Shit I use slice to order pizza for the local place, I tip well(30% or more weather depending) and the delivery person generally thanks me as I receive my food for the tip.
I am going to have to move if they were being sarcastic . I really hope they get the tips.
Last time I ordered via Doordash and set my tip value to 0, they still auto-bumped it to 15%. (Still tipped the driver in cash cause i’ve done that job and know the pain) It’s some white hot bullshit and I’m tired of these companies playing both sides.
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Hail Hydra
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
People should stop using food delivery contractors period because they are a massive ripoff and distort the cost of food for the restaurant. They don't just charge delivery fees and mandate tip that may or may not be a reasonable amount. Many of them also jack up the prices of the menu items which makes the restaurant seem more expensive than it is which can drive down overall patronage.
Grubhub has been buying tens of thousands of domain names that resemble those of businesses they either work with or are pitching to get on the platform, reports New Food Economy. Those domains, of which Grubhub owns as many as 23,000, are used to resemble a landing page for the official business, complete with an online ordering form, despite the sites being completely unassociated with the restaurants themselves.
Restaurant owners are calling the practice predatorial, noting that Grubhub is leading customers to believe they’re ordering directly from restaurants to help businesses avoid paying fees to Grubhub.
That is flagrant trademark violation, isn't it? I can't believe a legal department would ever sign off on that.
The motto of a ton of these Silicon Valley startups is "Move fast and break shit they can't stop us all"
That and I wouldn't be surprised if it's in their agreements with the restaurants. I have a close friend that owns a sushi place in Cleveland and he told Grubhub to fuck off when they approached him because he didn't want anyone seeing a menu with his restaurant's name on the top but with every roll's price increased by $2. It's seriously such a waste of money I can't believe they are as popular as they are.
People should stop using food delivery contractors period because they are a massive ripoff and distort the cost of food for the restaurant. They don't just charge delivery fees and mandate tip that may or may not be a reasonable amount. Many of them also jack up the prices of the menu items which makes the restaurant seem more expensive than it is which can drive down overall patronage.
Grubhub has been buying tens of thousands of domain names that resemble those of businesses they either work with or are pitching to get on the platform, reports New Food Economy. Those domains, of which Grubhub owns as many as 23,000, are used to resemble a landing page for the official business, complete with an online ordering form, despite the sites being completely unassociated with the restaurants themselves.
Restaurant owners are calling the practice predatorial, noting that Grubhub is leading customers to believe they’re ordering directly from restaurants to help businesses avoid paying fees to Grubhub.
That is flagrant trademark violation, isn't it? I can't believe a legal department would ever sign off on that.
The motto of a ton of these Silicon Valley startups is "Move fast and break shit they can't stop us all"
That and I wouldn't be surprised if it's in their agreements with the restaurants. I have a close friend that owns a sushi place in Cleveland and he told Grubhub to fuck off when they approached him because he didn't want anyone seeing a menu with his restaurant's name on the top but with every roll's price increased by $2. It's seriously such a waste of money I can't believe they are as popular as they are.
People love convenience and will happily pay for it as long as they don't realize they are paying for it.
Charge someone $10 for a sandwich and a $15 delivery fee and they will say no thanks, charge them $17.50 for the sandwich and 7.50 for delivery and they will say yes please. People feel that delivery should be cheap, because they undervalue labor and lowball how long they think it takes. If a restaurant isn't charging you a hefty delivery fee, it's because they are overcharging everyone who doesn't get delivery.
So now I need a phone app service to bring me cash so I can tip other services...
And you can choose to tip your cash deliverer digitally through the app, or have the app charge you a convenient $3 fee to break your cash delivery into smaller bills so you can tip in cash!
Hmm.
How about:
Tipify
- Is an overlay that sits over your gig apps.
- You place an order, Tipify intercepts it, places the order for you, but with the minimum tip.
- Tipify app on the delivery guys side syncs with your Tipify order, as does the restaurant.
- Restaurant menu is displayed unaltered in the customer's Tipify app, along with the savings if you hadn't ordered with the other app, but instead gone to the restaurant.
