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Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

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Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#241

Post by brownbat »

Instacart wants to fix grocery shopping by eliminating the drive the store.

Amazon wants to fix grocery shopping by eliminating checkout.[0]

The friction with grocery shopping for me is in a completely different area, and also easily solvable.

If I could go to a store that was basically a Kiva[1] fueled warehouse, enter an order on a tablet, and have it brought to my car (or order in the morning and do curbside pickup on my drive home from work), I would save the hassle of searching store shelves while playing demolition derby with a bunch of other carts.

Walmart has toyed with free curbside pickup.[2] It should actually make groceries cheaper though. If they had a warehouse logistics backend, without customers wandering around through their inventory, they could do amazing things.

With apologies to Clarence Saunders, yeah, basically I want to end self-service.[3] Customers were more efficient than the clerk for that job, so that model won. But robots are much more efficient than customers now, so I'm ready for the next revolution.

[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-go-grocery-store-futur...

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/meet-amazons-busiest-employee-the-...

[2] http://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-is-expanding-free-cur...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Saunders_(grocer)

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#242

Post by ghaff »

brownbat wrote: post #241

Instacart wants to fix grocery shopping by eliminating the drive the store. Amazon wants to fix grocery shopping by eliminating checkout.[0] The friction with grocery shopping for me is in a completely different area, and also easily solvable. If I could go to a store that was basically a Kiva[1] fueled warehouse, enter an order on a tablet, and have it brought to my car (or order in the morning and do curbside picku…

It doesn't use robots but Hannaford has a curbside pickup option. Anecdotally doesn't seem to be used much though and for me seems to satisfy a pretty narrow use case--people who can easily drive to the store but can't or don't want to wheel a shopping cart around.

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#244

Post by sidlls »

angry-hacker wrote: post #210
timcederman wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'd prefer to not pay the service fee, or the tip, but realistically by not doing so you're screwing the delivery folks, who get deliberately underpaid by companies like Instacart. If there was an organized effort, and it was actually sending a message, then great, let's all do it! But really all you're doing is stiffing some poor underpaid delivery person.

True, but if more people would do it, no one would start working for them in the first place and they would be forced to raise the salaries.

That isn't how it works. The folks talking these "gig economy" jobs do it because they don't see other options being viable. They aren't casual upper-middle-class folks with reasonable incomes looking to fill their idle hours with side-work doing grocery shopping.

The presence or absence of tips may influence some, but not all, and I'd speculate not the majority.

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#245

Post by davewritescode »

coldtea wrote: post #226
closeparen wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What is the market for +10% on groceries and basic necessities? People who live in the suburbs without cars. Cities are successfully discouraging car ownership by making parking scarce near downtown offices and even the suburban transit stations that lead to downtown offices. At the same time, cities aren't permitting the construction of dense, walkable neighborhoods, at least not fast enough to make them affordable…

> People who live in the suburbs without cars. All 10 of them?

I live in a major east coast US city in a neighborhood that has fantastic rail access during peak commute times to downtown but isn't exactly walkable all times of the year.

These services are great for people who live in urban ring communities. I use uber to get downtown, prime same day delivery replaces trips out of the city and while I haven't gotten lazy enough to use instacart, I'm probably going to give it a try one of these days.

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#246

Post by harryh »

jasonpeacock wrote: post #123

I'm an avid Instacart user, and I refuse to pay the service fee, nor the tip. Companies need to pay the drivers fair wages, and charge the customers enough to do so. Don't push that responsibility to the customer. Also, the service fee is perfect example of a Dark Pattern[1]. The actual service fee option (which is pre-selected at 10%) is hidden below the fold in the iPad app (and iOS?) checkout widgets. You have to…

Do you also not tip at restaurants? Cultural norms are what they are. Just because you don't like them isn't a good reason to screw over working people.

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#247

Post by jellicle »

flukus wrote: post #173
prostoalex wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retailers go where the customers go, though. Two years ago downtown L.A. didn't have a Whole Foods Market, and Instacart-branded packages were commonplace in residential complexes. Low and behold downtown L.A. gets a Whole Foods Market. Someone at Instacart probably has the right numbers, but combined with Costco delivering more of their everyday stuff, anecdotally I see fewer Instacart bags around.

> Retailers go where the customers go, though. If they're allowed and if the customers have enough density to support the retailer.

So your argument is that Instacart will profit by delivering long distances to sparse neighborhoods of people who can't afford a car but like marked-up groceries?

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#248

Post by baby »

harryh wrote: post #246
jasonpeacock wrote: post #123

I'm an avid Instacart user, and I refuse to pay the service fee, nor the tip. Companies need to pay the drivers fair wages, and charge the customers enough to do so. Don't push that responsibility to the customer. Also, the service fee is perfect example of a Dark Pattern[1]. The actual service fee option (which is pre-selected at 10%) is hidden below the fold in the iPad app (and iOS?) checkout widgets. You have to…

Do you also not tip at restaurants? Cultural norms are what they are. Just because you don't like them isn't a good reason to screw over working people.

Always tip a fixed 5$ if you get a good service, why tipping if you don't get a good service though?

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#249

Post by tharibo »

brownbat wrote: post #241

Instacart wants to fix grocery shopping by eliminating the drive the store. Amazon wants to fix grocery shopping by eliminating checkout.[0] The friction with grocery shopping for me is in a completely different area, and also easily solvable. If I could go to a store that was basically a Kiva[1] fueled warehouse, enter an order on a tablet, and have it brought to my car (or order in the morning and do curbside picku…

All big stores are doing it now in France (in large cities at least). It's called "-drive" (like you would have a "Walmart-drive" in the USA). Some are doing it next to the shop, others try new warehouses at different locations (because one of the incentives is to avoid traffic too).

It's far from perfect; but at least you don't have to walk the store for hours.

Also, no tip culture in France, but workers seem to run against the clock, so I suppose they have incentives to deliver fast.

Re: Instacart is playing games with its workers’ pay

#250

Post by pault »

vinceguidry wrote: post #236
marknutter wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious as to why you think the world is moving towards liberalism.

Ultimately it's because of the Internet. Sharing of ideas, remixing them, iterating on them, that's all the province of liberalism. Holding on to tradition, resisting modernization, that's conservatism. Liberalism is the rising tide raising all boats. It's always happening, everywhere, behind the scenes, in people's minds. Even the most conservative person has liberal ideas. Liberalism is imperative, conservatism onl…

> the rising tide raising all boats.

FYI, usually this rhetoric is used by rich people when they are trying to screw you.

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