Almost sounds like all mom and pop pizzas are the same.
It depends. If you're in a city with well established local spots, then they may still be doing unique recipes. Some places do enough of a business to thrive for the long term. Most don't, though (no surprise, most restaurants in general don't survive, much less thrive, but privately funded or small operations often struggle even more).
Big cities you're going to have more options, but also more generic places to sift through; maybe an advantage because there could be a market for a local middle man to supply restaurants with slightly higher quality products.
Small cities, unless there is a very specific local culture that supports hole-in-the-wall restaurants, most places are going to be serving up pretty generic fare with a lot of it being the same pre-made doughs and whatnot being shippped to most places in town. Less options to sift through to find the real gems, but also less gems.
The unfortunate thing culturally is it's not just a way to financially compete with chains. One of the things chains try to offer is a homogenized experience where the customer can reasonably anticipate what you'll get. Chains spend an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to get the exact same product every time everywhere, and still fuck it up often enough it's a common complaint in this thread.
A local place making things in house, though? Consistency is a struggle, and what used to be part of the charm just infuriates customers these days. Sometimes it's going to be better than others, sometimes the sauce is spicier or dough chewier. Even if they try to make it the same every time, that's not how things like prepping dough even work as conditions will change how it reacts. So a lot of local places actually value getting the same doughs from the same trucks that were prepped and frozen in consistent factory settings. It's almost a way for them to compete with the homogenized cultural expectations we've developed around cuisine.
What's the point, then, if most of your local, non-chain pizza places are basically serving up the same or similar product to each other? But with even less corporate support to help consistency? I dunno, at this point, which is why chains dominate and increasingly so. We're very much in a 'good enough' culture that is disconnected from experiencing food unless you're a real food snob. Most people cherish consistent, good enough cuisine everyone in the family or group can agree to shrug their shoulders as they accept it over something exceptional but perhaps not as consistent.
It's why pop music is called pop music, I guess. It's like going into a bunch of department stores and you don't really even acknowledge the musak playing or generic pop music. It's just easier. They play something that is generic and forgettable. One local grocery store will sometimes play classic country, which I love, but the cultural diversity will be openly grumbling about it in the aisles.
Now, we've entered the phase of American decline where people can't even be bothered to have a connection with how food is prepped or grown or raise, nor even a the product or experience of eating out. It's just the thing we have to do to stay alive, and for increasing amounts of families they can't even really do it well enough at home to be serviceable, so give us something that is good enough, that won't cause even a discussion within the family/group, that everyone can at least know what to expect. Going out to dinner has become something most families just deal with these days, and with a smile on their face because they don't know better, or simply don't care.
Even fast food used to be something a lot of people enjoyed for specific, isolated or even nostalgic reasons. Now it's just the trough many Americans routinely feed themselves at, and with the expectation it will be done in the least cumbersome manner. And the best way to compete is for more restaurants to just buy into the ease of getting to add their slop into the trough.
