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

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

#361

Post by PavlovsCat » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 6:48 PM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #213

PavlovsCat wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's a great speech but you would have to stand up to your boss, tell him he did something wrong, and then quit your job. So if you actually did that then I would buy your argument.

No, all I have to do is to never collude with and to call out crooked shit, which I did and do. It takes much less courage to never kiss the ring in the first place, than to "revolt" after already having kneeled. I don't care if you "buy" that.

In the one really shitty job I had for a short while, I simply didn't do the things I considered crooked. I didn't lie about that either, nor did I get fired for it. I was still better than most brownnosers there, and they were leaking people anyway. Once I told a coach that if the food he eats was prepared as careless as he just told me to do my job to make more money, he would be dead in a month. Hahaha. I did end up quitting after getting sick of the politics and exploitation there, but I didn't have to quit to not take part in crooked stuff, I simply did that by not taking part in it. I simply said "make me", and they didn't bother to try. "The barman reeled for a moment, hit by a shocking, incomprehensible sense of distance."

People who think everybody in the world is fake, broken and gave in, are proving only that they themselves are. If they weren't, they wouldn't assume everybody just "has" to accept all sorts of things. We have to die eventually, that's all anyone of us has to do. The rest are at best choices, at worst excuses.

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

#362

Post by CamperBob2 » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #359

CamperBob2 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, it becomes impossible to argue that taxi regulations were actually benefiting the public. Civil disobedience is a valid option in such cases, whether your name is Travis Kalanick or Rosa Parks.

Uber and Lyft are hardly Rosa Parks. They mostly use their size to bully around smaller localities that can’t handle the pressure. If they truly believed that taxi regulations were onerous they’d fight them wherever they exist. Uber and Lyft left Austin in protest because they felt a fingerprinting requirement was too onerous, and they didn’t come back until Texas overruled them; but they already comply with such a r…

Uber and Lyft are hardly Rosa Parks. They mostly use their size to bully around smaller localities that can’t handle the pressure.

Which would never have worked if customers were satisfied with existing solutions.

If they truly believed that taxi regulations were onerous they’d fight them wherever they exist

It can take decades to correct the law if you insist on playing by its own rules, especially given the historical corruption associated with taxi regulation. As Americans, we have a cultural responsibility to resist unjust laws... and at least IMHO, taxi regulations fall squarely into that category.

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

#363

Post by antpls » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 9:37 PM UTC

geoelectric wrote: post #185

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…

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…

Just curious : why tipping in cash when they are numerous apps to send and receive money between "friends" (ala PayPal) ?

(By the way, how long before we can tip people on WhatsApp?)

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

#364

Post by chrischen » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 2:34 AM UTC

clhodapp wrote: post #334

chrischen wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really part of this problem though, as even if they were compensated for gas and insurance for the car, this still applies. Fundamentally, people are outraged because essentially tipping is subsidizing the wages the employer should be paying, and that's the case even with a restaurant. The issue is the tipping system. It's counterintuitive but your "generosity" with a tip, once it becomes standard cultural…

There is absolutely way to prevent this. We could enact laws to clarify that tips are between the customer and the employee and have no effect on the company's legal obligation to pay minimum wage. That is how the law actually is written in a number of states.

Or enact a law that bans tipping. There are plenty of societies that ban tipping, including places that are more advanced than the US like Japan. Not to mention tipping is another surface area for potential money laundering and tax evasion.

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

#365

Post by chrischen » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 2:37 AM UTC

CptFribble wrote: post #276

chrischen wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devil's advocate, this is actually standard practice with tipped employees like waiters and waitresses. They are often paid a lower base wage because it is expected they make some of it back on tips. Tips have always been essentially a variable part of the worker's salary controlled by the customer. It's why in America it's considered basically unacceptable to not tip even though it's "optional."

It's not quite that - in places with a lower "tipped minimum wage," the employer only gets to pay the lower hourly rate if the employee doesn't earn the standard minimum wage from tips. The employee is supposed to report their tips, usually per pay period, and if it adds up to less than minimum wage, the employer is supposed to make up the difference. Doesn't work out like that in practice, though. My wife waited tab…

Employer still benefits from this though, in both cases. So if the tips DO add up to more than minimum wage the employer is the one who is saving the money from the extra tips.

