
DoorDash and Amazon Won’t Change Tipping Policy After Instacart Controversy - remote_phone
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2019/02/08/doordash-and-amazon-wont-change-tipping-policy-after-instacart-controversy
======
jabo
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.

~~~
drawkbox
> _DoorDash outright deceiving me by prominently saying 100% of the tip goes
> to Dashers every time I checkout_

This is the biggest part that is misleading and makes a good service a bit
shady.

I tip well because I wanted my food to be handled well and the driver to get a
nice payment out of it. I also want the driver to make sure the order is good
and correct, I am willing to pay extra for that. Now DoorDash is telling me
they decide that for me and the driver. I think they should do something to
change that or at least remove that message.

I have also read on reddit in the subreddits for these services like
/r/doordash/ that because they pay low for some routes, even if people tip
well, that dashers double up on deliveries. Sometimes the service asks them to
and knocks their acceptance rate if they don't, or offers really far
deliveries for cheap. I wanted to tip enough so they weren't racing or
doubling up.

~~~
fipple
Why shouldn’t they double up?

~~~
drawkbox
> _Why shouldn’t they double up?_

It is fine if they have to do that where it makes sense, but I want to know so
I can choose not to use the service then if the deliveries are far and food is
will be affected, or allow customers to tip high enough that the driver does
not need to double up.

DoorDash should have a service fee that allows you to choose level of delivery
then, that you can choose single stop. If they are short on drivers, then
increase prices, don't downgrade service.

DoorDash forces many drivers to double up, even if the tip is high and it
harms them algorithmically on acceptance rate if they don't.

DoorDash just provides the logistics. The food quality, speedy delivery and
customer should be the focus here. I feel like some of these policies take
away from quality from customers and value from drivers.

If I am already paying higher costs for the food, a service fee, and a tip,
which usually turns into 30-40% higher food costs, you'd think quality,
customer desires and driver loyalty would matter.

------
Simulacra
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/post...](https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-
blog/posts/american-tipping-is-rooted-in-slavery-and-it-still-hurts-workers-
today/)

~~~
Freak_NL
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?

~~~
bogomipz
>"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."

Danny Meyer, a very prominent restauranteur in the US eliminated tipping in
favor of a "hospitality included" model. That was in 2015. It has endured
since. His restaurants are among some of the best in NYC. He's stated
repeatedly that customers are quite happy with it. See:

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-danny-meyers-lonely-
war-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-danny-meyers-lonely-war-on-
tips-1535169670)

and

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenfeldman/2018/01/14/danny-m...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenfeldman/2018/01/14/danny-
meyer-on-eliminating-tipping-it-takes-a-year-to-get-the-math-
right/#64b0e50a431f)

~~~
BoiledCabbage
Tons of restaurants in Seattle have eliminated tipping entirely and have a
high wage for waitstaff.

------
pbreit
DoorDash’s blog post on the matter is ridiculous:
[https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/article/Should-I-
tip-m...](https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/article/Should-I-tip-my-
Dasher)

How can they possibly justify the bit about dashers receiving 100% of tips
which is repeated several times?

~~~
bjterry
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.

~~~
unreal37
Also, what percentage of people tip? I feel like that number is going down.
These apps and services disconnect the service from the tip to such a degree
that I no longer feel bad not tipping or feel good tipping well.

~~~
jjeaff
And we really shouldn't tip. The whole point of all these streamlining
technologies is to be able to better track everything and ensure good service.

Pay the workers what they deserve and charge the customers what you need to.

This ridiculous game where the more generous people subsidize the rest of the
customers out of guilt is absurd.

------
officemonkey
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.

~~~
dx87
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
At least yours get delivered. Back then, when Amazon UK used Parcelnet, a
substantial number of parcels wouldn't even arrive!

------
Pfhreak
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.

------
Bahamut
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.

~~~
SirensOfTitan
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.

------
908087
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!

------
homero
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
Technically correct best correct!

------
learc83
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
> Do drivers see that they aren't being tipped before they drop off packages?

Don’t give Bezos ideas!

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

------
breatheoften
Well — that gets me deleting the DoorDash app with alacrity.

That is a very scummy behavior.

------
tyingq
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
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
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-
acti...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/05/instacart-faces-class-action-
lawsuit-regarding-wages-and-tips/)

And Instacart backed off the policy as a result:
[https://www.eater.com/2019/2/6/18214354/instacart-
delivery-w...](https://www.eater.com/2019/2/6/18214354/instacart-delivery-
worker-pay-tipping-policy-doordash)

In any case, you don't have to take a class action all the way to court to
inflict damage.

------
temp1928384
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.

------
RobLach
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
Interesting, but how would it be different from just using square cash?

~~~
RobLach
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.

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

------
mr_toad
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.

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

------
davelee
Tip cash?

~~~
homero
Prime now says it's not allowed

~~~
gamblor956
How is Prime going to know you tipped cash?

------
cheez
What about Uber eats?

~~~
malandrew
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-
fare...](https://help.uber.com/partners/article/how-are-delivery-fares-
calculated?nodeId=5aecf430-8e00-4608-ba0a-8bba5b104023)

~~~
cheez
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-...](https://help.uber.com/partners/article/are-tips-included-in-my-
promotions-earnings?nodeId=db621f93-1d18-42b5-bc95-272ba9f1f5ba)