- Can tip directly to the delivery guy through Tipify, bypassing the other app.
- Clearly denoted 1% of Tips goes to sustaining the app, shown before Tip is sent.
Hmm.
How about:
Tipify
- Is an overlay that sits over your gig apps.
- You place an order, Tipify intercepts it, places the order for you, but with the minimum tip.
- Tipify app on the delivery guys side syncs with your Tipify order, as does the restaurant.
- Restaurant menu is displayed unaltered in the customer's Tipify app, along with the savings if you hadn't ordered with the other app, but instead gone to the restaurant.
- Can tip directly to the delivery guy through Tipify, bypassing the other app.
- Clearly denoted 1% of Tips goes to sustaining the app, shown before Tip is sent.
Most of the bigger gig economy apps aren't stealing tips. Uber and Lyft aren't. So this app would be strictly worse for the workers in most situations.
This thread made me investigate the service I use in Calgary and see what their practices are, which lead me to the reddit for employees and how they decide which deliveries are worth taking. Glad I tip well all the time.
While I’m on the Fuck DoorDash team here, can I point out that this kind of arrangement is nothing new? It’s the way tipping has worked for decades.
In the great many states that allow lower “tipped employee” minimums, employees are still guaranteed the full normal minimum wage if their tips don’t get them there. So a server might make (using approx numbers from the last time I worked in a restaurant) like $2.15 an hour plus tips, but if they earn no tips the restaurant has to pay them the difference to get them to $7.25 an hour.
Which means that the first $5 an hour of tips they received were effectively going to the employer.
It’s the same exact system. You are guaranteed $Y after tips, but the employer only pays $X if you are actually tipped with X<<Y. The only difference is it’s happening in a restaurant where you are sitting, and that it’s a custom that goes back to before you were born.
Edit: To be clear, this isn’t to suggest any of this is a good thing. Just interesting that it’s been going on so long in one context that nobody bats an eyelash, but once it’s happening in an app it’s an uproar.
Edit: Aaaand of course I also just noticed that those minimum numbers above haven’t changed since the last time they were relevant to me. And that’s depressing
everyone complains about tipping in the service industry and how it's stupid and bad and shouldn't exist. but that's not the topic of this thread.
I think the fact that it’s in no way unique to doordash or the gig economy is relevant. There are literally millions of non-app employers doing this exact same thing today in the US. It’s the widely accepted norm.
Call me legitimately curious why DoorDash doing it is of unique concern.
everyone complains about tipping in the service industry and how it's stupid and bad and shouldn't exist. but that's not the topic of this thread.
I think the fact that it’s in no way unique to doordash or the gig economy is relevant. There are literally millions of non-app employers doing this exact same thing today in the US. It’s the widely accepted norm.
Call me legitimately curious why DoorDash doing it is of unique concern.
Because servers who work for tips universally make more than minimum wage and it's only the same as long as $tip is less than $7.25/hour.
If I give a server at a restaurant a $30 tip then they get $30. If I give a DoorDash driver a $30 tip they get whatever 20% of my order was and the rest goes to DoorDash, which isn't what it says I'm doing in the app.
If the app just said, "There's a 20% tip for the driver factored into your bill" then that'd be fine. Instead it has a "pick how much you want to give the driver" control that doesn't actually determine how much the driver gets.
everyone complains about tipping in the service industry and how it's stupid and bad and shouldn't exist. but that's not the topic of this thread.
I think the fact that it’s in no way unique to doordash or the gig economy is relevant. There are literally millions of non-app employers doing this exact same thing today in the US. It’s the widely accepted norm.
Call me legitimately curious why DoorDash doing it is of unique concern.
Because (as has been pointed out in the Uber thread) these services sold themselves on being better than what came before. If they're doing all the same bad practices as their predecessors (as well as adding new ones) - why should we support them?
Plus, what DoorDash is doing is worse - they're just outright pocketing the tip.
everyone complains about tipping in the service industry and how it's stupid and bad and shouldn't exist. but that's not the topic of this thread.
