## Metadata * URL: [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/10/instant-grocery-delivery-startup-issues/671927/ * Author: Amanda Mull * Publisher: The Atlantic * Published Date: [[2022-10-30]] * Tags: ## Highlights * Pandemic or no pandemic, delivering highly perishable goods to millions of people, often with the promise that those goods will arrive in as little as 15 minutes, has proved a very tricky business: The unit economics are bad, the margins are bad, and the logistics infrastructure necessary to make the actual service function, even unprofitably, is extraordinarily complicated (bad). * These start-ups are expanding their services to meet a customer demand that, by all indications, does not yet exist. * Their biggest problem might just be that people like going grocery shopping. * But as many Americans realized during the worst days of the early pandemic, when demand for grocery delivery soared, that kind of isolation isn’t all that fantastic of a lifestyle choice. Mostly, it’s just kind of lonely.