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

#366

Post by chrischen » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 2:40 AM UTC

treis wrote: post #304

chrischen wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience they aren't necessarily always on your side, but for a small enough transaction they may not care. They don't investigate aggressively, rather they put the burden on doordash to prove all these small charges. That being said, technically it's not allowed as you authorized the charges and maybe didn't get 100% of what you were advertised, but I'm not sure you can get a refund for that.

>didn't get 100% of what you were advertised, but I'm not sure you can get a refund for that. You can definitely get a refund for that. Realistically, DD will just refund the charges and then ban your account. Cheaper than fighting over a $15 tip, especially when disputes cost them whether they win or lose.

Disputes cost them maybe $15-$30 but then they can automate the response so there's no loss. Also, the dispute fees are charged regardless of if they choose to fight it, so they have no reason to unless they simply haven't automated responses.

While you can almost always get a refund for any small charge if you dispute it, it doesn't mean it's technically allowed by the terms, or as part of mandated laws. Laws around this generally only say the credit card company has to investigate your claims, but what they do, if anything, or how hard they "investigate" is not enforced. In practice instead of actually investigating a small $15 charge they'll just refund you.

Given a large enough charge, they will definitely not refund you unless it's like a 100% indisputable billing error case (like you send an invoice you received saying $100 but the statement charge shows something else).

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

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Post by teddyfrozevelt » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 3:27 AM UTC

duderific wrote: post #281

sl1ck731 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if they use it to indicate the quality of the customer.

Yep, I often wonder if the driver sees the tip amount before they deliver, and puts less importance on your order if the tip is considered low.

I’m a Dasher, and we can’t even see tips per order we complete, only how much we got in tips and how much we got from DoorDash during a session of deliveries.

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

#368

Post by redblacktree » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 3:43 AM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #356

rconti wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't they paid via 1099 (contractor basis) and thus minimum wage is meaningless anyway?

Insane. Since the courts seem to agree that "gig" workers are contractors, it seems like we need a new labor movement to secure all the same benefits for contractors that employees get.

Perhaps a nice clear line we could draw would be individuals who are treated as 1099s. This way, companies could still use it and pay their own taxes, while defacto employees would be treated similarly to W-2s.

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

#369

Post by rhizome » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 3:58 AM 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.

The Department of Labor didn't sign no arbitration agreement with DoorDash, and they get a raging hard-on for wage-theft cases. Management stealing tips, where people who didn't do the work but receive a portion (or more) of the tips are slam-dunk cases for them.

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

#370

Post by mbrameld » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #354

mbrameld wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, since we're talking about US politics doesn't it make sense that "very-left" is relative to the current political climate in the US? To bring it back to the pendulum analogy, if I asked you which way a particular pendulum was swinging would you need information about the current state of other pendulums to answer? I can't tell if you're genuinely unable to comprehend the meaning of the comment you're replying t…

I did say "Serious question", didn't I? When people from outside the US hear US citizens talking about left-wing politics, we have learned that we need to double-check, because to many US citizens the US democratic party is left-wing, for example. To many people from the rest of the world, the US democratic party is right-wing. We have learned that when people from the US say "left", it's not the same as what we mean…

> I would not, but this isn't about the direction of the swing. The original comment was about where the pendulum was going to end up. Apparently, the "very-left". To those of us outside the US, who have learned that what the (majority of the) US considers "left" is what we consider "still on the right", that warrants double-checking.

Didn't the OP explicitly mention the swing? As in, "When the pendulum swings very-left (as it will, American politics follow a tick-tock partisan pattern)". What about that suggests a stopping point? If the question was about where the pendulum would stop (they stop in the middle, btw), there would be no mention of a tick-tock pattern. A stopped pendulum doesn't follow a tick-tock pattern, it just stays in one place.

The interesting thing about pendulums isn't where they stop. It's that they continue to swing back and forth.

I'll ditch the pendulum analogy and just ask directly: Why are the political leanings of other countries relevant to determining what is "very-left" relative to the current political climate in the US?