Blog Blender

AI Agents and the DoorDash problem

If you are a business owner, what happens when your customer tells the robot to buy something for you based on only set parameters, and ignores everything else such as discounts, loyalty, rewards, or upsells? That’s the possible future with AI agents performing tasks such as ordering a sandwich, or the DoorDash problem.

But if people stop using the apps and websites and start sending agents instead, that business really starts to break down. Because DoorDash and all the other service providers make their money by having a direct relationship with customers they can monetize in lots of different ways. It’s basic stuff like promotions, deals and discounts, ads for other stuff, their own subscriptions like DashPass and Uber One, and whatever other ideas they might have to make money in the future.

But AI doesn’t care about any of that stuff — if you ask for a car to the airport, an AI might just open Uber and Lyft and always pick the cheapest ride. These big App Store era services might just become commodity databases of information competing on price alone, which might not actually be sustainable, even if it might be the future.

PJH Studios artwork, Portrait of a sun

PJH Studios

Movies, music, books, whiskey, and culture in a blog blender

  • AI Agents and the DoorDash problem

    If you are a business owner, what happens when your customer tells the robot to buy something for you based on only set parameters, and ignores everything else such as discounts, loyalty, rewards, or upsells? That’s the possible future with AI agents performing tasks such as ordering a sandwich, or the DoorDash problem. But if…

  • Would you high five a whale?

    Absolutely amazing under water video in Bora Bora of a an encounter with a whale traveling a pod of dolphins.

  • Worldwide music dashboard

    If you like music and dashboards, charts, and numbers, here is a very detailed dashboard of the music throughout the world.

  • Shepard Fairey retroperspective

    In Los Angeles, there is a retrospective of Shephard Fairey’s 30 year career as a poster and street artist.

  • Teens develop affordable housing portal

    Two teens created an affordable housing portal for New York City. First, he taught himself to code. “I basically spent the first two months of summer in my room, learning from YouTube and A.I.,” said Beckett, 17. “Those are my teachers.” In July, after countless bleary-eyed hours on bedroom computers, he and Derrick Webster Jr.,…

  • Tiktok baby formula experiment

    A Tiktoker ran an informal experiment, calling various churches, asking for baby formula as if they were a single mother in need. Most churches were not helpful. “People online often react strongly because we expect faith institutions to embody their values in every interaction. When someone calls a church and hears ‘we can’t help,’ it…

  • Amazing color picker

    If you have ever programmed anything for the web, you’ll know that trying to find the right color and then coding it can be one of those annoying, trivial tasks. Different prefer have different trade-offs. The Internet offers plenty of different color pickers, however, here’s a very cool all in one with different approaches for…

  • Sarah Jessica Parker shares her experience as a Booker Prize judge

    Sarah Jessica Parker shares her experience as a Booker Prize judge. As someone who reads a lot, this part is validating. For me as a reader, the idea of not finishing a book, I just really, really struggle with. But with the Booker, you sort of have to adopt a brutality, because if you’re on…

  • 100 years ago, an all-Black team beat the KKK on a baseball diamond

    100 years ago, an all-Black team beat the KKK on a baseball diamond. The Monrovians’ game against the KKK might have been set in motion by an open invitation that the Black team had announced in the Wichita Eagle three weeks earlier, saying they were “open for games with any team in Kansas,” according to…

  • The glitch art of Younguk Yi

    Trippy glitch art by Younguk Yi.