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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

#221

Post by gumby »

Too late: I now know how the company thinks about its employees and, frankly how truthful they are with their customers too.

So more Instacart and no more DoorDash for me. Simply uninstalling the app won't cause change, so I contacted both Instacart and DoorDash and asked them to delete my account and all PII and when asked, explained why.

There are plenty of alternatives to both and I suspect we'll pretty quickly figure out which ones are the creepy assholes and which differentiate themselves by being decent human beings. For that matter, it's worth looking at which investors have supported this kind of attitude, as I'm sure this was discussed in board meetings.

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

#222

Post by ilaksh »

chaboud wrote: post #22
mhb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instacart workers have urged customers not to boycott the company, which would cut even further into their earnings.

Those Instacart workers can go drive for the other companies that will get my business. I'm not skipping out on grocery and food delivery. I'm voting for good behavior with my wallet. Note: I recognize the same people driving for different services pretty regularly.

What other company has the same opportunities or market share as Instacart?

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

#223

Post by ilaksh »

resters wrote: post #25

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,…

Don't worry, Amazon screws their delivery workers in other ways.

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

#224

Post by sl1ck731 »

rconti wrote: post #141
SN76477 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am currently working under Grubhub, Doordash, Uber Eats and several other food delivery services. None of them communicate, none of them tell you what is going on, none of them are controlling the conversation their employees are talking about on Facebook. It is PR 101 to control the conversation... but every one of them fail at this when it comes to contractors.

Is Uber Eats or Grubhub (or PostMates) better than DoorDash in terms of how they handle tipping? Or can you even tell? I imagine the payments are so opaque it can be hard to tell. I'm not using DoorDash anymore, not that I used them much before, but I feel ripped off. If I choose to use a delivery service, I'd at least like to know it's one that hasn't been lying to me. I realize that probably means Uber is right out…

I think the simplest way to tell is if the app requires you to tip before or after the order has been placed.

I've read in other HN threads that Uber Eats tip policy is what we as customers expect, but don't take my word for it.

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

#225

Post by ilaksh »

0xffff2 wrote: post #26
crushcrashcrush wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's to crack down on exactly? The government still gets all its taxes. It just gets all of it from the employee (sorry, "contractor") rather than getting half each from the employee and employer.

They don't get paid taxes if the self-employed person doesn't have money left over at tax season. Most people are getting by month-to-month. Not because they are bad planners, but because there is not any extra money.

The government will crack down when it realizes poor self-employed people cannot or will not pay taxes and that putting them in jail will just cost more money.

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

#226

Post by sl1ck731 »

product50 wrote: post #92
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 am sure someone would have said that. The problem is that Instacart and Door Dash are very low margin business and through tactics like this, they can probably stay afloat or make some (small) profit. I know it is difficult to empathize with their behavior and assume the worst but when you are competing with deep pockets such as Amazon and Uber Eats, it is important to ensure that your unit economics work out and t…

If you can't survive without grossly misleading your customers then you have no right to survive at all.

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

#227

Post by jakelazaroff »

chii wrote: post #220
jakelazaroff wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This just goes to show that all industries need competition. If there's a third company that also provide this service, they could market themselves as more ethical, and if the people truly are as conscientious as it seems to be here, then it will gain market share.

Competition might be necessary to fix this, but it's certainly not sufficient. The restaurant industry is competitive, but according to the Department of Labor [1] "nearly 84 percent of full-service restaurants it investigated between 2010 and 2012 had violated labor standards, including but not limited to tip violations".

[1] https://nyti.ms/2GjqIyu

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

#228

Post by ilaksh »

40acres wrote: post #54

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…

Not all of the high-skilled workers are highly paid.

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

#229

Post by sl1ck731 »

ilaksh wrote: post #222
chaboud wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those Instacart workers can go drive for the other companies that will get my business. I'm not skipping out on grocery and food delivery. I'm voting for good behavior with my wallet. Note: I recognize the same people driving for different services pretty regularly.

What other company has the same opportunities or market share as Instacart?

If we use this logic then there will never be an alternative. We need to create a vacuum and that might negatively affect the shoppers in the interim.

Edit: It looks like Instacart is making some kind of amends and changing policy.

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

#230

Post by ilaksh »

supernova87a wrote: post #192

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…

It seems to me like the CEO should be fired. Not even from a moral perspective but just from a PR perspective.
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