I think the fact that it’s in no way unique to doordash or the gig economy is relevant. There are literally millions of non-app employers doing this exact same thing today in the US. It’s the widely accepted norm.
Call me legitimately curious why DoorDash doing it is of unique concern.
Because servers who work for tips universally make more than minimum wage and it's only the same as long as $tip is less than $7.25/hour.
If I give a server at a restaurant a $30 tip then they get $30. If I give a DoorDash driver a $30 tip they get whatever 20% of my order was and the rest goes to DoorDash, which isn't what it says I'm doing in the app.
If the app just said, "There's a 20% tip for the driver factored into your bill" then that'd be fine. Instead it has a "pick how much you want to give the driver" control that doesn't actually determine how much the driver gets.
My misunderstanding, I must have missed the post where this was discussed. Every story I’ve seen, including the OP, deals with cases where the tip is less than the guarantee, and deducted from it.
I was under the assumption that tips in excess of the guarantee still go to the driver, and simply wipe the guarantee. But that a $30 tip does mean the driver gets $30. I guess I was wrong? Pocketing tips in excess of the guarantee seems like it would be illegal though.
everyone complains about tipping in the service industry and how it's stupid and bad and shouldn't exist. but that's not the topic of this thread.
I think the fact that it’s in no way unique to doordash or the gig economy is relevant. There are literally millions of non-app employers doing this exact same thing today in the US. It’s the widely accepted norm.
Call me legitimately curious why DoorDash doing it is of unique concern.
Because (as has been pointed out in the Uber thread) these services sold themselves on being better than what came before. If they're doing all the same bad practices as their predecessors (as well as adding new ones) - why should we support them?
Plus, what DoorDash is doing is worse - they're just outright pocketing the tip.
It's not worse? A restaurant also basically pockets the difference between the wage without tips and minimum wage. Sure the timing is different but it is effectively the same.
I'm pretty sure these services sold themselves on being more convenient for the customer.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
everyone complains about tipping in the service industry and how it's stupid and bad and shouldn't exist. but that's not the topic of this thread.
I think the fact that it’s in no way unique to doordash or the gig economy is relevant. There are literally millions of non-app employers doing this exact same thing today in the US. It’s the widely accepted norm.
Call me legitimately curious why DoorDash doing it is of unique concern.
Because (as has been pointed out in the Uber thread) these services sold themselves on being better than what came before. If they're doing all the same bad practices as their predecessors (as well as adding new ones) - why should we support them?
Plus, what DoorDash is doing is worse - they're just outright pocketing the tip.
It's not worse? A restaurant also basically pockets the difference between the wage without tips and minimum wage. Sure the timing is different but it is effectively the same.
I'm pretty sure these services sold themselves on being more convenient for the customer.
In the handful of states (including the entire west coast) where tipped employees are paid the full minimum it’s definitely worse. In the many states where tipped employees are paid nearly the same, it’s probably also worse.
But yeah, in the majority of states this story is “DoorDash drivers are basically paid like tipped employees.” Not really shocking. This is how tipped employees are paid across most of America.
But you cannot understand the war being waged against ordinary people in America without understanding the lattice of institutions that, under the mantle of "doing good" and disrupting, are building a new digital feudalism.
He touches on the anti-labor philosophy of Silicone Valley, Stanford cranking out plutocrats, Saudi Arabia propping up climate change, philanthropy as image-cleaning, and a few other things.
He gives a pretty good overview of the shittyness of the gig economy.
I'm gonna start keeping some on hand because of this.
No joke, I tip entirely in cash now. I went from only cash as a college student to only cards in my twenties and now back to cash for tips in my thirties.
Especially when you look at credit card service charges and how tips may or may not be equitably divided amongst staff.
I've asked a few of my pizza delivery professionals and they enthusiastically endorse cash.
Also the method by which this is done changes the impact a lot as well even in states with shittier minimum wage laws. In an 8 hour shift you are going to lose $40 in tips if the minimum is $2.25 (for ease of calculations). That's equivalent of 6 deliveries of potentially lost tips depending. If you are doing 2 an hour you can lose up to $112 in the same time frame. This gets much, much worse the more efficient you are. Fuck anyone trying to ramp up an abusive system to maximize their own profits.
