81–90 of 376 posts
The kick of the plot here is to not tip on Instacart as you're just handing money to VCs. Or maybe give the driver cash?
Why would you tip on any service where you are already literally paying for the service of delivery? It's like tipping has become completely divorced from any purpose.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Or maybe give the driver cash? "Gross. Who carries cash anymore?" Future headline: Millenials are killing physical cash. Jokes aside (as a millennial) this is not something I usually have readily available. I try to keep all my transactions digital but I may take money out just for tipping purposes.
In that case I recommend that you go to your bank and make a cash withdrawal in the form of $2 bills. That way you can be cool when handing out cash tips.
I have a simple answer: I will never use Instacart or Doordash again, ever. Even if they change their policy, they are dead to me as companies, and any company that acquires them is similarly dead to me. If you're out there, upstart disruptors, know that pulling stuff like this will cost you at least one customer for life. I'm sure that there are more people like me.
You can give cash tips instead.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why did NO ONE in any meetings when designing this "feature" or process say anything? Who's to say someone didn't? All we know is they decided to steal tips, not that everyone thought it was a great idea.
I would believe that someone did/has. If you look at things like Project Maven at Google people did speak out, or the Chinese search engine. Speaking out doesn't help if you're not in a position to modify the plan though. I've been in both places, both where I could keep a bad idea from going through and times when I could only share my concerns. For me, it was situations like this that gave me the motivation to get…
In an ideal world, we could get people to act ethically because it's the right thing to do: if we can't do that, at least we can appeal to their self interest and point out how horribly this could backfire if people found out.
I think the fact that a gig economy company with fair (for lack of a better term) labor practices hasn't shown up yet (to my knowledge) is an indictment on the lack of vision from VCs and entrepreneurs. As a recent NYT article showed, we are moving towards a bifurcated economy split between service workers and high skilled work based on technology. The gig economy has the correct foresight in merging the two but due…
"It's hard to believe that a balance does not exist that would allow for a "gig" company to utilize full-time workers and still be profitable."
Your plumbing business does it, also cleaning companies and most other service businesses. The gig companies can be more profitable because they take shortcuts.
DoorDash is extremely helpful for me because I'm disabled and can't cook so it's really convenient for me to be able to order food for delivery when I don't have a caregiver around to cook food for me. I'm extremely disappointed by DoorDash's policies but because of my circumstances I can't just boycott. I live in a college town too, so most DoorDash drivers are students who are just barely getting by, so I'll be tip…
As an added bonus, you eliminate the discriminatory problems of certain classes of people earning more tips than others for reasons unrelated to service.
Why doesn't this problem exist when I order something from Amazon? Because there is no absurd idea that I should be tipping the UPS guy or anyone else involved in fulfilling my order. It makes much more sense for InstaCart to simply collect star ratings and offer bonuses for the employees who are going above and beyond. Considering how often the shopper has to call me about replacements, parking outside my building,…
It's not uncommon to tip your UPS/FedEx delivery person, or your USPS carrier. At least around the holidays.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I address that later in my comment... Is this a function of schooling? MBA programs? Corporatism?
Hard to say exactly without being privy to their conversations, but the aggressive growth pressure that young companies with VC funding face almost always factors in somehow. It's hard to truly expect companies to make the correct ethical decision in this scenario when the survival of founders is dependent on raising more and more money. The "grow now, profit later" model truly puts pressure on execs to take whatever…
This is a great example in my opinion of the apathy we need to combat as technologists. Why did NO ONE in any meetings when designing this "feature" or process say anything? "This is wrong/greedy/will have blowback." No one voiced concerns? Or, more specifically, if they did, no one listened? They didn't think this would leak out, with all the hatred regarding wage stagnation, income inequality, corporate greed? A ma…
> Why did NO ONE in any meetings when designing this "feature" or process say anything? Who's to say someone didn't? All we know is they decided to steal tips, not that everyone thought it was a great idea.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Might as well take the path of least embarrassment and hope no one calls out the tricks.