10 ms·

DoorDash and Amazon Won’t Change Tipping Policy After Instacart Controversy

101 points by remote_phone 8y ago

Simulacra 8y ago
Why are we still tipping at all? This relic of slavery[1] needs to be phased out, not reinforced. [1]. https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-blog/posts/american-tipping-is-rooted-in-slavery-and-it-still-hurts-workers-today/ https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-blog/post...
- pbreit 8y ago
  As the article admits, tipping predated slavery by a long shot. People like to be able to tip if desired and many/most expect it to be incremental to wages.
  - HarryHirsch 8y ago
    That's the American position. You'd like to ask recent immigrants about tipping, and you'd think that a substantial portion of them would like not to leave tips and would prefer that the employer pay their staff proper wages.
- Eridrus 8y ago
  Because we're in a Nash equilibrium where it isn't rational for any individual actor to change. Restaurants that incorporate the service fee into prices sell less food and particularly booze, leaving them with less money to pay the staff, leading to lower wages for front of house. Given this experience, tipped workers are generally against any legislation that might change the system.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    I think tipping is a bit more interesting than that. It’s an equilibrium for the businesses and possibly for the workers, but often not for the customers. One of the strange things about tipping is they people usually still do it even when there’s no need to. It’s rational to tip at a neighborhood restaurant where they might remember you the next time around, but it’s conpletely irrational to tip for a one-off meal in a strange city or at an airport restaurant or whatever. Most of us tip anyway in those situations.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > often not for the customers As someone who tends to tip well, I really don’t mind it. It’s a way to tangibly say “thank you” and “I appreciated your work.” (That said, tips should be above and beyond. Not required, and not included in minimum wages.)
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        Do you actually tip all the people you're thankful to? Or even half of them? I definitely don't; most of them would look at me weirdly if I tried to tip them. So I think that's a tempting story of benevolence people tell themselves but it isn't actually the main reason for tipping.
      - niij 8y ago
        If they want a thank you note they can go volunteer in their free time IMO. I think employers should be paying their employee's wages, not relying on the public to directly pay their salary.
    - platz 8y ago
      Define "rational"
    - Eridrus 8y ago
      Not tipping makes people feel bad, so people often tip to keep their idea of themselves as a good person, not for a "rational" expectation of benefit.
  - grogenaut 8y ago
    Restaurants in Seattle that are raising the minimum wage aren't telling me not to tip for the most part except Tom douglas. I'm capable of doing math... I'm tipping so I already am. Tho I realize most peipyare just straight confused by tipping ratios. And I as the patron shouldn't be figuring out your staff's w2. But also I know bartenders at a decent tipping bar (any with a good weekend business) make a lot more than $15-20 minimum wage. A Worked as a bouncer at one of the best bars in STL for tipping (high end late hours) and they'd make 95k+. Wasn't a job you could keep much past 40 unless you just didn't drink tho. As an aside Was one of my better non co-op college gigs, I worked security and valet, so I made 100-200$ tips a night and 10/hr (1995) as a valet bouncer and it was a 12 hour shift (4pm-4am).
    - Analemma_ 8y ago
      To be fair, “Tom Douglas” is like sixteen different restaurants around Seattle. A bunch of bars (Optimism) and non-restaurant food stores (Molly Moon’s) have gone tipless as well. I’m actually optimistic that Seattle is slowly but surely beating back the scourge of tipping.
      - grogenaut 8y ago
        Yeah my point is more that it's not transparent about the wage increases vs tips except at a few places. I'm fine with the way Tom does it. Just wish it would as mor consistent
    - Pfhreak 8y ago
      Molly Moons also tells you not to tip. There's a few places around town that are changing.
- Freak_NL 8y ago
  Because you (customers in the US) cannot stop that practice without businesses pro-actively ending that practice en-masse. Some idealists have tried to run their business without tipping and paying a fair wage, but those initiatives tend to remain marginal (if they endure at all) because the average US customer dislikes paying the full (and naturally higher) price of a product or service up-front without the tip. Some countries don't do it at all (e.g., Japan), and in a lot of countries people tip only in a few cases — exceptional service that went above and beyond, or rounding up the bill in a restaurant after a good meal. For foreigners the practice of tipping to ensure an employee gets at least a living wage in the US is quite strange. Tipping is deeply cultural, you will be fighting against a phenomenon that is as American as apple pie (metaphorically speaking, it is Dutch in origin of course). Good luck in these days of ongoing identity wars. Do you know of any good ideas to actually make that shift away from tipping happen?
