Uber will shut down UberRush for restaurants, since it took away from Uber's actual rides business

Uber will eliminate its use of UberRush for restaurants as a logistics and courier delivery service, Quartz reported Friday.

The lesser-known Uber delivery service allowed restaurants and some other businesses to power their own deliveries. But as the popularity of UberEats, which allowed customers to order food directly through Uber grew, drivers who could have been picking up passengers were busy transporting meals through UberRush and UberEats. That led to surge pricing for UberX — the actual service Uber customers depend on most.

“We got into a situation where dinner rush would mean a lot of people were taking food deliveries, but then they weren’t driving for UberX, so it was causing surge pricing,” an Uber employee told Quartz. “We were attacking our own business.”

UberRush's availability to restaurants will end May 8, according to emails obtained by Quartz sent from Uber to businesses who used UberRush. Instead, some businesses besides restaurants will be able to use a new version of UberRush not meant for prepared foods.

“We built UberEATS to specifically meet the needs and support the growth of our individual restaurant partners," Uber said in a statement. "Moving forward, we will focus UberRUSH on powering backend delivery logistics for merchants and enterprises such as grocery stores and florists.”

Is this the first piece of Uber news in months that's not totally horrifying? Maybe.

Bye, original UberRush.