> Because you can eat it in the comfort of your own home, instead of the discomfort of an unfamiliar place surrounded by strangers.
People never ate out because of the food. They ate out because of the dining experience.
You can make better meals, cheaper, at home, in less time than it takes to go out. Yet people still dined out.
And, they pay a premium for it. There is no sense in paying a premium for home delivery, because you are getting substandard meals[1].
[1] Few dishes travel well in a bag, even if it's packaged properly and delivered quickly - steam rising off hot food that is not ventilated causes things to go soggy. If you do ventilate it, then it goes cold in minutes while traveling. Then reheating the food makes it less nice than it was when cooked. Hence, all delivered food tend to be slightly different to eating it off a plate when it is freshly cooked. Even pizzas suffer from being steamed while traveling.
I actually assumed eating at home increase wouldn't be because of doordash, but because of improved quality and variety of frozen meals. I remember what was available when I was a kid was mostly mediocre to outright bad. Now a lot of things like quite good frozen pizzas and lots of entrees you'd normally get at a sit-down chain are available in the frozen food section. I'm a pretty poor cook but I can't screw up following the oven directions on a box and I'd get the result faster and cheaper than doordash.
It isn't as good as a home cooked meal but it is a lot better than the awful TV dinners I rarely ate back in the 80s.
> You can make better meals, cheaper, at home, in less time than it takes to go out.
This is going to be highly dependent on your local restaurants and what you like to eat. I can't make better bbq or pizza than the restaurants near me. I can make either of those pretty well, but not faster. I can make a pretty good burger, competitive with almost all the restaurants near me, but I can't make French fries as good as a restaurant with a fryer.
People never ate out because of the food. They ate out because of the dining experience.
You can make better meals, cheaper, at home, in less time than it takes to go out. Yet people still dined out.
And, they pay a premium for it. There is no sense in paying a premium for home delivery, because you are getting substandard meals[1].
[1] Few dishes travel well in a bag, even if it's packaged properly and delivered quickly - steam rising off hot food that is not ventilated causes things to go soggy. If you do ventilate it, then it goes cold in minutes while traveling. Then reheating the food makes it less nice than it was when cooked. Hence, all delivered food tend to be slightly different to eating it off a plate when it is freshly cooked. Even pizzas suffer from being steamed while traveling.