Mapping the Landscape of Independent Food Delivery Service in the United States.

DOI

There are hundreds of food delivery platforms in the United States besides the three mainstream operations: Uber Eats, Doordash, and Grubhub. However, very little is known about the sociotechnical landscape of small ``independent'' platforms. In this paper, we analyzed these independent platforms to understand why they were created, how they operate, and what technologies they use. We scraped data on 495 independent platforms and collected detailed survey responses from 29 platforms. We found that personalized, timely service is a central value of indie platforms, as is a sense of responsibility to the local community they serve. Independent platforms are motivated to provide fair rates for restaurants and couriers. These alternative business practices differentiate them from mainstream platforms. Though independent platforms have plans to expand, a lack of customizability in off-the-shelf software prevents independent platforms from personalizing services for their local communities. We show that independent platforms are a widespread and longstanding fixture of the food delivery market. We illustrate the diversity of motivations and values to explain why a one-size-fits-all support is insufficient, and we discuss the siloing of technology that inhibits platforms' growth. Through these insights, we aim to promote future HCI research into the emergence of public interest technologies for local food delivery.