Discussion

• @ernietedeschi Ernie Tedeschi on x

  It is interesting that consumers are increasingly willing to pay for more leisure time (i.e. not making dinner or traveling to pick up a meal). Not necessarily irrational if people value their time more than we think!

• @trumwill Will Truman on x

  I figure this is mostly a The Discourse problem, but every now and again some zoomer will be like “What they don't understand is that as far as we're concerned food delivery is a necessity not a luxury” and I grow a little more boomer every time I hear it.

• @cowboy_postbop @cowboy_postbop on x

  I saw an Instagram reel where a guy made a song about he doesn't look at his friend the same way after learning he had a biweekly cleaning lady but the reality is that, despite being a more stereotypical signifier of wealth, it's way, way less expensive than this

• @adam_tooze Adam Tooze on x

  You could also look at it in less moralistic terms as a question of relative price. Groceries so insanely expensive that at the margin it makes relatively more sense to eat out. In NYC home cooking is borderline vanity project.

• @joepostingg Joe on x

  I do not understand the appeal of doordash. I get takeout a couple times a week, but I just pick it up myself. The food is fresher and cheaper!

• @mjpost Matt Post on x

  Few things alienate me from my fellow Americans more than reading about their spending habits in general and food delivery in particular https://www.nytimes.com/... [image]

• @imnotowned Drew on x

  I don't cook as much as I should but that's on me. DoorDash however is an IQ test.

• @wmatagm Randy Clarke on x

  This NYT article on food delivery can encourage discussing several society/policy topics, incl transportation...who uses the road, who pays to cover those costs, impacts to other road users in traffic/parking, environment, etc. Roads are still geometry. https://www.nytimes.com/..…

• @rcobooth Rachel Cohen Booth on x

  idk if anyone would say they don't value their leisure time but we should be real that a lot of the time gained from DoorDash is used for more time on phones/watching TV https://x.com/...

• @chris_arnade Chris Arnade on x

  One thing you notice in much of Asia (Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China, etc) is how often people eat out, rather than cook, so much so that their kitchens are usually very small, relative to the U.S. So there is an abundance of inexpensive street food/casual dining (carts, izakayas,

• @scholars_stage T. Greer on x

  My private theory for what has happened since 2000: mid-range restaurant food has gotten far far tastier since then, meaning that there is a much larger gap between the quality of food people can cook at home \ quality of food they can by *relatively* cheap.

• @robertfreundlaw Rob Freund on x

  I think a lot of younger people never learn how to budget, are seduced by Klarna and other BNPL apps that let them “worry about it later,” and then when it's time to check in on where the money went, it's like opening the old yogurt in the fridge.

• @bigmeaninternet Malcolm Harris on x

  I love when people go for the complicity argument re: food delivery. “Are you saying you never get food delivered from DoorDash??” Yes, I am saying that. I live in South Philadelphia, why would I need someone to drive me takeout food from down the street?

• @eric_erins @eric_erins on x

  Growing up the only food that delivered was Pizza and Chinese. Delivery that my parents always refused to pay for. Somehow I inherited that stinginess and thank god for that.

• @birdyword Mike Bird on x

  People get angry at this point but aggregate American spending on eating/drinking out or having that food delivered is at a record high, and the proportion spent on store-bought food is at a joint-record low with the peak housing bubble era. [image]

• @lpolgreen Lydia Polgreen on x

  This is true. A decent delivery of Chinese or Indian food in for two people in NYC is basically a couple of meals for two or three days for around $80. Even better value if you pick it up yourself.

• @estherzelda0514 @estherzelda0514 on x

  If I ever spend about 30% of my pretax income on food delivery, please put me in a financial conservatorship for my own good.

• @trumav Ben Little on x

  I think it's way deeper than affordability, especially for millennials & down. It's a completely faceless & 0 social contact way to eat. Even going to the grocery store requires you to be around other people & (maybe) even interact. A huge % of folks will gladly pay a 100%

• @mattyglesias Matthew Yglesias on x

  Part of the affordability crisis is pretty clearly people just refusing to be thrifty — you should not be spending a quarter of your salary on DoorDash. [image]

• @jaybsauceda J.B. Sauceda on x

  You're never going to build wealth if you keep hiring a cab for your hamburger. You might not be rich on $50,000 a year, but spending 25% of weekly income to hail a taxi for your falafel ain't helping. A frustrating read: https://www.nytimes.com/... [image]

• @scottlincicome Scott Lincicome on x

  I demand to see hard data on Gen Z food delivery budgets

• @armanddoma Armand Domalewski on x

  I think the real story here is that the woman spending a third of her 50k income on DoorDash is probably severely depressed. I've literally lot thousands of dollars over my lifetime because I was too depressed to fill out a form [image]

• @lindsayballant Lindsay Ballant on x

  My gas & electric bill is $200-250 more than it used to be in the winter ($100-150 more in the summer) and my property taxes and home insurance is $1200 more annually and health insurance is $150 more than it used to be and that's with me downgrading from a gold to a bronze plan

• @wilson__valdez @wilson__valdez on x

  Doordash is a Basic Human Right (progressively)! [image]

• @armanddoma Armand Domalewski on x

  I feel insanely guilty when I order DoorDash once every 6 months and yet there are people spending a solid 1/3 of their income on it 🤯 [image]

• @daniela__127 Daniela on x

  About 10 yrs ago I was on a multigenerational family vacation and my Gen Z cousins DoorDashed Dunkin coffee to the hotel. The hotel had free coffee, but it wasn't iced and it was “gross”. That's when I knew that generation was cooked.

• @ryanaclarke Ryan Clarke on x

  what does the democratic party have to offer someone who spends $300 a week on food delivery, probably loses at least that much on Kalshi, and is permanently enraged at our political system because they never have enough money?

• @niedermeyer.online E.W. Niedermeyer on bluesky

  the new NYT piece on our national burrito taxi addiction offers a fascinating glimpse of the mentality that fuels a certain someone's hideous empire of endless scamming  —  www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/d...  [images]

• @rebeccasolnit Rebecca Solnit on bluesky

  “In 2024, almost three of every four restaurant orders were not eaten in a restaurant, according to data from the National Restaurant Association.”  A lot of people are focusing on the cost in this story but I want to focus on something else: the intangibles and a culture that's …

• @kathbarbadoro Kath Barbadoro on bluesky

  i get doordash maybe once a week so im not innocent but the article opens with someone doordashing PASTA with MARINARA????  MULTIPLE TIMES A WEEK? at least get shit you can't make at home goddamn