Instacart and DoorDash’s Tip Policies Are Delivering Outrage • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by paulgb » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 8:56 PM UTC

koolba wrote: post #189

tuxxy wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you arbitrarily opt out of mandatory arbitration clauses?

Per https://www.doordash.com/terms/#section12 you have to send them an email with your account info within 30 days of signing up: > (f) Opt Out. You may opt out of this Arbitration Agreement. If you do so, neither you nor the Company can force the other to arbitrate as a result of this Agreement. To opt out, you must notify the Company in writing no later than 30 days after first becoming subject to this Arbitration…

Free idea: browser extension that lights up when you visit a site with an arbitration clause and tells you how to opt out.

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

#192

Post by supernova87a » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 8:56 PM UTC

What I hate about company behavior is the lack of leadership compass in knowing what is right and wrong, and instead treating every resource (person) as an experiment to see what they'll accept or not. And if they don't hear enough complaints, must've been ok to do.

You can read it in their apologies and the positive spin: "We heard loud and clear the frustration when your compensation didn’t match the effort you put forth."

Heard you loud and clear? What is this, like the American Idol voting contest? Daytime Emmy awards, or public opinion poll, where we have to be asked what we like to be paid?

A proper apology would be: "We know what we were doing was wrong, and we were wrong to do it, and we will not do things like that in the future." Not, "it seems you didn't like what we did, so we'll do something different."

Makes you think they won't apologize for doing fundamentally wrong things until they get called out by public opinion. What types of issues should a company know are not ok / illegal, and what issues are subject to public approval or measuring reception? Shouldn't a CEO know these and apologize accordingly?

Or maybe that is the role of regulation and government to keep the amoral corporate compass calibrated.

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

#193

Post by mirimir » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 8:57 PM UTC

Why don't users just tip with cash? If you're a regular user, it's not such a big deal to have some small bills around. Traditionally, I always tipped in cash, in case people wanted to keep their tips private.

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

#194

Post by sevenf0ur » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #5

Always tip cash to service people. http://tipthepizzaguy.com/

> Always tip cash to service people.

It's more nuanced than that. Do you tip pest control, plumbers, locksmiths, that guy that fixes the spring in your garage opener? As a consumer, I'd rather pay a fixed price and not worry about carrying enough cash to supplement their income.

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

#195

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#196

Post by snowwrestler » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

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…

Has anyone tried treating these transactions as actually fraudulent, and asking their credit card company to investigate and reverse the charges? I've heard the card companies will sometimes be pretty aggressive on the cardholders' behalf. That said, this would probably get your account banned from whatever service you try it on.

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

#197

Post by mc32 » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

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. Agreed 100%. Don’t say one thing and do another sneaky thing. That should result in such entity losing the trust of its clients.

They deserve the backlash they get. One would hope they get fined as well.

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

#198

Post by choward » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #49

jonknee wrote: post #2

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.

It's basically just a way for businesses to advertise a lower price than the actual price which in turn leads to more profit. Tipping doesn't benefit workers or customers. It only benefits businesses.

It needs to be abolished.

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

#199

Post by AdmiralAsshat » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #165

cannonedhamster wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

At least in the case of DoorDash, they have an arbitration clause in their TOS that effectively quashes any attempts at a class action. Hopefully one day the US justice system will wake up to the fact that allowing companies to opt-out of the main mechanism preventing them from engaging in this sort of petty-crime-at-scale is not a good idea, but until then it's what we're stuck with.

Not unless we add another slot to the Supreme Court.

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

#200

Post by Johnny555 » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 9:26 PM UTC

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…

I worked for a company that did something similar (they said they sent a portion of profit to a non-profit of the user's choice, which was true, but if the user didn't designate a non-profit, then the company would keep the money... something close to 50% of the users didn't bother to designate a non-profit after signing up).

I brought a feature to remind these users to designate their non-profit, but the company had no interest in doing so since it would reduce their revenue. And this came from the top, it wasn't a product manager decision.

The company is no longer around, but I didn't stick around long after that, it seemed unethical.