While Uber may have always intended to phase out Drizly, migrating its customer base to its own delivery channels, the manner in which it is doing so came as a shock to Josh Jacobs, founder and CEO of Speakeasy, a direct-to-consumer spirits platform that specialises in craft and premium offerings.
“Uber could have certainly acquired a smaller company, or invested its own resources to build out similar infrastructure for significantly less,” Jacobs said, attributing the apparent change in course to a 2022 data breach that exposed 2.5 million customers. “Drizly had such an incredible brand name, that, ultimately, this was a surprise in my mind,” he adds.
