
DoorDash’s about-face on tipping shows customers have more clout than workers - rschnalzer
https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-07-25/doordash-tipping-amazon-flex-drivers
======
Spivak
Do we really need an article to say that the people who pay a company have
more influence than the people the company pays. This is pretty much always
going to be true in unspecilized labor.

Also, if their new system still has something like the "call option" to
guarantee minimums it still seems like it's in everyone's best interest to not
tip and get DoorDash paying as much as possible.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> This is pretty much always going to be true in unspecilized labor.

Not when regulation steps in. That is what labor law and regulation is for.

The "gig economy" was a tech industry attempt to sidestep labor law, and the
law is finally catching up. And mind you, you don't have to outlaw how gig
workers are currently treated as contractors everywhere to break these
platforms; just in places large enough that without those markets, the
platform is no longer barely sustainable (for example, 25% of Uber's bookings
occur in just five cities: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and
São Paulo). It doesn't matter much for platforms if gig workers are still
legal in say, Wyoming.

[https://www.wired.com/story/california-lawmakers-move-
protec...](https://www.wired.com/story/california-lawmakers-move-protect-gig-
economy-workers/) (Wired: California Lawmakers Move to Protect Gig-Economy
Workers)

~~~
fuzz4lyfe
What regulation ever caused firms to care more about workers than their
customers?

~~~
knightofmars
I don't think anyone said "care". Regulations are meant to force firms to meet
a minimum level of a requirement (eg safety, anti-discrimination, etc).

------
goobynight
Seems obvious to me. Most companies will take the most unreasonable customer
complaint and ask how they can fix the customer's boo boo, with a smile.

Meanwhile, a reasonable complaint from staff could be seen as an uprising of
the working class.

You can also think of it this way: when 15% of your staff leave, you at least
don't have to pay them. You get a 100% discount on 15% of your old headcount.
Maybe you take some of those savings to bribe other staff to pick up the slack
before the replacements come in.

If 15% of your customers leave, that's just money gone and you're stuck
holding the bag on everything from inventory to leases, to salaries, and your
own idle time.

------
dawhizkid
I’ve become somewhat fascinated by consumer activism and think there’s a
missing opportunity to build something like change.org specifically to boycott
specific companies, products, etc to pressure change.

Edit: should throw in I actually submitted this idea for Startup School and in
the early MVP ideation/building phase.

~~~
fifnir
One of the projects i've daydreamed about is an app where you sign up for
issues that you care about like water privitization or palm oil etc, and then
you scan a barcode and get a report of whether the product is connected to any
of those problems. You will then (hopefully) not buy the product and maybe hit
a button in the app saying that you chose not to buy it.

Every month, the app collects the data from its users and produces a report:
"Dear Nestle, this month you lost $X of revenue on account of people
boycotting you because of this or that."

I think it's important to send some kind of negative feedback to companies.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Similar to [https://www.buycott.com/](https://www.buycott.com/)?

~~~
dawhizkid
Yeah something like this, though looks like a dead project (no activity in a
year)

------
nefitty
Contrast DoorDash's behavior with Postmates:
[https://blog.postmates.com/postmates-pledges-2-per-drinks-
or...](https://blog.postmates.com/postmates-pledges-2-per-drinks-order-to-the-
aclu-89f889d0dd51) [https://blog.postmates.com/taking-a-stance-to-defend-our-
val...](https://blog.postmates.com/taking-a-stance-to-defend-our-
values-d319454a639) [https://www.americaninno.com/chicago/postmates-will-
deliver-...](https://www.americaninno.com/chicago/postmates-will-deliver-food-
to-charities-through-zeropercent/)

It really helps when a company makes a choice between them and their
competitors even easier.

------
40acres
Media has been rightly under fire these past few years, but stories like this
and the recent re-hashing of the Epstein case go to show the power of the
fourth estate.

Reading that Door Dash article was like reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair,
which exposed the realities of working in the meat packing plants in Chicago
at the turn of the century and led to reforms. Tech only makes it easier to
abuse low end labor, its good to see that muckraking is still a viable form of
journalism.

------
notus
Does anyone actually know if this benefits workers? Given how little most
people seem to tip it seems that doordash delivery drivers were likely making
more on average with the model they just moved away from. It is more of a
redistribution of tips across workers. I also didn't hear much complaint about
this from employees but from customers instead and I regularly visit the gig
economy subreddits for workers to see what their complaints are.

~~~
robbiemitchell
Have they announced what the new model will be?

IIRC, it's true that when restaurants shift to a tipless system that (a)
charges the true price up front and (b) distributes the revenue more evenly to
both front of house and back of house, servers end up making less.

It seemed to be the most straightforward thing to do is to charge the customer
the "guaranteed minimum" that they're promising to pay the delivery person,
then add tip on top. The higher sticker price would probably drop demand, but
the people who do deliver would earn more on average. It's also possible,
though, that people will simply stop tipping, leading to a small drop in
average revenue per delivery.

I wish we got rid of tipping for these situations altogether, but I realize
it's useful as a price discrimination mechanism.

------
paulgb
The bad press from NYT kind of forced their hand here: why would anyone keep
tipping on DoorDash once word is out that it's not a tip, it's a donation to
DoorDash Inc.? And if people stop tipping once they know their tips don't
matter, it leaves DoorDash more on the hook for guaranteed delivery fees.

So, glad they are doing the right thing I guess, but I'm not giving them any
points for waiting until they had no other option.