  - sofaofthedamned 8y ago
    Yeah. I tried tipping a waiter in Japan, he was genuinely offended. Here in the UK I'll occasionally say keep the change to bar staff in my local but I'm an outlier and it's not expected. America crazy with their entire tipping culture.
  - rockinghigh 8y ago
    The US and Canada are really the only countries with mandatory tipping. We should require businesses to display the final price, including all the fees like sales tax, health tax, and service. Uber has done it: you can leave a tip but you don’t have to.
    - dwighttk 8y ago
      what definition are you using for mandatory?
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        "Causes direct and meaningful financial harm to the worker if you don't do it."
- samfisher83 8y ago
  If you work at a nice restaurant you can make a lot of money with tips. Even at a nice sit down place (not super fancy) with food, appetizers, drinks etc you end up with 120 dollars a table of 4 or 5, a tip on that is 18-30 bucks. If you cover 4 tables in an hour that 72-120/hour. I don't know if you are going to get paid that on a non tip basis.
  - berberous 8y ago
    Ive never worked in a restaurant, so I could be wrong, but I think most places pool tips. So you have to split that 72-120, with the line cooks, bus boys, etc.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - URSpider94 8y ago
      Yes and no. A typical setup at fine dining restaurants is a team of a front waiter (takes the orders, lists the specials) and a back waiter (brings the food, keeps drinks filled). Bussers clean and set the table between seatings. You’ll typically tip out the whole wait staff on an even basis, or the front waiter may keep a little more. Then you give something to the busser, but not an even share, and you probably also give something to the expediter, if there is one - the person who manages the window to the kitchen. It would be fairly uncommon to pass on tips to the kitchen. Also note, with a staff like this, you can serve more tables in an hour, maybe 6-7, so there’s more money to go around.
    - bluedino 8y ago
      I’ve only worked in restaurants that pool tips and the line cooks never got any
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      Despite doing most of the work necessary to make the restaurant function, line cooks are generally not included in tip pools. Worse, in same places they are even excluding from being part of tip pools despite not making much more than the waitstaff (on a pre-tip basis).
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  You're asking consumers to take an optional payment and make it mandatory. Even if they ended up paying the same amount, they'll prefer it be optional.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Spooky23 8y ago
  Because it allows both employers and employees to evade taxes and enhance their bottom line.
homero 8y ago
Prime now tells me the tips go directly to drivers. I guess they do in a way. What a lie. Prime now tips https://imgur.com/gallery/mGeZmm1 https://imgur.com/gallery/mGeZmm1
- MrMorden 8y ago
  Technically correct best correct!
Bahamut 8y ago
I don't think I'm going to tip through Doordash anymore. It's robbery that they misled users by saying the tips go 100% to the driver and it turns out this is not the case.
- foobiekr 8y ago
  the problem to be solved is how to tip cash and still expense it. At least my employer will not reimburse a tip above a small one-person amount which makes not tipping on the CC problematic.
- SirensOfTitan 8y ago
  I just stopped using Doordash. I’ve had drivers drive hours out of their way to pick up food because doordash had incorrect restaurant location data. I’ve had orders where drivers just drive home and never pick up my order. Each time it is hellish trying to get support to do anything about it. Doordash, like most food delivery services, takes much more of a cut out of the delivery experience than the value they provide. These apps are glorified CRUD apps with little differentiating them. If anything goes wrong it often is a nightmare, and I’ve never had an experience where one of these apps has correctly detected and fixed an issue with a delivery—each time I have to identify then fight their dark patterns to get a human to help me. Uber categorically improved taxi service for consumers at the very least. These food delivery apps have honestly made the experience worse for consumers and for drivers.
davelee 8y ago
Tip cash?
- homero 8y ago
  Prime now says it's not allowed
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    How is Prime going to know you tipped cash?
  - sigfubar 8y ago
    Lots of things aren’t allowed.
  - fucking_tragedy 8y ago
    That's gross.
mikeash 8y ago
I’m surprised there isn’t more of an outcry about this from other services. I can’t really be bothered to keep track of which ones are honest, so I’m probably going to just avoid all of them. (Obviously I don’t use them much to begin with, but if enough other casual users feel the same way it could hurt.)
lancesells 8y ago
I had no idea Amazon was doing this as well. I specifically checked the wording on Prime Now once the Instacart story broke.
learc83 8y ago
So as a customer, Amazon is just going to pay less if I tip a driver? I tip $0, I effectively only harm Amazon. Do drivers see that they aren't being tipped before they drop off packages?
- koolba 8y ago