Gnizmo on
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
I'm still confused. Would it be better for them not to have a minimum? That way, every dollar the driver is tipped goes straight to them. And if the customer doesn't tip, they get nothing. This policy seems like an attempt to protect the employee from the deadbeats. But they didn't think about how it looks to the customer when they figure out their tips aren't needed anymore. That was dumb of them, but where does the abuse of the employees come in? If anything it's the customers being deceived.
@zek@HamHamJ i am interested in this aspect of it. I still think they're doing something different from what you think you're doing. Did you see the posts I'm spoiling below? If there's any way they're actually doing an effort to protect the employee, I want to know, because it looks like they could have done this and didn't.
.... isn't that a good thing? like if you get a garbage tipper, we will ensure you get what we guaranteed?
that seems good!
No. DoorDash should be paying the rider the guarantee and the tip.
Or just the tip, as they did before the change. The NBC article that reported on this had quotes from drivers saying that their income immediately fell significantly when Instacart or Doordash rolled out these policies.
It sounds like a good thing until you realize that the guaranteed amount now is too small. In the system you're thinking about, the guarantee amount G would be equal to the minimum tip M plus the old system fee F.
So in the old system, if the customer doesn't tip, the gig worker receives only F, which sucks. But if the customer tips $10, they get F plus 10.
In your hypothetical, the gig worker would get G if they tipped nothing, but F plus 10 if the customer tipped $10. A simple, good thing for the company to do. Just a minimum tip program. It's not what hedgie is demanding, a straight increase in F, so you get G plus 10 when they tip $10, but it's better than what they had, and it's what the policy sounds like when the company describes it.
What they actually did is dramatically reduce F, so the amount they subtract from every big tip is bigger than what they put in if there's no tip. So you make G instead of F if you don't get tipped, but you get F plus seven, or something, on the ten dollar tip. It's what you thought plus a secret pay cut, combined to be confusing.
I guess I'm just confused. Was the driver not told up front that it was a guaranteed amount of money and that it would be that regardless of tip?
i.e. If I was told I would be paid a fixed total of $10 for delivering food regardless of whether I was tipped or not, I would expect to paid no more or less than $10
if that was not communicated to me, than yes, there would be a problem.
edited for clarity (hopefully)
Think of it like you used to get $7 plus any tip, and now you get $10 plus anything the customer tips over $6. If people were mostly tipping over $3 anyway, you're getting paid less, the customer is getting charged the same, and the company is making more money on tips of $4 or $5. And $4 is the default.
I made all these numbers up, of course
They could have done $10 plus anything the customer tips over $3, but instead they did $10 plus anything the customer tips over $6. They didn't just make a minim
@mcdermott my understanding is that for restaurants they do the minimum aspect of this but not the pay cut aspect. If you tip the worker enough that they would make minimum wage plus $5, the worker doesn't get minimum wage plus $2. In doordash they do. The minimum amount of tip for some of it to go to the worker is greater than the amount of extra pay the worker gets if there's no tip.
I'm gonna start keeping some on hand because of this.
No joke, I tip entirely in cash now. I went from only cash as a college student to only cards in my twenties and now back to cash for tips in my thirties.
Especially when you look at credit card service charges and how tips may or may not be equitably divided amongst staff.
I've asked a few of my pizza delivery professionals and they enthusiastically endorse cash.
I get emphatic "Thank you!"s whenever even I pay pretty much any cash for tips, even if it's just a couple dollars and not close to the 20% most people expect.
I think the better system that is being suggested here is "they should pay the driver this minimum in addition to the tips they get." But that's not really what a minimum is, that's just giving the driver more money every time. Obviously everybody wants that, but it isn't really relevant to the issue that I'm guessing this policy wants to address. It seems like they want to make it so the driver can rely upon always getting a basic tip even if the customers are deadbeats. Thus the whole point of this minimum policy is that they only receive it if the customer tips nothing or very little. Am I wrong? I'm quite puzzled by the way most people in this thread are interpreting it.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
I think the better system that is being suggested here is "they should pay the driver this minimum in addition to the tips they get." But that's not really what a minimum is, that's just giving the driver more money every time. Obviously everybody wants that, but it isn't really relevant to the issue that I'm guessing this policy wants to address. It seems like they want to make it so the driver can rely upon always getting a basic tip even if the customers are deadbeats. Thus the whole point of this minimum policy is that they only receive it if the customer tips nothing or very little. Am I wrong? I'm quite puzzled by the way most people in this thread are interpreting it.
