Dinner at Your Doorstep: Service Innovation via the Gig Economy on Food Delivery Platforms.

This article analyzes the strategic pricing and service quality decisions of online food delivery (OFD) platforms, which operate as three-sided markets involving consumers, restaurants, and gig drivers. It demonstrates that conventional insights from two-sided platform markets do not fully apply to OFD platforms due to their triadic structure, which can both soften consumer price competition and intensify competition among restaurants, thereby altering subsidization patterns. The study further reveals that while OFD platforms can mitigate negative network effects through service quality adjustments, the costs associated with acquiring gig labor may reduce overall platform profits and create competitive dilemmas. Additionally, the introduction of minimum wage regulations for gig drivers benefits workers but can decrease consumer surplus and may not improve social welfare, highlighting complex trade-offs for policymakers balancing the interests of gig workers, platforms, and society.