  > Do drivers see that they aren't being tipped before they drop off packages? Don’t give Bezos ideas!
Pfhreak 8y ago
As good a reason as any to stop using Prime Now. Unfortunate, because it was pretty useful. Then again, between the fulfillment center conditions, stealing tips from drivers, the over the top IP restrictions ("we own everything our employees do"), or the way it yanked around all those cities for HQ2... I suppose if folks valued worker conditions they'd probably already being untangling themselves from Amazon.
jabo 8y ago
If you’re thinking of avoiding these services (which may cause you inconvenience, less demand for the service and less jobs generated for workers), I’d recommend instead to just avoid tipping via the platform. Tip in cash, square cash or Venmo. This still provides drivers the guaranteed minimum from the service and the tip you give in cash is truly 100% going to the person as a bonus. The worst part of this though is DoorDash outright deceiving me by prominently saying 100% of the tip goes to Dashers every time I checkout. When I read that I assume it’s a bonus, not that DoorDash will then reduce their portion of the pay. Seeing that message, I’ve been religiously tipping via DoorDash, not any more. It’s only cash from here on.
- didibus 8y ago
  Works just like waiters and waitresses no?
  - kurthr 8y ago
    No, increasing tips in the jar increases their pay proportionally. Their starting point is low, but gains are real, except when the manager puts themselves as the 99.9% beneficiary of tips... which would be viewed just as negatively.
    - anamexis 8y ago
      This is not entirely true. The federal minimum wage for tipped jobs is $2.13/hour, with the employer only required to make up the difference if the employee doesn't break $7.25/hour in tips + wages. In these situations, the tips received between the minimum tipped wage and the minimum wage work exactly like the DoorDash / Instacart wages: they are net zero for the employee. Of course state and municipal minimum wages sometimes supersede these minimums, but they often have their own separate minimum wages for tipped jobs.
      - gamblor956 8y ago
        In these situations, the tips received between the minimum tipped wage and the minimum wage work exactly like the DoorDash / Instacart wages: they are net zero for the employee. I'm not sure why people keep repeating this like they think it means something. The tipped minimum wage is $2.13/hour (higher in most states), significantly lower than the regular minimum wage, because tipped workers almost always made more than federal minimum wage when tips were included. To repeat, for emphasis: the federal tipped minimum wage for employees is only $2.13/hour. In the rare event that a tipped worker doesn't make at least federal minimum wage including tips, the employer is required to make up the difference, but this backstop was added to the law much later. It is the exception, not the rule, and it is wholly inappropriate to treat it like the standard case. EDIT: This is different from what Amazon and DoorDash do, since they claim the fee they pay the driver is $X, under the general legal definition of "tip", any tip paid should be on top of the $X. They can look forward to class actions and DoL investigations in their near future since "tip" has an actual legal meaning for labor law purposes that you can't redefine in a ToS.
tyingq 8y ago
I imagine there's a number of class action firms now aware of the opportunity and salivating. There might even be 2 cases...one for buyers, one for drivers.
- unreal37 8y ago
  This is neither illegal nor hidden, so I'm not sure there's any case here. A good portion of the US economy is based on paying workers less because they receive tips. And even the tax system has evolved to guess the tips for workers so that they don't just pocket the money without tax.
  - tyingq 8y ago
    It's highly deceptive, and more egregious than other practices around tips. There's already one filed on Instacart for similar practices: https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/05/instacart-faces-class-action-lawsuit-regarding-wages-and-tips/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/05/instacart-faces-class-acti... And Instacart backed off the policy as a result: https://www.eater.com/2019/2/6/18214354/instacart-delivery-worker-pay-tipping-policy-doordash https://www.eater.com/2019/2/6/18214354/instacart-delivery-w... In any case, you don't have to take a class action all the way to court to inflict damage.
  - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
    > This is neither illegal nor hidden Now I'm curious. Are you a lawyer, and is this legal advice?
pbreit 8y ago
DoorDash’s blog post on the matter is ridiculous: https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/article/Should-I-tip-my-Dasher https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/article/Should-I-tip-m... How can they possibly justify the bit about dashers receiving 100% of tips which is repeated several times?
- notable_user 8y ago
  They explain _exactly_ how it works in the 2nd paragraph. 100% of the tip goes to the dasher, and then the base pay scales to hit the “minimum”. That’s obviously lame, since you’d have to basically tip over the minimum to see the pay change. But they lying when they say “100%”.
  - roblabla 8y ago
    If DoorDash pays less when you tip, then the money is effectively going to DoorDash, not the dasher...
    - BoiledCabbage 8y ago
