The useful part of the 2021 delivery share fight was not a share-price chart. The Wall Street Journal reported that Uber Eats had passed Grubhub in New York City while DoorDash gained national share. Those were market estimates, not proof that any platform made more money per order.
I was too quick to say competition automatically helped consumers and couriers. More apps could mean more choices, but promotions and fees had to be paid for somewhere. I would watch merchant commissions, delivery charges, and courier earnings alongside order share. Grubhub losing the lead was a distribution problem; it did not answer whether the winners had a sustainable model.
Amazon later tried a Prime perk with Grubhub. Wonder bought Grubhub in 2025. Those later events made the 2021 share shift more consequential, but they shouldn’t be smuggled into the original quarter as if the outcome was obvious then.