[mrlala]

Having used instacart (through Costco) and walmart grocery delivery almost exclusively for the past 10 months.. I'm more amazed at how cheap it is, and I'm a bit worried that employees are not getting paid enough.

Costco is probably the more 'reasonable' one. They mark up the products probably 5-10%. So this one I feel that the delivery people are probably being paid ok.. although my nearest costco is 16 miles away (about 25min).. so it kind of feels like a steal to be able to get delivery from them for what feels like not a whole lot more.

Walmart is closer, but there are no markups.. and I pay whatever $10/mo for free delivery from them. Order multiple times a month.

I'm honestly not sure I'm going to go back to the stores as often even when things are normal.

[Melting_Harps]

> Having used instacart (through Costco) and walmart grocery delivery almost exclusively for the past 10 months.. I'm more amazed at how cheap it is, and I'm a bit worried that employees are not getting paid enough.

Are you really? What have you tried to modify this as a result?

Many gig workers have their tips taken away or obscured in some cases, as in the lawsuit settled by Doodash recently, which is most of their total income from these things: the algo sets the base salary as close as the lower minima for it to get picked up.

Have you ever considered just paying them more outright: as in leave an envelope at your door with the sum of money you think they're worth? Or simply asking them to contact you directly to be their personal shoppers if things were done to your satisfaction? I saw the former more often, with token sums like $5/10 by some well intentioned people but really the latter would be the more impactful solution and had been done prior to this for the affluent/exec class long ago.

Just so it's clear, the markup on those apps isn't going to the contractor's pay, its their to generate revenue for the core business to pump its valuation with fluff and prove its MVP has the potential to reach profitability... someday in the undetermined future. The gig worker gets as little as the market will bare most times, the app is optimized that way, and often has to be 'stacked' to make it even worth their time or will remain bouncing around in the limbo if no one picks it up.

I spent a lot of time looking at Doordash's business model during the pandemic while I went back to school or supply chain management after having done supply chain and logistics in the Auto Industry. I even did it myself to understand it's implications as a 3PL supply chain solution ahead of its IPO last year and it was super eye opening.

These things are horrible and are specifically targeted to the ever growing under underclass of Society. I'd say its borderline predatory given how much they gameify it in their favour.

> I'm honestly not sure I'm going to go back to the stores as often even when things are normal.

And quite frankly these apps/platforms are relying on you doing exactly that to justify its business model and will operate at a loss to do so in order for a massive IPO valuation and more VC money.

It's really quite sick, but it seems almost inevitable at this point given how many businesses have been shut down during this pandemic.

If I had the time and resources I would really want to do a talk at the Chaos Computer Club on it, as I think it really needs to be exposed for what it is amongst the Technorati who help built this monstrosity. I saw a Software guy who wanted to get the analytics on rejected offers from various regions with an app that tracked the acceptance ratios and other metrics, so the data exists out there somewhere.