      Effectively, but not nominally. Which is why it's so sleezy.
- bjterry 8y ago
  There are a bunch of different knobs that you can tweak to make this "feel" like the dashers are either receiving the tips or not. 1. Suppose DoorDash provides a minimum payout of $0.01 instead of whatever algorithm they use. Then, clearly, 100% of your tip goes to the dasher. 2. Suppose you tip the dasher $1000 under the current system. The dasher receives $1001 and 100% of your tip feels like it's going to the driver. 3. Suppose dashers are paid a minimum of $100 per order, and your tip never reaches that level. In this case it feels like 0% of your tip is going to the dasher. We actually don't have enough numbers to know which of these is more like reality as far as I know. If the typical tip is much larger than the minimum, then the minimum feels like it’s just protecting the dasher and their compensation is just tips. If it’s calculated to be right at the level of a typical tip or larger than it is clearly manipulative.
didibus 8y ago
What is Amazon Flex and wjy doesn't the article mention Amazon beyond the title?
breatheoften 8y ago
Well — that gets me deleting the DoorDash app with alacrity. That is a very scummy behavior.
cheez 8y ago
What about Uber eats?
- 908087 8y ago
  Given Uber's history, I'd be inclined to assume the worst.
- malandrew 8y ago
  They do not do this. They explain exactly how fees are calculated in their FAQ. Tips are not included in the calculation. https://help.uber.com/partners/article/how-are-delivery-fares-calculated?nodeId=5aecf430-8e00-4608-ba0a-8bba5b104023 https://help.uber.com/partners/article/how-are-delivery-fare...
  - cheez 8y ago
    Weird, I don't see anything about a tip in there... Ah here it is: https://help.uber.com/partners/article/are-tips-included-in-my-promotions-earnings?nodeId=db621f93-1d18-42b5-bc95-272ba9f1f5ba https://help.uber.com/partners/article/are-tips-included-in-...
908087 8y ago
It would take a seriously sleazy group of people to not only come up with this idea, but implement it and continue to defend it after caught. Apparently the "tech" world has the definition of "innovation" mixed up with the one for "deception". How disruptive!
RobLach 8y ago
Who wants to join my team working on a new app called Tippr? It provides an easy way to tip delivery drivers working for Amazon and the like.
- dogweather 8y ago
  Interesting, but how would it be different from just using square cash?
  - RobLach 8y ago
    I was joking but after thinking about it: maybe the driver would have to sign up and you'd track their route and correlate with delivery stops so a tipper would just need to send a tip to "whoever delivered". Add a browser extension for when you order through there to automatically take over the box on the order form.
officemonkey 8y ago
Disrupting the business model means sucking the juice out of everything. I got a package delivered by Amazon. It was "left in a secure location" according to the Amazon delivery driver. Turns out it was delivered at 9 pm, left outside my condo building in a February winter storm. I can't complain about it (short of the item review) and Amazon doesn't learn that their driver sucks. But hey, it's better for Amazon's bottom line, and divorce attorneys aren't free, ya know.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  "sucking the juice" is a fun way to put it. Uber for example, is thought of a company that is streamlining transportation and this profiting off of the increased efficiency. In reality, what appears to be happening is Uber is a massive scheme to siphon off vehicle depreciation for an enormous number of drivers that are hard up for cash. The VCs aren't the only ones subsidizing cheap rides. The drivers are taking the brunt of it.
- dx87 8y ago
  There's a driver for Amazon that regularly delivers packages to my house that reek of cigarette smoke, to the point that I have to open it outside and throw the box away to keep my house from stinking. I'm in the same boat as you, no way that I know of to complain about the driver.
  - HarryHirsch 8y ago
    At least yours get delivered. Back then, when Amazon UK used Parcelnet, a substantial number of parcels wouldn't even arrive!
temp1928384 8y ago
I don't actually understand the controversy assuming these policies are transparent to the worker. "Tipped wage" for service staff is nothing new (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage). A lot of states have a much lower "Minimum tipped wage" that, combined with tips, must equal the "minimum wage" or higher. If I'm reading this correctly, Instacart's pricing algorithm didn't even set a "minimum tipped wage" (i.e. say $1/job), which agree does not make sense, but having a "minimum tipped wage" per job and then another guarantee above that including tips is, again, not new. If we want to review, as a society, whether customers should be subsidizing wages for service jobs, then that should be a much larger conversation to be had.
rajacombinator 8y ago
Aren’t the DoorDash kids Stanford grads? How can they hold their heads up having introduced such a scummy business practice? What a disgrace.
mr_toad 8y ago
Maybe there’s some money in a business model that has up-front pricing so that the consumer knows what they’re paying in advance, without worrying about their food getting cold or employees being short-changed. Because the existing system seems like third world style corruption, frankly.

