[halr9000]

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 to be patient and allow for this to happen. We need to teach more economics in grade school.

[reitzensteinm]

Instacart is defrauding their customers, who believe the tips are going to the driver, not straight into Instacart's pocket.

Customer awareness is the free market solution to this, if that's the hammer you want to use to fix everything.

Maybe grade school should focus on reading comprehension.

[foobiekr]

The proof of the sketchiness is that if you call the DoorDash support line, their phone reps are carefully trained with exact wording to be as misleading as possible about this. If you bring up the way payments depend on tips, they will carefully reiterate the talking points.

You can learn a lot from how companies feel about their practices by looking at how they train the customer support personnel with talking points to avoid admitting certain of them.

[throwawaymath]

> Maybe grade school should focus on reading comprehension.

You had a strong comment without the implied insult. Don't compromise your point to be mean to someone.

[taurath]

I can't help but feel every time someone says "people don't understand the free market" its people who can't understand anything past the most simplistic explanation.

I'm going to leave you with a quote from Adam Smith who most would say founded the field of Economics.

> The interest of the dealers ... in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public... [They] have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public ... We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their actual rate ... It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms.

[Pfhreak]

As a consumer, are you surprised that your tip is being used this way? I'd operate under the assumption that someone was being paid some sort of fair compensation, and my tip was an addition to whatever comp they earned.

Also, it's not clear to me, are the drivers told their comp for the job before accepting? Did this person know they would earn $0.80/hr?

[fwip]

The person was actually paid $10.80 - $10 of which was tip, and $0.80 was from Instacart.

[Pfhreak]

Yes? That doesn't meet my expectations. I'd expect them to paid whatever reasonable wage ($12/hr? $15/hr?) and then get the $10 on top of that.

[fwip]

It doesn't meet my expectations either, but your phrasing made me worry that you thought their total compensation was $0.80.

[vkou]

Price signals are not the one, only, sole legitimate form of communication of preferences.