Yes, I think you are! I am trying to look at it the same way - they were never going to just raise the pay and not pay attention to the minimum aspect. If they pay you the whole minimum when someone tips well, and you get the whole tip, that's not a minimum! That's just a raise!
What they MIGHT have done, which is what you're suggesting, is add in a minimum, but not change the pay if you got tipped past the minimum. So if you used to get $10 and a $10 tip, you get $20 now. If you used to get $10 and a $0 tip, you get $12 now.
What they DID is add in a minimum and cut the pay if you got tipped past the minimum. So if you used to get $10 and a $10 tip, you get $17 now. If you used to get $10 and a $0 tip, you get $12 now.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
The core thing that offends me is that people's overall pay went down when they added the minimum. That's not adding a minimum!
Tip well, tip in cash. They can lie and not pay taxes on some of it. Which is the only way to survive with a job that relies on tips.
The gig economy just offloads all the overhead and additional expenses onto the employee. It would be like a restaurant who told waiters to go ahead and bring in their own plates and silverware.
I think the better system that is being suggested here is "they should pay the driver this minimum in addition to the tips they get." But that's not really what a minimum is, that's just giving the driver more money every time. Obviously everybody wants that, but it isn't really relevant to the issue that I'm guessing this policy wants to address. It seems like they want to make it so the driver can rely upon always getting a basic tip even if the customers are deadbeats. Thus the whole point of this minimum policy is that they only receive it if the customer tips nothing or very little. Am I wrong? I'm quite puzzled by the way most people in this thread are interpreting it.
There was an Adam Ruins Everything about tipping. The idea being pushed is that you should get rid of tipping altogether, but IF AND ONLY IF the restaurant/service in question is actually paying the employee enough that they don't need tips to supplement their income.
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Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
everyone complains about tipping in the service industry and how it's stupid and bad and shouldn't exist. but that's not the topic of this thread.
I think the fact that it’s in no way unique to doordash or the gig economy is relevant. There are literally millions of non-app employers doing this exact same thing today in the US. It’s the widely accepted norm.
Call me legitimately curious why DoorDash doing it is of unique concern.
Because (as has been pointed out in the Uber thread) these services sold themselves on being better than what came before. If they're doing all the same bad practices as their predecessors (as well as adding new ones) - why should we support them?
Plus, what DoorDash is doing is worse - they're just outright pocketing the tip.
It's not worse? A restaurant also basically pockets the difference between the wage without tips and minimum wage. Sure the timing is different but it is effectively the same.
I'm pretty sure these services sold themselves on being more convenient for the customer.
restaurants only do this in some states
doordash operates in states where restaurants are not able to do this
I'm still confused. Would it be better for them not to have a minimum? That way, every dollar the driver is tipped goes straight to them. And if the customer doesn't tip, they get nothing. This policy seems like an attempt to protect the employee from the deadbeats. But they didn't think about how it looks to the customer when they figure out their tips aren't needed anymore. That was dumb of them, but where does the abuse of the employees come in? If anything it's the customers being deceived.
@zek@HamHamJ i am interested in this aspect of it. I still think they're doing something different from what you think you're doing. Did you see the posts I'm spoiling below? If there's any way they're actually doing an effort to protect the employee, I want to know, because it looks like they could have done this and didn't.
.... isn't that a good thing? like if you get a garbage tipper, we will ensure you get what we guaranteed?
that seems good!
No. DoorDash should be paying the rider the guarantee and the tip.
Or just the tip, as they did before the change. The NBC article that reported on this had quotes from drivers saying that their income immediately fell significantly when Instacart or Doordash rolled out these policies.
