[tbiwiti]

I've said this before, but I think a key component of contractors' rights going forward will be legislating their employers' ability to "lock them in" with loyalty programs and the like.

In this case, a large part of the issue seems to be certain orders from people (and companies) that have found loopholes in the pricing (bulk orders of large, heavy goods).

If contractors could decline these orders with no repercussions, they wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue. Instacart would fail to deliver these orders and quickly learn they need to change their pricing structure.

The argument could be made that you can go too far in giving contractors the right to decline. I can imagine various forms of extortion occurring or problems being unable to blacklist problematic contractors, but it's a tradeoff that seems to be too far in the company's favour right now. Maybe disincentiving contract work in service-critical environments is a good thing, considering the complaints about rising part time and contracted work and not enough full time work.