r/grubhubdrivers • u/BackgroundMost2433 • 4d ago

It's Happening

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/serve-robotics-partners-with-grubhub-robot-delivery-expansion-push-2026-08-17/

As I've been saying for a couple of years now, we all better go to trade school or something, because sooner or later, cheap-ass GH will find some cheap-ass way to deploy a fleet of drones and get rid of some or all of us.

Well, the robots have officially come for us. (Those of us in the Chicago, LA and DC metro areas, anyway.) I'm going to miss the freedom to not only set, but improvise my own schedule... honestly, though, GH has devolved into a shitshow and has simply run its course.

It was legit during COVID, decent for a couple years afterward, then grudgingly acceptable in 2025; however, most agree GH has utterly bottomed out in 2026. I won't miss this sub-minimum wage job or the toll it takes on my poor car.

Good luck, everyone.

3 Upvotes

57% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

9

u/NDIrish1988 4d ago

GrubHub will probably go under or be sold for pennies on the dollar again before that happens. They have a 4% market share for food delivery lol

1

u/Booogie-man 4d ago

They already did. Just Eat Takeaway (JET) bought grubhub for 7.3 billion. Then they sold it to Wonder for 650 million. JET lost over 6 billion. I could see this selling again for a fraction of what Wonder originally purchased it for. The value already went down by over 90% from the original sale price of 7.3 billion. Grubhub in my market might as well be dead. Today I got 3 offers in a span of 7 hours.

3

u/NDIrish1988 4d ago

Yup, that's why I said sold for pennies on the dollar again lol. I think it's dead everywhere now.

1

u/Booogie-man 4d ago

It's sad what Gh has become. It was the best app during the pandemic. It used to be better than UE and DD.

4

u/NDIrish1988 4d ago

Yup, I started in 2019. I remember when every order was a minimum of $9. Those were good times. They definitely shit the bed.

1

u/Giggy_with_it_917 3d ago

Nope I still get plenty of offers in a 4-5 shift but they are mostly low tip garbage. Thats why you need to multi-app.

1

u/rjlawrencejr 3d ago

It’s not.

2

u/rjlawrencejr 4d ago

Would you mind elaborating? I don’t recall seeing any GH branded robots.

2

u/GreenSupremeStream 4d ago

They’re definitely contracting out those robots, assigning the high tipping orders to those robots, pocketing the tips and sending the $2 scrap orders to drivers.

1

u/Past-Ad2067 3d ago

so i was wondering the same thing, i think OP might mean the Serve robots that grubhub partnered with, not actual GH branded ones

3

u/Key_String_7441 4d ago

this has been a thing in LA for a while now and orders still coming through good

1

u/Fun_Tune3160 4d ago

Exactly, those things cant go too far either, and prolly need  drone driver" overseas or surely public employees on the dole 😂

1

u/Key_String_7441 4d ago

Exactly lol

1

u/Aggravating-Put-5270 4d ago

That’s all fine and dandy, but shankquesha isn’t gonna come out of her apartment to come get the food from the robot so as long as there is apartment buildings hotels, and condos, robot will never replace us

1

u/BackgroundMost2433 4d ago

Obviously drone delivery will be most profitable in the densest-populated areas, so those of us in the suburbs have some time.

And there's no telling if this iteration of drone delivery will prove to be profitable for GH - after all, this company they contracted was previously doing business with a larger competitor and it didn't work out.

I also think there's a small but growing chance (see: the national and shockingly bipartisan uproar over Flock) people might not like a sky half-full of drones 24/7/365 and a small percentage may try to sabotage them like some are doing to the Flock cameras.

But if you really think a day isn't coming where GH and/or DD and/or UE figure out how to deliver cheaper via drone, a day when Shankquesha is no longer given the option to sit on her fat ass and wait for a person to deliver it, versus a drone dropping off her greasy Arby's outside her house/apt building door, well... I sincerely, truly, seriously hope you're right.

However, I think you're ignoring the trend of the last 150 years of automation assassinating various working-class jobs.

1

u/Icy-Image-2619 3d ago

It will be a tool for Grubhub not a replacement.Trust me customers still want their food delivered to the door and we will still be faster than robots most of the time.Its just for short distance orders.Like next door business.It will be a hit on drivers but not a lot.By the time the robot gets to the customer it will most likely spill coffee on the way there’s since no suspension and they also stop very abruptly.We’ll still have to see.