Are instacart 'employees' private contractors/1099? Wouldn't that mean instacart is even LESS legally able to take their tip money? As in actual employees who are tipped will have a minimum wage that must be met, which is why in some places tipped positioned wages can be as low as $3.
Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
321–330 of 718 posts
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#322Instacart is AWFUL. They're paying shit wages and thus offering shit quality, because they're offering a service that literally is unscalable. The logistics of laser-guided-bomb-type delivery of groceries from store to fridge is asinine. Yo, grocery store shopping doesn't suck bad enough to pay someone else to do both the shopping and delivering! I'll pick up the pre-picked-up/bought groceries. I don't need you to de…
> grocery store shopping doesn't suck bad enough to pay someone else to do both the shopping and delivering
I actually like going to the grocery store, but I still have been using instacart a few times a month (up to today) for various reasons:
- One of my kids is homesick or having a nap and I can't go to the store
- My day is packed with work and I can't go to the store
- I have guests over the holidays that I would rather spend time with than go to the store
- I'm doing something important with my kids on the weekend and I'd rather do that than go to the store
- My kid tells me that they need something for school tomorrow and there's no gap of time left in the day when I can go to the store
All of that said, I'm stopping today because of this article. Their ethics are reprehensible. They specifically say in the app that 100% of my tip goes to the driver. That's true only if you look at it with very shaky logic -- they fail to mention that they deduct an equal amount from their base pay.
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#323Startup culture is a study in psychopathy. - lack of empathy: Uber, Instacart, etc. etc. etc., exploiting the poor - parasitic behavior: aggressive tax optimisation/tax evasion, Amazon employees relying on food stamps for subsistance - superficial charm: get rich quick - pathological lying: cf. Facebook denying they ever did anything wrong - manipulativeness: "make the world more open and connected" and my personal f…
"solve physics for good!"... that was a quick meta.
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#324DoorDash does the same thing of “stealing” tips. Either you should tip in cash or not at all.
I want the worker to receive 100% of the tip as much as anyone. But does anyone else find it obnoxious that all these digital services exist, often starting out with no tip straight pricing, then tipping re-appears, and then you suddenly need physical cash to morally use the service at all? Obviously workers should get fairly compensated. The problem is tipping culture itself, just set a price that customers are will…
+1 for outlawing tipping. Add it as a fixed cost of the service or don't. No in between.
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#325More evidence as to why tipping culture needs to die. Tipping fundamentally takes away the responsibility of paying someone for their work from the employer to the customer. In what other business context do I pay an employee of a company I deal with directly outside of the service industry where tipping is common? Wages are a cost of doing business. Pay the worker enough. If you want to still provide them an incenti…
Tipping is the "trickle down"-myth's small scale cousin.
It doesn't only take away responsibility of paying, but adds emotional and mental load cost to the customer. It's hilarious that people accept that in exchange for an illusory level of control (you being the mini manager/boss of your service task) over quality of service.
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#326Seriously, this is the responsibility consumers have in a free market. If there's behavior you don't like, move on. You don't get to complain about bad actors when you're literally keeping them in business.
No, this is why you have regulation, and need unions. Consumers have enough parameters to optimize for: price of groceries, cost of delivery, fair trade, availability of products, delivery speed, convenience, availability of delivery slots, the list is long. Consumers are relatively good at optimizing for cost, not perfect -- but asking for more than that is unrealistic.
But asking consumers to vote for moral, intelligent legislative agents is somehow better? Optimizing for past opinions, moral fiber, understanding of the issues, etc. is easier?
Personal responsibility is required in a good society, irrespective of the system of government or the level of regulation that currently exists. Even if it's consumers/voters pushing their legislators to build regulations, you need a mass of regular old people who care in order to change a society.
Then the onus is on you to prove that regulation of an issue--say, drinking and driving--didn't just happen to coincide with a national education campaign coming from a well-funded 501(3)(c). Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes not so much.
In my opinion, the problem here isn't regulation vs. collective action people like grand-OP who are willing to continue using the service. Those same people will push back against legislation if they believe it will increase their prices, or eliminate the service altogether (Uber/Lyft in e.g. Austin?)
And in any case, consumer-driven action is MUCH faster than regulation. You can boycott them TODAY and cause an actual hit to their bottom line.
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#327and to think I was just about to sign up and use it with www.bjs.com. Now that won't be happening
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love how even knowing the company is stealing from their employees isn't enough to get you to drop using their service. I'm going to send at most 3 angry tweets about this before I forget about it and move on to the next thing to be upset about today.
> how even knowing the company is stealing from their employees isn't enough to get you to drop using their service why should it be? ahh whaaat? mashes downvote button since you are still reading, what is the exact thought process here, can you articulate this? So the service works and still provides a convenience for you, but is this action being masqueraded as the most effective way to get the company to change a…
Can you give an example of more effective ways of bringing Instacart into compliance with your ideals?
Do you mean, write them a sternly worded email?
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, if you think that's the case, feel free to give examples. The posts here are talking about specific cases, if you disagree with them, say so. You haven't really said anything here, just vaguly created a strawman that people are arguing "the poor can never do wrong", which was never the claim.
I asked a question, I don't think I need to provide some counter argument with it. If I must argue something, I'd say the housing crisis example wasn't so simple as it was presented. Some people knew exactly what they were doing, albeit it turned out badly for them, but they had so little to lose they took the risk anyway and just bankrupted out. But I'm not at all interested in talking about this, my original questi…
Your question was clearly a rhetorical question that contained the statement "the poor are never faulted for anything", which is basically the same as the next paragraph in your original comment. That's how everyone read it and that's what people are responding to. Your "I asked a question" is disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst, because it's basically saying "I was just asking questions! I didn't state anything and I hold no positions, which makes me invulnerable to criticism!".
Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip
#330One of the many things that I love about the Netherlands is the lack of tipping in the culture. People get paid a decent wage, and so tipping is only something done if the service is amazing.