101 points by remote_phone 8y ago

Why are we still tipping at all? This relic of slavery[1] needs to be phased out, not reinforced. [1]. https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-blog/posts/american-tipping-is-rooted-in-slavery-and-it-still-hurts-workers-today/ https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-blog/post...

pbreit 8y ago
As the article admits, tipping predated slavery by a long shot. People like to be able to tip if desired and many/most expect it to be incremental to wages.
- HarryHirsch 8y ago
  That's the American position. You'd like to ask recent immigrants about tipping, and you'd think that a substantial portion of them would like not to leave tips and would prefer that the employer pay their staff proper wages.
Eridrus 8y ago
Because we're in a Nash equilibrium where it isn't rational for any individual actor to change. Restaurants that incorporate the service fee into prices sell less food and particularly booze, leaving them with less money to pay the staff, leading to lower wages for front of house. Given this experience, tipped workers are generally against any legislation that might change the system.
- mikeash 8y ago
  I think tipping is a bit more interesting than that. It’s an equilibrium for the businesses and possibly for the workers, but often not for the customers. One of the strange things about tipping is they people usually still do it even when there’s no need to. It’s rational to tip at a neighborhood restaurant where they might remember you the next time around, but it’s conpletely irrational to tip for a one-off meal in a strange city or at an airport restaurant or whatever. Most of us tip anyway in those situations.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > often not for the customers As someone who tends to tip well, I really don’t mind it. It’s a way to tangibly say “thank you” and “I appreciated your work.” (That said, tips should be above and beyond. Not required, and not included in minimum wages.)
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      Do you actually tip all the people you're thankful to? Or even half of them? I definitely don't; most of them would look at me weirdly if I tried to tip them. So I think that's a tempting story of benevolence people tell themselves but it isn't actually the main reason for tipping.
    - niij 8y ago
      If they want a thank you note they can go volunteer in their free time IMO. I think employers should be paying their employee's wages, not relying on the public to directly pay their salary.
  - platz 8y ago
    Define "rational"
  - Eridrus 8y ago
    Not tipping makes people feel bad, so people often tip to keep their idea of themselves as a good person, not for a "rational" expectation of benefit.
- grogenaut 8y ago
  Restaurants in Seattle that are raising the minimum wage aren't telling me not to tip for the most part except Tom douglas. I'm capable of doing math... I'm tipping so I already am. Tho I realize most peipyare just straight confused by tipping ratios. And I as the patron shouldn't be figuring out your staff's w2. But also I know bartenders at a decent tipping bar (any with a good weekend business) make a lot more than $15-20 minimum wage. A Worked as a bouncer at one of the best bars in STL for tipping (high end late hours) and they'd make 95k+. Wasn't a job you could keep much past 40 unless you just didn't drink tho. As an aside Was one of my better non co-op college gigs, I worked security and valet, so I made 100-200$ tips a night and 10/hr (1995) as a valet bouncer and it was a 12 hour shift (4pm-4am).
  - Analemma_ 8y ago
    To be fair, “Tom Douglas” is like sixteen different restaurants around Seattle. A bunch of bars (Optimism) and non-restaurant food stores (Molly Moon’s) have gone tipless as well. I’m actually optimistic that Seattle is slowly but surely beating back the scourge of tipping.
    - grogenaut 8y ago
      Yeah my point is more that it's not transparent about the wage increases vs tips except at a few places. I'm fine with the way Tom does it. Just wish it would as mor consistent
  - Pfhreak 8y ago
    Molly Moons also tells you not to tip. There's a few places around town that are changing.
Freak_NL 8y ago
Because you (customers in the US) cannot stop that practice without businesses pro-actively ending that practice en-masse. Some idealists have tried to run their business without tipping and paying a fair wage, but those initiatives tend to remain marginal (if they endure at all) because the average US customer dislikes paying the full (and naturally higher) price of a product or service up-front without the tip. Some countries don't do it at all (e.g., Japan), and in a lot of countries people tip only in a few cases — exceptional service that went above and beyond, or rounding up the bill in a restaurant after a good meal. For foreigners the practice of tipping to ensure an employee gets at least a living wage in the US is quite strange. Tipping is deeply cultural, you will be fighting against a phenomenon that is as American as apple pie (metaphorically speaking, it is Dutch in origin of course). Good luck in these days of ongoing identity wars. Do you know of any good ideas to actually make that shift away from tipping happen?
- sofaofthedamned 8y ago
  Yeah. I tried tipping a waiter in Japan, he was genuinely offended. Here in the UK I'll occasionally say keep the change to bar staff in my local but I'm an outlier and it's not expected. America crazy with their entire tipping culture.
- rockinghigh 8y ago
  The US and Canada are really the only countries with mandatory tipping. We should require businesses to display the final price, including all the fees like sales tax, health tax, and service. Uber has done it: you can leave a tip but you don’t have to.
  - dwighttk 8y ago
    what definition are you using for mandatory?
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      "Causes direct and meaningful financial harm to the worker if you don't do it."
samfisher83 8y ago
If you work at a nice restaurant you can make a lot of money with tips. Even at a nice sit down place (not super fancy) with food, appetizers, drinks etc you end up with 120 dollars a table of 4 or 5, a tip on that is 18-30 bucks. If you cover 4 tables in an hour that 72-120/hour. I don't know if you are going to get paid that on a non tip basis.
- berberous 8y ago
  Ive never worked in a restaurant, so I could be wrong, but I think most places pool tips. So you have to split that 72-120, with the line cooks, bus boys, etc.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - URSpider94 8y ago
    Yes and no. A typical setup at fine dining restaurants is a team of a front waiter (takes the orders, lists the specials) and a back waiter (brings the food, keeps drinks filled). Bussers clean and set the table between seatings. You’ll typically tip out the whole wait staff on an even basis, or the front waiter may keep a little more. Then you give something to the busser, but not an even share, and you probably also give something to the expediter, if there is one - the person who manages the window to the kitchen. It would be fairly uncommon to pass on tips to the kitchen. Also note, with a staff like this, you can serve more tables in an hour, maybe 6-7, so there’s more money to go around.
  - bluedino 8y ago
    I’ve only worked in restaurants that pool tips and the line cooks never got any
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    Despite doing most of the work necessary to make the restaurant function, line cooks are generally not included in tip pools. Worse, in same places they are even excluding from being part of tip pools despite not making much more than the waitstaff (on a pre-tip basis).
peterwwillis 8y ago
You're asking consumers to take an optional payment and make it mandatory. Even if they ended up paying the same amount, they'll prefer it be optional.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Spooky23 8y ago
Because it allows both employers and employees to evade taxes and enhance their bottom line.

