Today I just witnessed the absolute wreck Doordash et al. are laying on local businesses. A large laundromat in my neighborhood closed recently, today I walked past it, all the washing machines had been removed from the premises, and large signs on the windows advertised laundry done through Doordash.

The play looks simple:

• Buy the laundromat using endless VC money.
• Gut it to prevent customers coming back to the same place.
• Funnel them to the online service where laundry is either sold at a premium or at a loss and done off-site, potentially albeit unlikely using the recovered hardware.
• (Optional) Resell the lot to a developer to make some $$$ back out of the scheme.

Absolutely nothing of value was created by this move for the people who've always come to this place for laundry. Maybe it was meant to close anyway, but the presence of the Doordash advertisement tells me it could have gone another way.

#GigEconomy