It sounds like a good thing until you realize that the guaranteed amount now is too small. In the system you're thinking about, the guarantee amount G would be equal to the minimum tip M plus the old system fee F.
So in the old system, if the customer doesn't tip, the gig worker receives only F, which sucks. But if the customer tips $10, they get F plus 10.
In your hypothetical, the gig worker would get G if they tipped nothing, but F plus 10 if the customer tipped $10. A simple, good thing for the company to do. Just a minimum tip program. It's not what hedgie is demanding, a straight increase in F, so you get G plus 10 when they tip $10, but it's better than what they had, and it's what the policy sounds like when the company describes it.
What they actually did is dramatically reduce F, so the amount they subtract from every big tip is bigger than what they put in if there's no tip. So you make G instead of F if you don't get tipped, but you get F plus seven, or something, on the ten dollar tip. It's what you thought plus a secret pay cut, combined to be confusing.
I guess I'm just confused. Was the driver not told up front that it was a guaranteed amount of money and that it would be that regardless of tip?
i.e. If I was told I would be paid a fixed total of $10 for delivering food regardless of whether I was tipped or not, I would expect to paid no more or less than $10
if that was not communicated to me, than yes, there would be a problem.
edited for clarity (hopefully)
Think of it like you used to get $7 plus any tip, and now you get $10 plus anything the customer tips over $6. If people were mostly tipping over $3 anyway, you're getting paid less, the customer is getting charged the same, and the company is making more money on tips of $4 or $5. And $4 is the default.
I made all these numbers up, of course
They could have done $10 plus anything the customer tips over $3, but instead they did $10 plus anything the customer tips over $6. They didn't just make a minim
@mcdermott my understanding is that for restaurants they do the minimum aspect of this but not the pay cut aspect. If you tip the worker enough that they would make minimum wage plus $5, the worker doesn't get minimum wage plus $2. In doordash they do. The minimum amount of tip for some of it to go to the worker is greater than the amount of extra pay the worker gets if there's no tip.
The difference is entirely in wording. A waiter is told they make $2.50/hr plus tips. That is the agreed upon wages. But, on the back end, if they are getting really shitty tips, the restaurant will guarantee they make at least $7.50/hr.
DoorDash (I think, I haven't actually checked), tells drivers they guarantee you will make say $7.50 for the delivery "plus tips". Except, just kidding, that plus tips really means tips over a certain amount, because the first $1-5 of the tip just goes to DoorDash not the delivery person. If they had said to the worker, you are making $2.50 for this delivery, plus tips (with the caveat that they will help you out if the tip is shitty so that you get at least $7.50), well the driver might not want that job.
It's about setting expectations for how much you are likely to make. The restaurant way is easy to figure out and transparent (if still shitty). The DoorDash way is bullshit.
"The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
The core thing that offends me is that people's overall pay went down when they added the minimum. That's not adding a minimum!
First, I hesitate to say that overall pay went down based on a small self-reported sample. Without seeing overall numbers across the delivery base it’s entirely possible the median or mean remained consistent, and that what actually happened is high-achieving drivers saw a cut while low-achieving drivers were lifted.
Possible, mind you. We have no idea if that’s actually the case. And an across the board cut to drivers wouldn’t shock me either.
This is actually a concern in the “traditional” tipped employee industry as well. Believe it or not, a lot of servers aren’t entirely interested in abolishing tips; most would prefer a higher minimum *plus* tips, but that’s just saying everybody would like a raise. Duh. But as some restaurants have moved to a flat higher pay, and higher menu prices, with *no* tips expected many servers find their pay drops. Only the lower achieving servers, if any, really benefit from “flat” pay.
DoorDash sounds like they’re basically moving to a flat pay system as well, if the average tip doesn’t exceed the minimum delivery. So instead of the customer choosing whether or not to pay the driver, they’re choosing whether or not to pay DoorDash. The worst thing for DD in this situation is for the customer to figure this out, and best believe that once people are wise to it and stop paying tips via the app (because any tip less than the Min may as well be 0) then the minimum guarantee goes away.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
The core thing that offends me is that people's overall pay went down when they added the minimum. That's not adding a minimum!
