Why would you pay someone in California to deliver you food?

and why would you pay more for the right for them to do so?

Food delivery apps make it easy to get basically whatever cuisine from a real restaurant or ghost kitchen delivered right to your house. It's not new for people to be complaining about all the fees associated with them. I'd like to share two things with you, the first one is my mental model for thinking about these food delivery applications (and "ride shares"):

Why should I pay someone in California for this?

It's as simple as that. Why pay someone in California some bullcrap fee to some takeout or delivery? This person doesn't enrich your life, and certainly doesn't contribute money back to your community. In fact it's not even a person, it's a giant faceless organization worth billions.

If that's not enough for you to consider otherwise, consider this second thing: Uber also charges restaurants, it's not just your fees going to Uber. The other apps are also like this. So the second model is:

Why should the restaurant that's near me pay 20-30% to someone in California?

In a world where it seems there's a million ways to be righteous, this is one thing you can do while still getting almost all the conveniences of modernity: order food directly from the restaurant, they'll appreciate it and there's a better chance they'll stay a restaurant longer so you can enjoy then.

People got food delivered all the time before smart phones, ask me how I know.