New York is, from the perspective of the very lazy, truly an ideal city. No place else boasts such a wide array of services catered to those who can’t be bothered to get up out of their easy chairs. Jonesing for a few Big Macs? Don’t worry, because McDonald’s will deliever that fatty-fried “beef” directly to your front door. Out of toilet paper? Call from the john and the corner drug store can get TP into your hand by the time you’re ready to wipe. So perhaps it shouldn’t be overly surpising that it is in this environment that FreshDirect, the largest delivery-based grocery startup since WebVan’s calamitous disintegration, is being launched.

As much as I’d like to prognosticate the firm’s horrible impending failure, I’m actually oddly bullish on the company. I’ve bought my groceries from then for the past three weeks, and it seems to me the company hits the trifecta of requirements for consumer uptake (better quality food, at lower prices, more conveniently provided), all couched within a business model that is based on making rather than losing money on each delivery (leveraging both a rather cleverly technologized warehouse system and a slew of direct-purchase deals with food growers and makers which cut out the pricey distribution tier of middlemen).

FreshDirect’s currently running a “$50 of free groceries for new customers” promotion, so if you live in NYC, you might as well give them a whirl – with the amount we pay for anything in this city, any financial break is a welcome change. Just don’t throw out your Gristedes club card; my positive outlook aside, if these guys don’t build up a customer base quickly, you’ll once again be pushing the cart down the aisles yourself.

Update: Several readers have pointed out that Kozmo is perhaps a better failed dot-com comparison than WebVan, as Kozmo similarly leveraged New Yorkers’ sloth before plummeting out of business. FreshDirect, however, is largely immune to the main problem Kozmo faced: small orders (most Kozmo.com orders were for one or two, relatively inexpensive items). The markup on a single tub of Haagen Dazs isn’t enough to cover the cost of delivery; a cart full of groceries, however, grosses enough to work – hence FreshDirect’s $40 minimum.

Update 2: Several other readers have emailed to say they like to hand-pick fruits and vegetables themselves, something web grocery shopping doesn’t allow. I’d posit, however, that what those readers really mean is that they want their fruits and vegetables to be good – if the quality of the food delivered is high enough (fruit that’s large, mildly under-ripened and completely free of bruises, for example), people are largely just as happy as if they did the picking themselves. Because the FreshDirect warehouse is catered to the food rather than to the shoppers (foods are kept in ideally climate and moisture controlled rooms, and aren’t roughly piled and frequently handled, as in supermarkets), pretty much all of the produce I’ve had delivered is at least as good as what I could hand pick at Food Emporium or even the Amish Market.