Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay
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Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay
#2Instacart seems to be most overhyped company in delivery space.
Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay
#3Is it possible to have a value-added services company that doesn't exploit its labor?
Is your answer going to be self-driving cars? What about alternatives that don't fundamentally replace the labor?
In my opinion, it is impossible to achieve venture capital goals and pay service labor commensurate to the value it delivers.
Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay
#4It's the same story as with other similarly modelled startups like Deliveroo and UberEATs (and maybe Uber itself), both of which have slashed their groundworker's pay significantly
Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay
#5> Instead of the tipping option appearing on the checkout page as it originally had, a default 10 percent “service fee” sat in its place.
If I could take a guess, I'd say this is more related to the user experience. I hate tipping. I'd rather just attach a 10-20% fee instead of needlessly evaluating someone else's performance with every delivery.
Or better yet, I'd rather just use a company that adequately pays its own employees instead of attempting to offload a portion of that cost on its customers.
Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay
#6Is it possible to have a value-added services company that doesn't exploit its labor? Is your answer going to be self-driving cars? What about alternatives that don't fundamentally replace the labor? In my opinion, it is impossible to achieve venture capital goals and pay service labor commensurate to the value it delivers.
I think it's possible if the labor owns the company.
Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay
#7Is it possible to have a value-added services company that doesn't exploit its labor? Is your answer going to be self-driving cars? What about alternatives that don't fundamentally replace the labor? In my opinion, it is impossible to achieve venture capital goals and pay service labor commensurate to the value it delivers.
I think it's possible if the labor owns the company.
So then your answer is no, because then the venture owners don't own the company.
Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay
#8They have tens of thousands of customers, yet are worth multiple billions of dollars (valued at $2bn in 2015.)
That's just incredible.
Let's say they have 100k customers who each use the service every week. That's 5.2m orders per year.
Let's say $100 per order, to be generous. At a 10% service fee, that's $50m for a two-year-old 40x revenue multiple. Before paying their contracted workforce.
This does not make sense.
EDIT
What I'm really getting at is that these are optimistic numbers, in the wealthiest country in the world, that just elected a populist president (partially) due to economic insecurity.
What is the market for +10% on groceries and basic necessities?
EDIT2
It may be tens of thousands of contractors, not customers (thanks @trevyn!) This is confusing, since I'm not sure what verb to use for the end user on Instacart. ("I am _______ on Instacart" (consuming, shopping, grocing?))
Regardless, my number could be an order of magnitude off. I stand by the conclusion.
Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay
#9Is it possible to have a value-added services company that doesn't exploit its labor? Is your answer going to be self-driving cars? What about alternatives that don't fundamentally replace the labor? In my opinion, it is impossible to achieve venture capital goals and pay service labor commensurate to the value it delivers.
If the process is entirely automated and consistently deliverable? Sure. But then that's not really exploiting labor.
For me, if I wouldn't be comfortable asking a neighbor who was less well off than me if they'd mind dropping off my laundry for $10 a month, I'm not going to do it via a shiny website.
Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay
#10They have tens of thousands of customers, yet are worth multiple billions of dollars (valued at $2bn in 2015.) That's just incredible. Let's say they have 100k customers who each use the service every week. That's 5.2m orders per year. Let's say $100 per order, to be generous. At a 10% service fee, that's $50m for a two-year-old 40x revenue multiple. Before paying their contracted workforce. This does not make sense.…
It makes a lot of sense if you know how perverse financial markets are. The difference between those millions and those billions is the perceived potential of the company. All you need is some investment banker becoming convinced that noone wants to visit physical stores anymore, and suddenly money starts pouring into companies supporting that view of the future, almost regardless of whether they are actually profitable or are creating any real value.