~~~
anigbrowl
Yeah the Doordash CEO should be in prison for wage theft. He ripped his
employees (yes employees) off for what appears to be _millions_ of dollars.

Meanwhile a guy who stole 23 cellphones in an armed robbery was sentenced to
17 _years_ is prison the other day:
[https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2019/7/23/20707907/aries-...](https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2019/7/23/20707907/aries-
rickenbacker-lake-bluff-cellphone-store-robbery)

Now armed robbery is bad, no doubt. If I had heard of this fellow getting 17
months in prison for it I probably wouldn't have thought twice. But 17 years
is ridiculous, even if he will be out in 8 with good behavior. Meanwhile
examples like Doordash show it's basically legal to steal from poor people,
and Bernie Madoff, who stole $20 _billion_ dollars is petitioning for clemency
because he's old and what the hell, it was just money.

~~~
jlawson
Man, legally doing some scummy things with paperwork is one thing. Maybe they
should take the money back.

But violent crime is another thing entirely. The payoff matrix is totally
different and hinges on the neutralization effect. And the damage done by the
crime can't be reversed, unlike pure monetary losses. You can pay back stolen
wages. You can't un-kill a murder victim or un-rape a woman.

Anyone who's ready to point a gun at people and engage a dangerous police
chase needs to be of the street for a while. Ideally, until he ages enough for
his hormone balance to calm him down a notch.

Also note that this dude likely has a record already. If that's the case,
letting him out basically means signing up not innocent citizens to be
terrorized and possibly killed in his inevitable future crimes. Perhaps you're
okay with that risk of you think you won't be the one getting shot. If you
knew you would be his next victim, you'd be asking for more than 17 years.

~~~
anigbrowl
No, the externalities of violent crime are just more obvious. You don't see
all the lives that are wrecked by financial crime.

------
goldcd
Yeees - but whilst this might cause most of the world to "tut-tut", in the US
this obfuscation between wage and tipping already exists:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage)

I was shocked when I realized why the US comparatively tips so well, is
because it's entirely likely you're contributing more to your server's income,
than the restaurant you've just bought the meal from.

------
phil248
This is only going to grow more extreme in the years to come. We finally have
a generation in this country that actually gives a shit. DoorDash didn't
invent bad labor practices. They weren't even part of the first thousand
companies to bilk workers out of tips. But now we have a critical mass of
people who notice and care and are even willing to act (or at least be
outspoken). The apathetic and irrational reign of the boomers is finally,
finally coming to an end.

~~~
frankbreetz
I hope you are correct, and I hope we are reaching the critical point of old
people die and young people coming of voting age that we can elect some
politicians that care about the voters and not the donors.

They say politics is like a pendulum and it seems like we are all the way on
the right and it should start going back to the left any day now.

~~~
jhayward
I'll just say, "I hope you old people die soon, please die faster"
(paraphrase) is quite a hateful thing to say. Especially since roughly half
those older people you want to die actually agree with your preferred
policies.

~~~
frankbreetz
This is what we are up against:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-
environment-48964736](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48964736)
The future is bleak and the only alternative is a paradigm shift, I don't
think the older generation is coming around soon on this

~~~
jhayward
The mistake here is attributing a particular set of policies to a generation
whose only common attribute is when they were born.

'Old' people are not the problem and you will be quite surprised at how many
'young' people have problematic policy views as well.

And the lack of shame at wishing for people's death is alarming and repugnant.

~~~
frankbreetz
Old people are the problem:

[https://news.gallup.com/poll/234314/global-warming-age-
gap-y...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/234314/global-warming-age-gap-younger-
americans-worried.aspx)

Maybe it would have been better to say, the younger generation needs to be
better represented by politicians as they are the ones who will be suffering.
There is only one way this will happen, I am not asking for anything other
then nature taking its course. Maybe I was somewhat crass, but wanting a
culture shift in a very natural way is neither alarming nor repugnant. If
older generations didn't go away, we would still have slaves and society would
be run by kings, and countless other out dated policies. The baby boomer
generation is larger then most so they have more votes and there out dated
views are keeping us from being the best we could be.

