DoorDash's $17B Acquisition of Instacart Points to a World Without Employees

DoorDash’s reported $17 billion purchase of Instacart would combine the leading U.S. restaurant-delivery platform, with about 67% of that market, and the leading third-party grocery-delivery service, with roughly 58% share and reach across 98% of U.S. homes. The companies say they need scale to compete with Walmart and Amazon, but that defense overlooks the dependence of independent restaurants and grocers on third-party apps. The merger also joins direct competitors in delivery, grocery, and restaurant services. With fewer platforms, suppliers could face higher fees and less bargaining power, while the combined firms would gain more data that could support surveillance pricing. The FTC is already examining both companies’ pricing practices, and the deal is likely to face antitrust scrutiny.

The larger concern is how platform consolidation affects work. DoorDash and Instacart helped normalize gig labor, in which workers are treated as contractors rather than employees. The argument connects this model to a long shift in American work: industrialization concentrated control in corporations, while labor and antitrust laws developed as separate responses to employer power. The traditional employment bargain exchanged wages and benefits for employer control, and collective bargaining gave workers a way to counter that control. Since the 1970s, outsourcing, union-busting, and other changes have weakened the bargain. As companies divide work among contractors and intermediaries, antitrust becomes relevant to labor: dominant platforms can exert buyer power over delivery workers and suppliers even where conventional labor protections do not apply. The merger therefore raises not only competition concerns but also questions about who controls work and shares its rewards.