homero 8y ago

Prime now tells me the tips go directly to drivers. I guess they do in a way. What a lie. Prime now tips https://imgur.com/gallery/mGeZmm1 https://imgur.com/gallery/mGeZmm1

MrMorden 8y ago
Technically correct best correct!

Bahamut 8y ago

I don't think I'm going to tip through Doordash anymore. It's robbery that they misled users by saying the tips go 100% to the driver and it turns out this is not the case.

foobiekr 8y ago
the problem to be solved is how to tip cash and still expense it. At least my employer will not reimburse a tip above a small one-person amount which makes not tipping on the CC problematic.
SirensOfTitan 8y ago
I just stopped using Doordash. I’ve had drivers drive hours out of their way to pick up food because doordash had incorrect restaurant location data. I’ve had orders where drivers just drive home and never pick up my order. Each time it is hellish trying to get support to do anything about it. Doordash, like most food delivery services, takes much more of a cut out of the delivery experience than the value they provide. These apps are glorified CRUD apps with little differentiating them. If anything goes wrong it often is a nightmare, and I’ve never had an experience where one of these apps has correctly detected and fixed an issue with a delivery—each time I have to identify then fight their dark patterns to get a human to help me. Uber categorically improved taxi service for consumers at the very least. These food delivery apps have honestly made the experience worse for consumers and for drivers.

davelee 8y ago

Tip cash?

homero 8y ago
Prime now says it's not allowed
- gamblor956 8y ago
  How is Prime going to know you tipped cash?
- sigfubar 8y ago
  Lots of things aren’t allowed.
- fucking_tragedy 8y ago
  That's gross.

mikeash 8y ago

I’m surprised there isn’t more of an outcry about this from other services. I can’t really be bothered to keep track of which ones are honest, so I’m probably going to just avoid all of them. (Obviously I don’t use them much to begin with, but if enough other casual users feel the same way it could hurt.)

lancesells 8y ago

I had no idea Amazon was doing this as well. I specifically checked the wording on Prime Now once the Instacart story broke.

learc83 8y ago

So as a customer, Amazon is just going to pay less if I tip a driver? I tip $0, I effectively only harm Amazon. Do drivers see that they aren't being tipped before they drop off packages?

koolba 8y ago
> Do drivers see that they aren't being tipped before they drop off packages? Don’t give Bezos ideas!

