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Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

workingwa.org

461–470 of 718 posts

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want the worker to receive 100% of the tip as much as anyone. But does anyone else find it obnoxious that all these digital services exist, often starting out with no tip straight pricing, then tipping re-appears, and then you suddenly need physical cash to morally use the service at all? Obviously workers should get fairly compensated. The problem is tipping culture itself, just set a price that customers are will…

> The US needs law changes that outlaw tipping. No, it just needs to not treat workers that might receive tips differently: they should have he same minimum wages as other workers and tips should not count as compensation by the employer satisfying minimum wage mandates. Private employers might then wish to prohibit employees accepting tips (since it no longer benefits the employer as it does now for the worker to be…

> No, it just needs to not treat workers that might receive tips differently: they should have he same minimum wages as other workers and tips should not count as compensation by the employer satisfying minimum wage mandates.

Now they're getting minimum wage and I still feel the need to tip. That doesn't fix the problem unless we also make major changes to the minimum wage.

> Private employers might then wish to prohibit employees accepting tips (since it no longer benefits the employer as it does now for the worker to be classes as “tipped”), for similar reasons to those for which public employers already do.

They wouldn't do that at minimum wage, and they get negative value out of a combined pay-more/anti-tip policy.

I don't think it's enough to fix the problems with tipping culture.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#462
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is why you have regulation, and need unions. Consumers have enough parameters to optimize for: price of groceries, cost of delivery, fair trade, availability of products, delivery speed, convenience, availability of delivery slots, the list is long. Consumers are relatively good at optimizing for cost, not perfect -- but asking for more than that is unrealistic.

As participants in a democratic nation (whether that be the US republic, the UK parliamentary monarchy or whatever) it is our responsibility to be involved in all facets of the world we interact with. We hire people to grow our food because it is a better optimisation of labour, not because we can just forget about the process of growing food. We need to be aware of things like: is this food processing sanitary, is t…

way too many libertarians on HN, what is it with programmers who think they've conquered the world and their way is the best? I swear they'd all run away and go live in on a space station like in Elysium if they could

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#463
post #115

Instacart is AWFUL. They're paying shit wages and thus offering shit quality, because they're offering a service that literally is unscalable. The logistics of laser-guided-bomb-type delivery of groceries from store to fridge is asinine. Yo, grocery store shopping doesn't suck bad enough to pay someone else to do both the shopping and delivering! I'll pick up the pre-picked-up/bought groceries. I don't need you to de…

> literally is unscalable

Not everything needs to scale better than O(n).

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#464
I'm European, in my country if an employer only try to do something like that go strait to the jail. Now is in progress a process to guarantee to the guys employed in the delivery of food by bike a minimum wage because they was exploited by some companies, but that case isn't distantly comparable to this one. I can't believe this behavior it's tolerated in a civilized nation.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#465

Seriously, this is the responsibility consumers have in a free market. If there's behavior you don't like, move on. You don't get to complain about bad actors when you're literally keeping them in business.

We detached this generic ideological subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19030072 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#466
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is why you have regulation, and need unions. Consumers have enough parameters to optimize for: price of groceries, cost of delivery, fair trade, availability of products, delivery speed, convenience, availability of delivery slots, the list is long. Consumers are relatively good at optimizing for cost, not perfect -- but asking for more than that is unrealistic.

But asking consumers to vote for moral, intelligent legislative agents is somehow better? Optimizing for past opinions, moral fiber, understanding of the issues, etc. is easier? Personal responsibility is required in a good society, irrespective of the system of government or the level of regulation that currently exists. Even if it's consumers/voters pushing their legislators to build regulations, you need a mass of…

The boycott of South African goods during apartheid, and that against Nestle because of them promoting formula over breast milk in the developing world beg to differ. Very significant numbers participating, to no noticeable effect. Nestle undoubtedly considers it an acceptable cost of doing business, cheap at ten times the price. Those who participate are likewise aware it means never buying anything Nestle ever again.

But it's a great way to put the onus on the consumer and not blame the cause - the government or multinational.

EU or US regulation on the other hand could probably have Nestle ceasing that practice in days.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#467

This is why the tipping system in the US is absurd. The whole "you must tip because they get paid peanuts" argument is a circular logic. How about making sure that the worker gets paid fairly by their employer and customers can then optionally tip for outstanding service?

This is why I refuse to tip in restaurants. Most people in san francisco that I know don't tip and as a consequence most waiters here don't expect a tip.

> This is why I refuse to tip in restaurants. Most people in san francisco that I know don't tip and as a consequence most waiters here don't expect a tip.

This is absolutely fucking hilarious.

I swear someone who is not from the US is going to quote your throwaway account as being gospel about how things are changing in the US.

Thank your for making my day brighter with your humor.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even going to send an angry tweet. I'm going to keep ordering. If a driver takes the job, at the price Instacart wants to pay, it's on the driver, of course. And this works until it doesn't! Once people quit driving for IC, THIS is the market price signal which will cause the system to reconfigure. If IC can't get drivers, they must pay more! I have zero illusions that enough people understand the free market…

[flagged]

Personal attacks will get you banned here regardless of how wrong someone else is or how badly you think of them. Please follow the site guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how even knowing the company is stealing from their employees isn't enough to get you to drop using their service. I'm going to send at most 3 angry tweets about this before I forget about it and move on to the next thing to be upset about today.

[flagged]

Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#470

What are the poor legitimately at fault for then? I'm tired of this implication that the poor can never be at fault for anything, because they are so poor. It is an overly simplified sympathy that doesn't always reflect reality.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19030031 and marked it off-topic.
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