211–220 of 376 posts
This seems like a strangely optimistic assumption to make. I'd imagine it'd be really easy for instacart to batch shopper's payments and retroactively credit or debit the shopper's account to always pay a minimum total depending on the tip.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The mechanism for enforcement is ABET accreditation. When I was at Cal Poly SLO, our CS program was up for re-accreditation, and yes, we were required to take an ethics course, mostly due to remarks from prior accreditation reviews.
Edit:
> I am not able to find more than a handful of CS degree programs with ethics prerequisites
ABET accreditation allows for ethics to be covered as part of other courses in the curriculum. IIRC, it requires at least 4 units worth coursework to focus on ethics. Schools are allowed to cover this as part of a software engineering capstone series, for example.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why did NO ONE in any meetings when designing this "feature" or process say anything? This is a really silly assumption. As a UI/UX designer, I have brought up many times at previous companies when they were trying to do sketchy/dark-patterns/etc. to users. At the end of the day, a lot of times, you get classified as someone who is not being a "team player", or are just being "negative." It sucks, but I can bet you…
I don't do crooked stuff, that started in primary school for me, and I don't envy the people who are obedient, they had some short-term gains, sure, but long-term they end up with nothing to say, nothing to do and to be. If one has to be crooked to not risk it, what kind of career is it in the first place? > You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls yo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I quit tipping on DD as soon as I found this out about a month ago because it'd almost always be less than $4.50, so wouldn't affect the dasher's bottom line anyway. If I start again it'll be cash, but I don't typically carry that in small bills. But I'm pissed . I've been a heavy DD customer for years and I'm an excellent tipper. Apparently I've been offsetting DD's costs for quite awhile now thinking "100% goes to…
Isn't this typically the job of an Attorney General?
I know she's not in office now. It's a joke.
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.
Instacart workers have urged customers not to boycott the company, which would cut even further into their earnings.
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…
>Instacart and DoorDash...have figured out a clever way to use customer tips to lower their labor expenses. Isn't this how restaurants work..?
Similar, but not exactly the same. In the case of wait staff, the pay system is well known and regulated (see below). In the case of the gig workers, it appears to be up to the employer, unregulated, and not well documented. In the restaurant industry, a waiter must be paid the standard minimum wage (for the state/city/etc). However, because tips are expected, the employer is allowed to pay less IF AND ONLY IF the ti…
Made up example: Employer-stated hourly rate: $10/hour Tips per hour: $9/hour Actual pay: $10/hour ($9 tips + $1 pay) Tips per hour: $3/hour Actual pay: $10/hour ($3 tips + $7 pay) And in the very extreme case... Tips per hour: $11/hour Actual pay: $11/hour ($11 tips + $0 pay)
By avoiding the minimum wage, and backfilling wages with tips, the employer can theoretically avoid paying ANY wages to employees (and I'm specifically calling them employees here because I believe most of these gig economy jobs should be employees, even if not legally required to do so).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
100% of tips goes to the driver for both Uber [1] and Lyft. [2] [1] https://www.uber.com/drive/partner-app/how-tips-work/ [2] https://help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/articles/115013081368-How-to-...
I would prefer this be phrased as "Uber does not take a cut of tips for drivers." Drivers would definitely prefer, for a given dollar, that it be given in a way that does not create a taxable paper trail unless they elect to declare it.
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'm on the IEEE P7010 Standards working group, which is part of the larger P7000 series that is focused on addressing ethical concerns when building software.[1] As a body, we're going through painstaking effort to build a firm footing for how and why systems designers should build an ethics decision process into their workflow. However I keep struggling to see why any software developer would care to follow our stan…
The problem is not that developers don't care about standards. And its not that developers are just trying to make as much money as possible.
Most developers have financial obligations that require them to keep their jobs.
The people making unethical decisions are their bosses.
The developers cannot contradict their bosses in this way and keep their jobs.
However, if you make the standards an organization-level thing and tie management and legal into it, it may be come to be that it is some developer's job to report on standards infringement. In which case they could say "no, this is illegal" and if there were legal precedent showing criminal charges or penalties had been applied, the management might consider following the standard. Although at first even if those standards existed, I assume sometimes management would just fire the messenger and hire another one who would claim the standards were upheld.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can’t have your cake and eat it too. Either it’s not impacting workers as much as the article and our imaginations would lead us to believe, or it is. If it is, then yes voting with your wallet is 100% appropriate despite temporary disruption it might cause workers.
For these workers, it's really "neither have your cake nor eat it". They get screwed by Instacart and DoorDash stealing their tips, and then screwed further when they can't make as many deliveries because people boycott. I'm not saying we should support shitty companies. But these boycotts ostensibly happen because we have empathy for workers. We shouldn't lose track of that empathy when workers talk about how the bo…