Five companies now control over 90% of the restaurant food delivery market

How new and important is this market?

• Several commenters argue app-based restaurant delivery barely existed 15–20 years ago (outside pizza/Chinese and some B2B “corporate lunch” services), so long‑term structure is still unsettled.
• Others from Europe say delivery hasn’t exploded there in the same way, suggesting regional differences.
• Some downplay the whole topic: delivery is a tiny, luxury slice of how people get food; you can always drive or walk.

Service quality and restaurant impact

• Many report worse outcomes via apps than direct delivery: colder food, longer delays, higher prices, and smaller portions.
• Chain and local pizza places often still run their own, cheaper and more reliable delivery, seen as superior to app drivers.
• Several anecdotes describe in‑store diners being deprioritized while kitchens crank out app orders, harming the sit‑down experience.
• Restaurants face high commissions (often ~30%), integration lock‑in (POS, tablets, unified order flow), and may raise prices on app menus; some advertise 20–30% savings for ordering direct.

Drivers, labor, and social costs

• Drivers are usually contractors, bearing car, fuel, and downtime costs; critics see wages as unsustainable and heavily reliant on precarious or undocumented workers.
• Some find school/prison food bidding and ultra-cheap institutional food dystopian and exploitative.

Market concentration, monopoly, and tech middlemen

• Many see five global players dominating as a textbook oligopoly/oligopsony pattern, mirroring other industries. Others note that in any given city it’s effectively 1–3 firms.
• Debate centers on whether five big players equals “competition” or a de facto cartel with little real differentiation.
• Some argue this is just capitalism’s normal consolidation; others blame weak or captured antitrust enforcement and VC-subsidized dumping that killed local players.
• A recurring theme: tech platforms as global middlemen that undercut incumbents, gain network effects, then “enshittify” by extracting rents from both restaurants and consumers.

Alternatives, openness, and localism

• Multiple commenters wish for open-source or standardized ordering systems that restaurants could host themselves, with local delivery co‑ops or driver‑owned platforms.
• Attempts exist (independent web ordering, POS vendors’ apps, niche services), but user behavior overwhelmingly favors a single convenient aggregator app, even at 15–30% higher prices.