post on the model:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23093747