Pfhreak 8y ago

As good a reason as any to stop using Prime Now. Unfortunate, because it was pretty useful. Then again, between the fulfillment center conditions, stealing tips from drivers, the over the top IP restrictions ("we own everything our employees do"), or the way it yanked around all those cities for HQ2... I suppose if folks valued worker conditions they'd probably already being untangling themselves from Amazon.

jabo 8y ago

If you’re thinking of avoiding these services (which may cause you inconvenience, less demand for the service and less jobs generated for workers), I’d recommend instead to just avoid tipping via the platform. Tip in cash, square cash or Venmo. This still provides drivers the guaranteed minimum from the service and the tip you give in cash is truly 100% going to the person as a bonus. The worst part of this though is DoorDash outright deceiving me by prominently saying 100% of the tip goes to Dashers every time I checkout. When I read that I assume it’s a bonus, not that DoorDash will then reduce their portion of the pay. Seeing that message, I’ve been religiously tipping via DoorDash, not any more. It’s only cash from here on.

didibus 8y ago
Works just like waiters and waitresses no?
- kurthr 8y ago
  No, increasing tips in the jar increases their pay proportionally. Their starting point is low, but gains are real, except when the manager puts themselves as the 99.9% beneficiary of tips... which would be viewed just as negatively.
  - anamexis 8y ago
    This is not entirely true. The federal minimum wage for tipped jobs is $2.13/hour, with the employer only required to make up the difference if the employee doesn't break $7.25/hour in tips + wages. In these situations, the tips received between the minimum tipped wage and the minimum wage work exactly like the DoorDash / Instacart wages: they are net zero for the employee. Of course state and municipal minimum wages sometimes supersede these minimums, but they often have their own separate minimum wages for tipped jobs.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      In these situations, the tips received between the minimum tipped wage and the minimum wage work exactly like the DoorDash / Instacart wages: they are net zero for the employee. I'm not sure why people keep repeating this like they think it means something. The tipped minimum wage is $2.13/hour (higher in most states), significantly lower than the regular minimum wage, because tipped workers almost always made more than federal minimum wage when tips were included. To repeat, for emphasis: the federal tipped minimum wage for employees is only $2.13/hour. In the rare event that a tipped worker doesn't make at least federal minimum wage including tips, the employer is required to make up the difference, but this backstop was added to the law much later. It is the exception, not the rule, and it is wholly inappropriate to treat it like the standard case. EDIT: This is different from what Amazon and DoorDash do, since they claim the fee they pay the driver is $X, under the general legal definition of "tip", any tip paid should be on top of the $X. They can look forward to class actions and DoL investigations in their near future since "tip" has an actual legal meaning for labor law purposes that you can't redefine in a ToS.

tyingq 8y ago

I imagine there's a number of class action firms now aware of the opportunity and salivating. There might even be 2 cases...one for buyers, one for drivers.

unreal37 8y ago
This is neither illegal nor hidden, so I'm not sure there's any case here. A good portion of the US economy is based on paying workers less because they receive tips. And even the tax system has evolved to guess the tips for workers so that they don't just pocket the money without tax.
- tyingq 8y ago
  It's highly deceptive, and more egregious than other practices around tips. There's already one filed on Instacart for similar practices: https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/05/instacart-faces-class-action-lawsuit-regarding-wages-and-tips/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/05/instacart-faces-class-acti... And Instacart backed off the policy as a result: https://www.eater.com/2019/2/6/18214354/instacart-delivery-worker-pay-tipping-policy-doordash https://www.eater.com/2019/2/6/18214354/instacart-delivery-w... In any case, you don't have to take a class action all the way to court to inflict damage.
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  > This is neither illegal nor hidden Now I'm curious. Are you a lawyer, and is this legal advice?

pbreit 8y ago

DoorDash’s blog post on the matter is ridiculous: https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/article/Should-I-tip-my-Dasher https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/article/Should-I-tip-m... How can they possibly justify the bit about dashers receiving 100% of tips which is repeated several times?

