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Instacart shoppers besieged by bots that snatch lucrative orders

seattletimes.com

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Re: Instacart shoppers besieged by bots that snatch lucrative orders

#81

Post by raxxorrax »

galkk wrote: post #77

> When Marsh opens her Instacart shopping app, she sees promising orders disappear before she can act. “No human can click that fast,” she said. “Instacart needs to fix this. These bots are literally taking the food off my kids’ table.” While I understand the wish to get the best/any batch, this is significant exaggeration. If your kids food depends on getting the batches from the website, then you have much larger p…

True, although I understand the complaint. Many platforms succumb to bots and power users and they often loose their appeal from that. Most prominent example for me is ebay. Didn't really used it to save money, but it was interesting to browse.

Now there is little opportunity for the average user to even visit it, or at least much less so.

Re: Instacart shoppers besieged by bots that snatch lucrative orders

#82

Post by rightbyte »

MattGaiser wrote: post #68
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a queue system is just the most fair option There are lots of systems better than first-come first-serve for logistical systems. Hiring someone with a background in queueing theory and financial market microstructure would be a good starting point for Instagram (EDIT: Instacart). It would likely improve customer outcomes, too, to boot.

Better in what sense? I want my order filled as quickly as possible.

It is better to give the on site drivers a number in a queue then to make them f5 spam some app.

Re: Instacart shoppers besieged by bots that snatch lucrative orders

#83

Post by godzillabrennus »

MichaelGlass wrote: post #75
tesmar2 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was an alternative, higher wage they would pick that. This is the market labor cost.

"below market" because Instacart (and uber, etc) forgo normal labor law, have by-default but not by-contract full-time workers without any full-time benefits. Companies can achieve great benefit by externalizing cost on society, but should they? (And should they be able to?) e.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2019/12/16/is-uber-cheat... https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-...

Free market idealists think the market can determine the minimum wage without government or organized labor enforcing higher wages.

Re: Instacart shoppers besieged by bots that snatch lucrative orders

#84

Post by say_it_as_it_is »

A company offering technological innovation to gain advantages in a market is going to ban shoppers who use technological innovation to gain advantages in their internal market?

There's obviously competition among shoppers. The argument presented in this article is that those with technological advantages aren't acting fairly, but considering the dynamics of the shoppers' market, I would argue that they are not only acting fairly but are introducing what can be the next phase of innovation for the entire business. Instacart may have explored instant match in the past but found issues with it. Rather than drop it entirely, maybe they ought to revive the idea but refine it in consideration of what sniping is accomplishing.

Re: Instacart shoppers besieged by bots that snatch lucrative orders

#86

Post by madsbuch »

MichaelGlass wrote: post #75
tesmar2 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was an alternative, higher wage they would pick that. This is the market labor cost.

"below market" because Instacart (and uber, etc) forgo normal labor law, have by-default but not by-contract full-time workers without any full-time benefits. Companies can achieve great benefit by externalizing cost on society, but should they? (And should they be able to?) e.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2019/12/16/is-uber-cheat... https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-...

> Companies can achieve great benefit by externalizing cost on society, but should they?

Yes, indeed they should. But the government also needs to claim taxes from companies to pay for these benefits. This concept is not even new, heck this is how most of Europe works.

Re: Instacart shoppers besieged by bots that snatch lucrative orders

#87

Post by brorfred »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #83
MichaelGlass wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"below market" because Instacart (and uber, etc) forgo normal labor law, have by-default but not by-contract full-time workers without any full-time benefits. Companies can achieve great benefit by externalizing cost on society, but should they? (And should they be able to?) e.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2019/12/16/is-uber-cheat... https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-...

Free market idealists think the market can determine the minimum wage without government or organized labor enforcing higher wages.

Free market idealists also tend to be very against the natural way for workers to consolidate and leverage negotiation power: trade unions.

Re: Instacart shoppers besieged by bots that snatch lucrative orders

#88

Post by mantas »

madsbuch wrote: post #86
MichaelGlass wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"below market" because Instacart (and uber, etc) forgo normal labor law, have by-default but not by-contract full-time workers without any full-time benefits. Companies can achieve great benefit by externalizing cost on society, but should they? (And should they be able to?) e.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2019/12/16/is-uber-cheat... https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-...

> Companies can achieve great benefit by externalizing cost on society, but should they? Yes, indeed they should. But the government also needs to claim taxes from companies to pay for these benefits. This concept is not even new, heck this is how most of Europe works.

Last time I checked, USA did have corporate tax. Just like we got in Europe.

Re: Instacart shoppers besieged by bots that snatch lucrative orders

#89

Post by habosa »

function_seven wrote: post #7

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this is only possible on Android, right? The video linked by ultimoo shows an Android, and my perception is that iOS sandboxing is much tighter. How can Instacart combat this? They can't require iOS among their shoppers. Is it going to be an arms race of heuristics and anti-cheat code like it is for games that want to prevent aim-bots? Or they could start running their own…

They actually could require iOS among their shoppers. I did Postmates deliveries in ~2015 and they handed each delivery person an iPhone 5c with the courier app preinstalled.
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