A Meituan employee, identifying as a grassroots product team member within the company's Dining Business Department, recently posted a lengthy essay titled "Inside the Group" on a social media platform. The essay highlights that Meituan's long-established, tightly controlled organizational model has resulted in an inefficient structure. In this setup, the product team functions more as a conduit for directives from higher-ups rather than exercising independent judgment. Despite having access to extensive local life data, Meituan has struggled to leverage it effectively, gauging the quality of meal packages solely by conversion rates and focusing excessively on low-priced offerings to boost traffic—an approach that fails to genuinely capture the consumer experience.

Furthermore, the essay points out that Meituan's internal use of AI is largely superficial, serving only as a band-aid solution to management shortcomings, which, in turn, exacerbates existing management flaws. The employee contends that while Meituan's culture of extreme execution and frugality helped it emerge victorious in the so-called "Hundred-Group Battle," its growth has now reached a plateau. Faced with competition in the local life services sector from content platforms like Douyin, Meituan's traditional strategies have become increasingly inflexible. Relying solely on strong execution makes it challenging to offer merchants innovative growth solutions. The organizational culture of strict adherence to orders and suppression of innovation resources is no longer suitable for the industry's new phase.