DoorDash to acquire Instacart

hubraumhugo

I vividly remember the ZIRP era when there was a new food delivery (or e-scooter) startup almost every week.

htrp

food delivery stayed around, the e scooters not so much

paxy

I’d cry “antitrust” but who are we kidding at this point. The relevant parties have likely been paid off already.

boringg

Am I on the wrong side of perspective? I imagine of these companies are at big risk in a turn down with low margin - competitive space. The model is a tough one to work Merging reduces platform inefficiencies and drivers can work both situation. I am actually amazed both companies are alive and making a profit.

ocd

I saw this show up in my newsreader and first thing that crossed my mind was the textbook example of eBay / PayPal acquiring everything, leaving us with probably the worst situation possible for auctions and payments.

joshstrange

> DoorDash to Acquire Instacart to Help Local Stores Win > to Help Local Stores Win Any local store will tell you DD is a necessary evil they put up with but strongly dislike overall. From the % of sales they take to the incredibly rude delivery drivers, DD is not well liked. On multiple occasions a family member's employees (or they, themselves) have had a DD delivery driver cut to the front of the line, interrupt the cashier, and shove their phone in their face. No words, no anything, just "here is the code/screen/whatever I need to show you to pick up the order". DD doesn't let stores rate delivery drivers so there isn't any recourse.

hkhanna

Instacart fired my wife for running for office. My wife asked for approval to run from her boss, the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, who approved it and the company was excited for her to run. A couple days after my wife launched her campaign, Instacart did a 180 and told her they had to fire her for running. Bad for business to run for office and criticize a Republican incumbent! My wife was also pregnant and she told them. They fired her the next day. Congratulations on the merger. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/15/instacart...

lkey

"More Choice for Consumers" A truly laughable fig leaf for the non-existent anti-trust regulators.

morelandjs

Man, can only imagine this is more bad news for delivery drivers.

the__alchemist

Hey - dumb question that is probably a derail: Is there a practical reason in the US to use Instacart over one of the Amazon services? It seems like they are fighting an uphill battle - Amazon has its own grocery warehouses (Prime food), and owns Whole foods. I haven't cross-shopped recently, but am having a hard time imagining them competing on price with either of those services. I suppose the obvious reason is you aren't limited to those two stores, so if you want specialty items, nice baked goods etc you would use Instacart?

thamer

Since some other people are posting links about DoorDash, here’s one: https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/09/mayor-mamdani... From the NYT version of this story: > DoorDash said the median payment to be returned to workers amounts to around $48. > City officials said about 700 workers are owed more than $10,000 each; more than 27,000 workers are owed more than $1,000; and more than 4,000 workers are owed more than $5,000. DoorDash also spent (from what I can tell) (1+1.4+1.8) million dollars to campaign against Mamdani.

micromacrofoot

Great, both are generally terrible. Nothing like ordering a pizza and having it sit in someone's car for an hour with a driver who has no attachment to the restaurant, who could not care less about what you think. At least delivery drivers employed by the restaurant had some slight incentive to get food to you while it was still edible. Third party delivery services essentially break the chain of responsibility... food late and cold? tough luck, but please tip in advance. If you don't tip your driver will be very mad at you, maybe they'll text you about it, and we pay them so poorly that it's actually your fault for keeping them impoverished. Talk to our customer service bots and maybe we'll give you a $5 coupon for your next Doordash order.

mithr

I'm mostly hoping this doesn't end up affecting Costco delivery, which works reasonably well and uses Instacart behind the scenes.

ashu1461

Doordash as an app or a business model always feel scammy and full of dark patterns. With this merger I have a feeling that things are only going to go worse.

inom155

Wow, really didn't see this one coming.

randbyte

These two slimy companies do belong to each other. Perfect match made in hell.

tomsellin23

Great, just one less competitor in the marketplace.

themightyquinn

My initial take to this news was “what about anti trust?!” But I was surprised to learn that DD is essentially non existent in grocery delivery and instacart’s non grocery deliveries are powered by Uber Eats. For two massive brands they really don’t offer the same product.(edit: not effectively, at least) If anything maybe this helps Instacart/DD compete in grocery with the real giants in Walmart and Amazon. I wouldn’t be mad to see DOJ block this but I was just surprised to learn about the landscape of grocery delivery.

clcaev

Could we have more discussion of our current legal/business environment, specifically, the economic opportunities it affords/constrains? If this merger is approved via consumer welfare standard, should it be contingent upon some constraints? For example, should DoorDash be restricted from participating in the market it coordinates? If it’s a near monopoly in some regions, how will price be controlled without market pressure? Historically, antitrust action also considers economic opportunity: Bell/AT&T licensed Unix source code for a nominal fee, largely because the 1956 consent decree restricted Bell/AT&T from selling products outside telecommunications.