> because price is all that customers actually care about
Customers actually care about service, too, but the two-sided-market-drivers-aa-contractors models doesn’t really leave the parts of service that would matter in the hands of the delivery matchmaker, so it's true that all they have is price, not because it's all customers care about but because it's all the firm has any kind of control over, by design.
The service is the same with all of these companies. Someone brings a bag of stuff to your door. In my experience they are all about as fast each other.
They could let customers pay a N% (say 10%) premium for a ...better-rated delivery courier? I'd be curious to see how that'd A/B test. Probably would fail, but nonetheless prove a point if there's any 'service' component that is possible to compete on.
I believe Uber eats is currently doing that. Recently I noticed an option to pay $1.50 extra for "Priority delivery" which may be a combination of what you mention as well as modifying the delivery algorithm in your favor.
Customers actually care about service, too, but the two-sided-market-drivers-aa-contractors models doesn’t really leave the parts of service that would matter in the hands of the delivery matchmaker, so it's true that all they have is price, not because it's all customers care about but because it's all the firm has any kind of control over, by design.