Where does the article mention barriers to entry? My reading is that that the consolidation is due to venture capital moving investment to other areas. Anyone who wants to start a new food delivery app is still free to do so, as long as they can find funding.
This is the definition of competition according to Wikipedia: "Competition is a scenario where different economic firms are in contention to obtain goods that are limited by varying the elements of the marketing mix: price, product, promotion and place."
Yes, sounds like competition to me. Network effects are not anti-competitive.
> Anyone who wants to start a new food delivery app is still free to do so, as long as they can find funding.
This argument is meaningless because you can always make it. There's a quasi-monopoly? Yeah but you're still allowed to make a new company so it's not really a problem is it? You'll fail, unless you're backed by even more powerful venture capital, but I don't care about that because I get to keep making the argument that it's a free market.
The reality is that the only way you can compete in this market is to already be a billion dollar company, or have the backing of one. That's not a free market by any reasonable definition.
This is the definition of competition according to Wikipedia: "Competition is a scenario where different economic firms are in contention to obtain goods that are limited by varying the elements of the marketing mix: price, product, promotion and place."
Yes, sounds like competition to me. Network effects are not anti-competitive.