311–320 of 371 posts
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Just to be clear, for pizza places that charge a delivery fee, most of the time that does not go to the driver. You should still tip your driver.
And this fee is paying who for what?
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> variable buyer price-sensitivity Just go to cheaper places if you are 'price-sensitive'. Arguing 'there's already competition' doesn't make sense, it isn't a binary thing. Are you arguing that if you can afford to pay more, you should? Isn't that socialism? This isn't how capitalism is supposed to work.
No, in fact, market segmentation by price sensitivity is a pretty basic mechanism of applied capitalism, taught to basically everyone who has ever taken a marketing class in business school.
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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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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…
So Liberalism is good and improves things, and therefore everyone will choose it? Assuming the first part is true, just becomes something is better does not mean it will be chosen, so I don't think that argument works.
> 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 o…
When seattle raised the minimum wage a bunch of places started doing exactly that. I like it better.
A few places started adding on fees that go to back of house employees as well, which I'm fine with.
Apparently this didn't annoy people the way they wanted, so they just started adding in an extra fees because of the minimum wage.
I wish they would just raise their prices and pay people properly.
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> 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. I also really dislike tipping, but in reality it's not the cost they are offloading onto customers ( all the cost is paid by the customers, since costs are paid out of revenues, which come from customers), but rather they are offloading compensation decisions…
Semantics. There are industries where the employees are paid less than minimum wage as anticipated tips are factored into their overall compensation. If the tips do not meet the minimum wage threshold, the business is responsible for the difference. In this case, the costs (wages) are being offloaded by tips. Not to mention the industries that pay low wages as the tips subsidize a living wage. https://webapps.dol.gov…
I don't think it is. I really don't like being involved in figuring out how much someone should be paid.
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Cultural norms in the US are different from those where you grew up. Service employees earn a much greater percentage of their income from tips here than they do there.
This mentality is most likely why I usually never tip. There are people out there that honestly think this is normal behavior. Hey your experience was terrible, but have this $5 your don't deserve. I live in the US and only tip when service is good.
The default assumption is that customers will tip at least a reasonable amount for all service. If you aren't going to do that you need to announce your intentions in advance. Whenever you go to a restaurant just let the hostess know your plans. That way you won't be deceiving people who are serving you.
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How is it dishonest? It's a fee for the service that one receives. You pay one amount for groceries and another for the service of those groceries being delivered. That's exactly what a service fee should be. Consumers should understand that services have a cost. Companies should charge consumers an amount that is commensurate with the cost that it takes to deliver that service (unless they operate in a non-competiti…
You may have missed the part where the service fee is optional and can be removed, or replaced with a tip to the employee. The fact that the fee is optional, instantly makes it not a "fee". Service fees are not a discretionary addon that customers can choose to eliminate.
My understanding of the article is that the service fee wasn't originally optional. It was a static 10%, required, service fee. No information is given about how much of that fee goes to workers, meaning it's entirely possible that all of it does. It doesn't go to _the_ worker who delivered your groceries, it goes into a common pool that is distributed across all workers.
If 10% is enough to break the barrier into a living wage then this could be a positive change. Workers no longer have to fear having a "bad night" where they have 5 runs to get a single $10 items vs a "good night" where they have 3 runs to get $200 worth of groceries.
They made it optional and mutable when their workers protested.
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How is it dishonest? It's a fee for the service that one receives. You pay one amount for groceries and another for the service of those groceries being delivered. That's exactly what a service fee should be. Consumers should understand that services have a cost. Companies should charge consumers an amount that is commensurate with the cost that it takes to deliver that service (unless they operate in a non-competiti…
I don't disagree that tipping has a lot of problems. However, instacart is intentionally using "dark patterns" in UX (names, positioning) to mislead end users into thinking paying a higher service fee goes to the driver. There was a far easier way to do this (a fixed order charge which is clearly an instacart fee, and then a separate tip clearly marked as per driver) -- the right solution would probably be to do like…
Also, per the article, the service fee wasn't originally something that could be changed. It was a static 10%. Neither you nor I have enough information to know if 10% is enough to pay drivers a living wage. Maybe it should have been 15% or more but there is no way for me to know.
I am, however, very confident that a service fee that goes into a common pool and is paid out across all workers is a better solution than customers tipping.
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Which is the problem in the first place. Why are we taught by people to tip some personell and not to tip others? Because the first group has a very low income. That's why. Because corporations cannot be trusted to treat their people nicely. That's why. Because the first group usually works hard and shows effort, while the others don't. That's why. I don't mind to tip when someone has done an excellent service, but i…
> Why are we taught by people to tip some personell and not to tip others? > Because corporations cannot be trusted to treat their people nicely. That's why. No, it's noblesse oblige: I am well off, and therefor it is my duty to show my appreciation to those who perform services for me.
Really helps cement the power relationship and emphasise the class differences.