I vividly remember the ZIRP era when there was a new food delivery (or e-scooter) startup almost every week.

food delivery stayed around, the e scooters not so much

I’d cry “antitrust” but who are we kidding at this point. The relevant parties have likely been paid off already.

Am I on the wrong side of perspective? I imagine of these companies are at big risk in a turn down with low margin - competitive space. The model is a tough one to work

Merging reduces platform inefficiencies and drivers can work both situation.

I am actually amazed both companies are alive and making a profit.

I saw this show up in my newsreader and first thing that crossed my mind was the textbook example of eBay / PayPal acquiring everything, leaving us with probably the worst situation possible for auctions and payments.

> DoorDash to Acquire Instacart to Help Local Stores Win

> to Help Local Stores Win

Any local store will tell you DD is a necessary evil they put up with but strongly dislike overall. From the % of sales they take to the incredibly rude delivery drivers, DD is not well liked.

On multiple occasions a family member's employees (or they, themselves) have had a DD delivery driver cut to the front of the line, interrupt the cashier, and shove their phone in their face. No words, no anything, just "here is the code/screen/whatever I need to show you to pick up the order". DD doesn't let stores rate delivery drivers so there isn't any recourse.

Instacart fired my wife for running for office. My wife asked for approval to run from her boss, the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, who approved it and the company was excited for her to run.

A couple days after my wife launched her campaign, Instacart did a 180 and told her they had to fire her for running. Bad for business to run for office and criticize a Republican incumbent!

My wife was also pregnant and she told them. They fired her the next day.

Congratulations on the merger.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/15/instacart...

"More Choice for Consumers"

A truly laughable fig leaf for the non-existent anti-trust regulators.

Man, can only imagine this is more bad news for delivery drivers.

Hey - dumb question that is probably a derail: Is there a practical reason in the US to use Instacart over one of the Amazon services? It seems like they are fighting an uphill battle - Amazon has its own grocery warehouses (Prime food), and owns Whole foods. I haven't cross-shopped recently, but am having a hard time imagining them competing on price with either of those services. I suppose the obvious reason is you aren't limited to those two stores, so if you want specialty items, nice baked goods etc you would use Instacart?

Since some other people are posting links about DoorDash, here’s one: https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/09/mayor-mamdani...

From the NYT version of this story:

> DoorDash said the median payment to be returned to workers amounts to around $48. > City officials said about 700 workers are owed more than $10,000 each; more than 27,000 workers are owed more than $1,000; and more than 4,000 workers are owed more than $5,000.

DoorDash also spent (from what I can tell) (1+1.4+1.8) million dollars to campaign against Mamdani.