It didn't used to be. I delivered pizza in the early 2000s, and the fee was $1 and tip, which was usually $2-3. It was pretty normal people ordering the stuff.
And the funny thing is I made about $20 an hour (unadjusted for inflation, ~4 deliveries per hour + $5 an hour). Today the drivers still around that amount, the restaurants pay more and the companies operating are often operating at a loss.
Something very strange happened in the last 20 years.
What happened is the gig economy inserted a middleman (DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc.) between the restaurant and customer. These platforms take a 20–30% cut, charge customer fees, and still often lose money.
Meanwhile, drivers—now independent contractors—get no hourly wage, no benefits, and absorb all costs (gas, car, downtime). Tech didn’t increase efficiency for workers—it added a VC-funded layer that extracts value.
So despite more demand and better tools, drivers earn the same (or less) in nominal terms, and much less after inflation.
They removed friction by centralizing all restaurants so you can choose from one place, standardizing the experience no matter the food source, making selection simple and payment/refund easy.
The human brain is wired to go the way of the least resistance short term, no matter the cost long term, so customers pay a lot for that.
I have many pizza places that tell me they still deliver themselves for cheaper: almost nobody takes the option, they use the giant company app.
Something strange happened to someone somewhere but it hasn't happened to me.
I ordered Indian food from one of my favorite local establishments. I was home alone so I wanted it delivered. I called the restaurant and placed my order. The owner showed up 20 minutes later in his Mercedes to drop off my delivery.
Some restaurant owners know that they can buy themselves nice things and still provide excellent customer service if they don't give all their profits to a delivery service.
> Something very strange happened in the last 20 years.
Tech companies discovered that the most profitable position to be in was global middleman, at a scale previously impossible before everything was connected by the internet. They undercut a given market until all the alternatives become financially non-viable and then start hoovering up all the margins from both sides (producer and consumer) of the deal.
And the funny thing is I made about $20 an hour (unadjusted for inflation, ~4 deliveries per hour + $5 an hour). Today the drivers still around that amount, the restaurants pay more and the companies operating are often operating at a loss.
Something very strange happened in the last 20 years.