~~~
jhayward
Voting-age people 55 and younger (the youngest boomer is 56) have outnumbered
people 56 and over for a long time. And in fact, showed up at the polls in
greater numbers in 2016 and 2018 as well. [1]

Your disrespect for their humanity is indeed alarming and repugnant, as well
as just plain misguided.

If we were to accept your claim that a "generation" can be to blame for
something, today's politics and policy fall squarely on the younger ones based
on their numbers.

------
sctb
Recent discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20516668](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20516668)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20501020](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20501020)

------
chrisseaton
> We thought we were doing the right thing by making Dashers whole when a
> customer left no tip

I don't understand this sentence (probably for cultural reasons) - what does
'whole' mean? Why do they need to be 'made whole' when they don't earn a tip?

~~~
jbigelow76
You may not understand that sentence for cultural reasons because even for
someone familiar with how tipping works in the US they might not understand
the sentence either because it is the very definition of "gaslighting"[1].

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting)

~~~
chrisseaton
Ok... but like literally what does it mean even if it's misleading?

~~~
hombre_fatal
> make-whole. Verb. To restore (someone) to a sound, healthy, or otherwise
> favorable condition.

It's referring to their practice of boosting your per-delivery earnings to
$6.85 if the customer does not tip you enough to meet that minimum payout.

A term you'll often hear wrt paying back creditors/investors/options, making
them whole.

------
mikkergp
Would this have been fair if their contract had said. “We pay $1 per delivery
plus you get to keep all tips. If the total you get from delivery + tips is
less than $10 we’ll pay the difference”

------
projektfu
The thing I don't get: Customer orders a hamburger and DoorDash charges, say
$15. The restaurant charges $12. DoorDash guarantees $9.87 or whatever to the
driver. Generally a customer is not going to tip more than $4-5 for a $15
order. So how is this sustainable? But DoorDash obviously chose their model to
avoid sticker shock of $12 charges on a $12 meal.

------
virgilp
It's fascinating that Americans find this outrageous, given how the very same
Americans consider it to be MY duty to tip 20% (since restaurants, despite
being obscenely expensive, don't actually pay waiters unless waiters get less
than minimum wage in tips; pretty much what DoorDash is doing)

~~~
d1zzy
It seems rather logical to me that a person that believes in tipping also
cares about the tips going to the right person.

Also, obligatory Reservoir Dogs tipping scene (warning, NSFW language):
[https://youtu.be/V4sbYy0WdGQ](https://youtu.be/V4sbYy0WdGQ)

~~~
virgilp
You would think so, no? Yet, the entire US population seems to be fine with
the notion that tips go to the restaurant, not the waiter.

Even in this Reservoir Dogs scene, the guy who brings forward the logical
arguments is presented as a self-serving asshole who doesn't want to pay tips
( sum is ridiculously small - just 1$; and he wants to tip zero, despite ok
service; the rule in most of the world is that you tip something - but far
less than 20% - unless you had really bad service). So this entire sketch
serves as a way to mock even the logical arguments against the tipping culture
in US (what about the McDonalds workers? Is their work any easier? And why -
WHY IN THE WORLD - are the restaurants allowed to dip into funds that are
specifically designated as "tip, for the waiter"? At the very least, pay them
minimum wage PLUS all the tips that they get - there shouldn't even exist a
legal option to not do that!)

------
Simulacra
I wish they would just get rid of tipping all together. Nobody likes tipping.
Pay a reasonable wage and ditch the whole system.

------
minikites
A company can't reward workers without being punished:

[https://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/4/29/15471634/american-
ai...](https://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/4/29/15471634/american-airlines-
raise)

>American Airlines agreed this week to do something nice for its employees and
arguably foresighted for its business by giving flight attendants and pilots a
preemptive raise, in order to close a gap that had opened up between their
compensation and the compensation paid by rival airlines Delta and United.

>Wall Street freaked out, sending American shares plummeting. After all, this
is capitalism and the capital owners are supposed to reap the rewards of
business success.

------
cheeky78
"they should have proactively said he would repay the wages taken from their
workers. Instead, DoorDash will have pocketed millions of dollars taken from
customer tips."

They didn't really 'take wages' from any of the workers. All of the money
coming in is owned by DoorDash. They are now choosing to give a portion of
that to the drivers (the tips).

DoorDash doesn't have a monopoly on gig jobs. You can choose to do something
else if you don't feel the pay is fair. The reason they didn't really care
about the drivers' opinions is because it obviously didn't stop many from
driving.

~~~
markkanof
They really did. The expectation when tipping is that there is some base pay
being paid to the worker and then whatever I tip will be additional pay to the
worker on top of that base. DoorDash was taking money out of that tip to pay
the base pay so workers would then be getting less money than they should
otherwise be getting.