First, I hesitate to say that overall pay went down based on a small self-reported sample. Without seeing overall numbers across the delivery base it’s entirely possible the median or mean remained consistent, and that what actually happened is high-achieving drivers saw a cut while low-achieving drivers were lifted.
Possible, mind you. We have no idea if that’s actually the case. And an across the board cut to drivers wouldn’t shock me either.
This is actually a concern in the “traditional” tipped employee industry as well. Believe it or not, a lot of servers aren’t entirely interested in abolishing tips; most would prefer a higher minimum *plus* tips, but that’s just saying everybody would like a raise. Duh. But as some restaurants have moved to a flat higher pay, and higher menu prices, with *no* tips expected many servers find their pay drops. Only the lower achieving servers, if any, really benefit from “flat” pay.
DoorDash sounds like they’re basically moving to a flat pay system as well, if the average tip doesn’t exceed the minimum delivery. So instead of the customer choosing whether or not to pay the driver, they’re choosing whether or not to pay DoorDash. The worst thing for DD in this situation is for the customer to figure this out, and best believe that once people are wise to it and stop paying tips via the app (because any tip less than the Min may as well be 0) then the minimum guarantee goes away.
exactly
what they did is shitty, but if they honored it once people get wise and stop tipping, and if they didn't work so hard to deceive everyone as to what they're doing, it would be roughly analogous to flat pay. But you're right, none of that shit was an accident, and once the grift stops working they'll change the system, because the grift was the point.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
I'm still confused. Would it be better for them not to have a minimum? That way, every dollar the driver is tipped goes straight to them. And if the customer doesn't tip, they get nothing. This policy seems like an attempt to protect the employee from the deadbeats. But they didn't think about how it looks to the customer when they figure out their tips aren't needed anymore. That was dumb of them, but where does the abuse of the employees come in? If anything it's the customers being deceived.
zek HamHamJ i am interested in this aspect of it. I still think they're doing something different from what you think you're doing. Did you see the posts I'm spoiling below? If there's any way they're actually doing an effort to protect the employee, I want to know, because it looks like they could have done this and didn't.
.... isn't that a good thing? like if you get a garbage tipper, we will ensure you get what we guaranteed?
that seems good!
No. DoorDash should be paying the rider the guarantee and the tip.
Or just the tip, as they did before the change. The NBC article that reported on this had quotes from drivers saying that their income immediately fell significantly when Instacart or Doordash rolled out these policies.
It sounds like a good thing until you realize that the guaranteed amount now is too small. In the system you're thinking about, the guarantee amount G would be equal to the minimum tip M plus the old system fee F.
So in the old system, if the customer doesn't tip, the gig worker receives only F, which sucks. But if the customer tips $10, they get F plus 10.
In your hypothetical, the gig worker would get G if they tipped nothing, but F plus 10 if the customer tipped $10. A simple, good thing for the company to do. Just a minimum tip program. It's not what hedgie is demanding, a straight increase in F, so you get G plus 10 when they tip $10, but it's better than what they had, and it's what the policy sounds like when the company describes it.
What they actually did is dramatically reduce F, so the amount they subtract from every big tip is bigger than what they put in if there's no tip. So you make G instead of F if you don't get tipped, but you get F plus seven, or something, on the ten dollar tip. It's what you thought plus a secret pay cut, combined to be confusing.
I guess I'm just confused. Was the driver not told up front that it was a guaranteed amount of money and that it would be that regardless of tip?
i.e. If I was told I would be paid a fixed total of $10 for delivering food regardless of whether I was tipped or not, I would expect to paid no more or less than $10
if that was not communicated to me, than yes, there would be a problem.
edited for clarity (hopefully)
Think of it like you used to get $7 plus any tip, and now you get $10 plus anything the customer tips over $6. If people were mostly tipping over $3 anyway, you're getting paid less, the customer is getting charged the same, and the company is making more money on tips of $4 or $5. And $4 is the default.