notable_user 8y ago
They explain _exactly_ how it works in the 2nd paragraph. 100% of the tip goes to the dasher, and then the base pay scales to hit the “minimum”. That’s obviously lame, since you’d have to basically tip over the minimum to see the pay change. But they lying when they say “100%”.
- roblabla 8y ago
  If DoorDash pays less when you tip, then the money is effectively going to DoorDash, not the dasher...
  - BoiledCabbage 8y ago
    Effectively, but not nominally. Which is why it's so sleezy.
bjterry 8y ago
There are a bunch of different knobs that you can tweak to make this "feel" like the dashers are either receiving the tips or not. 1. Suppose DoorDash provides a minimum payout of $0.01 instead of whatever algorithm they use. Then, clearly, 100% of your tip goes to the dasher. 2. Suppose you tip the dasher $1000 under the current system. The dasher receives $1001 and 100% of your tip feels like it's going to the driver. 3. Suppose dashers are paid a minimum of $100 per order, and your tip never reaches that level. In this case it feels like 0% of your tip is going to the dasher. We actually don't have enough numbers to know which of these is more like reality as far as I know. If the typical tip is much larger than the minimum, then the minimum feels like it’s just protecting the dasher and their compensation is just tips. If it’s calculated to be right at the level of a typical tip or larger than it is clearly manipulative.

didibus 8y ago

What is Amazon Flex and wjy doesn't the article mention Amazon beyond the title?

breatheoften 8y ago

Well — that gets me deleting the DoorDash app with alacrity. That is a very scummy behavior.

cheez 8y ago

What about Uber eats?

908087 8y ago
Given Uber's history, I'd be inclined to assume the worst.
malandrew 8y ago
They do not do this. They explain exactly how fees are calculated in their FAQ. Tips are not included in the calculation. https://help.uber.com/partners/article/how-are-delivery-fares-calculated?nodeId=5aecf430-8e00-4608-ba0a-8bba5b104023 https://help.uber.com/partners/article/how-are-delivery-fare...
- cheez 8y ago
  Weird, I don't see anything about a tip in there... Ah here it is: https://help.uber.com/partners/article/are-tips-included-in-my-promotions-earnings?nodeId=db621f93-1d18-42b5-bc95-272ba9f1f5ba https://help.uber.com/partners/article/are-tips-included-in-...

908087 8y ago

It would take a seriously sleazy group of people to not only come up with this idea, but implement it and continue to defend it after caught. Apparently the "tech" world has the definition of "innovation" mixed up with the one for "deception". How disruptive!

RobLach 8y ago

Who wants to join my team working on a new app called Tippr? It provides an easy way to tip delivery drivers working for Amazon and the like.

dogweather 8y ago
Interesting, but how would it be different from just using square cash?
- RobLach 8y ago
  I was joking but after thinking about it: maybe the driver would have to sign up and you'd track their route and correlate with delivery stops so a tipper would just need to send a tip to "whoever delivered". Add a browser extension for when you order through there to automatically take over the box on the order form.

officemonkey 8y ago

Disrupting the business model means sucking the juice out of everything. I got a package delivered by Amazon. It was "left in a secure location" according to the Amazon delivery driver. Turns out it was delivered at 9 pm, left outside my condo building in a February winter storm. I can't complain about it (short of the item review) and Amazon doesn't learn that their driver sucks. But hey, it's better for Amazon's bottom line, and divorce attorneys aren't free, ya know.

jjeaff 8y ago
"sucking the juice" is a fun way to put it. Uber for example, is thought of a company that is streamlining transportation and this profiting off of the increased efficiency. In reality, what appears to be happening is Uber is a massive scheme to siphon off vehicle depreciation for an enormous number of drivers that are hard up for cash. The VCs aren't the only ones subsidizing cheap rides. The drivers are taking the brunt of it.
dx87 8y ago
There's a driver for Amazon that regularly delivers packages to my house that reek of cigarette smoke, to the point that I have to open it outside and throw the box away to keep my house from stinking. I'm in the same boat as you, no way that I know of to complain about the driver.
- HarryHirsch 8y ago
  At least yours get delivered. Back then, when Amazon UK used Parcelnet, a substantial number of parcels wouldn't even arrive!

temp1928384 8y ago

I don't actually understand the controversy assuming these policies are transparent to the worker. "Tipped wage" for service staff is nothing new (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage). A lot of states have a much lower "Minimum tipped wage" that, combined with tips, must equal the "minimum wage" or higher. If I'm reading this correctly, Instacart's pricing algorithm didn't even set a "minimum tipped wage" (i.e. say $1/job), which agree does not make sense, but having a "minimum tipped wage" per job and then another guarantee above that including tips is, again, not new. If we want to review, as a society, whether customers should be subsidizing wages for service jobs, then that should be a much larger conversation to be had.

rajacombinator 8y ago

Aren’t the DoorDash kids Stanford grads? How can they hold their heads up having introduced such a scummy business practice? What a disgrace.

mr_toad 8y ago

Maybe there’s some money in a business model that has up-front pricing so that the consumer knows what they’re paying in advance, without worrying about their food getting cold or employees being short-changed. Because the existing system seems like third world style corruption, frankly.