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Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage

nytimes.com

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Re: Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage

#151

Post by bspn »

Apocryphon wrote: post #89
save_ferris wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Who polices the VCs? It seems like they have no accountability, even financially speaking. If one investment fails they have nine more to reallocate towards, so to speak.

Technically LPs, but they're more-often-than-not large, faceless funds only interested in returns and mostly insulated from any blowback so moral considerations don't always concern them.

Re: Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage

#152

Post by smt88 »

cannonedhamster wrote: post #114
rconti wrote: post #104

I've never used Instacart, but I've used GrubHub and DoorDash and the like a couple of times -- I can never remember which one I have an account for, or which one has the restaurant I want, so it's always a hodgepodge. But one thing is clear as day. When I use DoorDash, the tip box says "100% of tip goes to Dasher". Look, I know all of these places either charge me a service fee, or if I'm not being charged a service…

This is a good point and likely going to result in a massive class action that a few of these companies don't survive.

They'll survive it. The pendulum has swung far toward corporations and awards don't tend to be death sentences these days.

What other company has been killed by a lawsuit lately, other than thorough frauds like for-profit colleges?

Re: Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage

#153

Post by dba7dba »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #4

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?

I am assuming you are saying PM, designers, backend engineers or others who actually had a hand in building the product should protest this. So you are basically saying engineers and designers should stand up and say no.

I think the focus is on wrong people.

The question should be, why is MBA schools still teaching their students to reduce cost at all cost and increase revenue at all cost. No matter what.

Fine, the engineers build what they build. But someone hires/fires people, and signs checks for certain projects. Someone tells the engineers to build something. And who are these people?

Let's focus the public anger at the right people. It's not the engineers.

It's the graduates of the expensive MBA schools.

Re: Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage

#154

Post by minimaxir »

Just in: the policy is now being ended: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/after-...

> “Based on your feedback, today we’re launching new measures to more fairly and competitively compensate all our shoppers,” Mehta wrote. “Tips should always be separate from Instacart’s contribution to shopper compensation.”

> Instacart also said it will compensate workers affected by the previously policy. “For example, if a shopper was paid $6 by Instacart, to compensate for our mistake, he or she will receive an additional $4 from Instacart,” Mehta wrote.

Re: Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage

#155

Post by tivert »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #14
duxup wrote: post #7

It's terrible, but really it fits what these businesses do fundamentally. They provide a service, and and push as much risk off of the copany and onto their contractors as possible. Slow sales? Contractor just doesn't get paid. Injury? Contractor's problem, he's gone, who is next? The idea that they'd dip into the pot further to ensure more money for the company isn't much different than the rest of the risk they put…

When the pendulum swings very-left (as it will, American politics follow a tick-tock partisan pattern) I believe someone (AOC?) will crack down on "contractor" companies - they're not paying payroll taxes. Not a good thing.

> When the pendulum swings very-left (as it will, American politics follow a tick-tock partisan pattern) I believe someone (AOC?) will crack down on "contractor" companies...

Definitely.

If economic conservatives and libertarians don't want to see their ideas totally repudiated for a generation or more, they're going to have to work overtime to effectively address problems like these that can be attributed to them, even if it means heterodoxy. Unfortunately, most of what I see are calls for even more of the same, apologia, "there's nothing we can do because shareholder value", or scaremongering about long-repealed regulatory regimes and the communist bloc.

Re: Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage

#156

Post by dba7dba »

resters wrote: post #103
save_ferris wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: are ethics taught in MBA programs, and if so, how? Generally speaking, how are MBA's taught to avoid making this very mistake?

I think in this case the ethical issue is not disclosing the policy more directly. I suppose why would anyone tip $5 if the driver would only get $1. My guess is that this isn't really an ethical issue with Instacart, which I view as a very well run company. More likely, the model is a fairly cleverly designed tip jar that accepts tips and then brings up the average wage so that workers have a higher guaranteed minim…

> My guess is that this isn't really an ethical issue with Instacart, which I view as a very well run company.

I can't agree with that. A well run company doesn't steal $4 from a $5 tip originally given to some poor person making minimum wage.

Re: Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage

#157

Post by SilasX »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #138
crushcrashcrush wrote: post #4

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? I think other commenters have covered the futility of speaking up internally (basically the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine in action), but the question I have is: Why did no one blow the whistle ? Instacart's tip stealing code had likely been in place a long time before any external activists noticed it. An ethica…

The Friedman doctrine wouldn't advocate against doing this either, because it's not within the bounds of law.

Re: Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage

#158

Post by dba7dba »

airstrike wrote: post #24
crushcrashcrush wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I address that later in my comment... Is this a function of schooling? MBA programs? Corporatism?

As an MBA, I really take issue with this cynicism of MBA programs. It's not like we're cold greedy bastards. Stop generalizing. People can make great and terrible decisions, regardless of grad school degree choice.

Someone signed off on that feature that stole $4 from a $5 tip given to a person making minimum wage.

Was that person an MBA graduate or not?

Re: Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage

#159

Post by SilasX »

chaboud wrote: post #6

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.

The few times I've used them [1] they were just choked with dark patterns. Stuff like [2] "Hooray, on your first order, we waive service fees!" -> "Delivery fee $4.99." Huh? What's the difference?

[1] I'm not a big food delivery user FWIW.

[2] just from memory -- I don't know the exact terminology

Re: Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage

#160

Post by throwaway5752 »

tedmiston wrote: post #106
throwaway5752 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon my interruption, but I think a perfectly adequate response would be to counter by asking if ethics are taught in CS/CE programs (or what curricula have ethics prereqs)

Yes, ethics are a required component of the ABET CS model curriculum.

That's a model curriculum and has no mechanism for enforcment. I am not able to find more than a handful of CS degree programs with ethics prerequisites. Plenty of engineering schools offer compute ethics courses as electives, but then again, plenty of business schools offer business ethics electives in MBA programs.
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