Yeah, I had the same feeling. None of this feels sustainable and I get the sense that most of these companies are rushing to IPO as soon as they can to unload their terrible businesses on the public.
Groupon failed because they were selling full priced items at a discount. This was meant to be a marketing thing for small businesses but in practice you just ended up with cheapskates who never intended to be repeat customers.
The only thing I can say in the delivery companies defense is they have normalized large markups on delivery. People are paying more for delivery than they were before(the apps do a good job of obfuscating how much more). Clearly there was an arbitrage opportunity but there are so many companies fighting over the same tiny margin while losing tons of money. This can't end well.
Groupon failed because they were selling full priced items at a discount. This was meant to be a marketing thing for small businesses but in practice you just ended up with cheapskates who never intended to be repeat customers. The only thing I can say in the delivery companies defense is they have normalized large markups on delivery. People are paying more for delivery than they were before(the apps do a good job of obfuscating how much more). Clearly there was an arbitrage opportunity but there are so many companies fighting over the same tiny margin while losing tons of money. This can't end well.