I made all these numbers up, of course
They could have done $10 plus anything the customer tips over $3, but instead they did $10 plus anything the customer tips over $6. They didn't just make a minim
mcdermott my understanding is that for restaurants they do the minimum aspect of this but not the pay cut aspect. If you tip the worker enough that they would make minimum wage plus $5, the worker doesn't get minimum wage plus $2. In doordash they do. The minimum amount of tip for some of it to go to the worker is greater than the amount of extra pay the worker gets if there's no tip.
The difference is entirely in wording. A waiter is told they make $2.50/hr plus tips. That is the agreed upon wages. But, on the back end, if they are getting really shitty tips, the restaurant will guarantee they make at least $7.50/hr.
DoorDash (I think, I haven't actually checked), tells drivers they guarantee you will make say $7.50 for the delivery "plus tips". Except, just kidding, that plus tips really means tips over a certain amount, because the first $1-5 of the tip just goes to DoorDash not the delivery person. If they had said to the worker, you are making $2.50 for this delivery, plus tips (with the caveat that they will help you out if the tip is shitty so that you get at least $7.50), well the driver might not want that job.
It's about setting expectations for how much you are likely to make. The restaurant way is easy to figure out and transparent (if still shitty). The DoorDash way is bullshit.
trim batsignals!
There's more to the story than the difference though, in that the old system exists. If pay went down, and mcdermott's anecdata response is well taken, then it's not just that they set the expectations wrong, it's that plus that they cut total compensation for their gig workers.
DoorDash (I think, I haven't actually checked), tells drivers they guarantee you will make say $7.50 for the delivery "plus tips". Except, just kidding, that plus tips really means tips over a certain amount, because the first $1-5 of the tip just goes to DoorDash not the delivery person. If they had said to the worker, you are making $2.50 for this delivery, plus tips (with the caveat that they will help you out if the tip is shitty so that you get at least $7.50), well the driver might not want that job.
It's about setting expectations for how much you are likely to make. The restaurant way is easy to figure out and transparent (if still shitty). The DoorDash way is bullshit
I’d be curious what the DoorDash agreement actually says, yeah. I’d be unsurprised if this is more a case of people not even skimming the terms on an app gig, whereas the fuckery in the restaurant industry is spelled out on the FLSA poster and well known through decades of tradition.
Also that making less than the “full” minimum as a tipped server is...very uncommon in my experience.
Edit: By comparison, in case the implication was unclear, I suspect that DD drivers clearing under minimum after expenses is the norm.
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I'm gonna start keeping some on hand because of this.
No joke, I tip entirely in cash now. I went from only cash as a college student to only cards in my twenties and now back to cash for tips in my thirties.
Especially when you look at credit card service charges and how tips may or may not be equitably divided amongst staff.
I've asked a few of my pizza delivery professionals and they enthusiastically endorse cash.
Cash can enable bad actors among waitstaff to withhold if the policy is to pool tips though. My old roommate used to complain about some of his coworkers that would do that so whenever I visited his bar I paid with a card.
I've been tipping my pizza delivery drivers via card, through the pizza place's app, on the theory that that way the driver knows in advance how much they'll be tipped. Gonna switch to cash as a result of this thread.
I'm gonna start keeping some on hand because of this.
No joke, I tip entirely in cash now. I went from only cash as a college student to only cards in my twenties and now back to cash for tips in my thirties.
Especially when you look at credit card service charges and how tips may or may not be equitably divided amongst staff.
I've asked a few of my pizza delivery professionals and they enthusiastically endorse cash.
Cash can enable bad actors among waitstaff to withhold if the policy is to pool tips though. My old roommate used to complain about some of his coworkers that would do that so whenever I visited his bar I paid with a card.
I've normally heard the opposite on pool tips. Most of my friends that did service jobs hated them, especially for delivery, since they are often using their own car and dealing with the wear and tear that comes with it.
Just as a side note to this discussion, I'm semi-retired and I do the set of food delivery gig jobs (Doordash, Ubereats, Skip the Dishes) to get myself out and about, and earn a few extra dollars. I don't support myself via these apps and mainly do it because I like driving and going places, so I'm not offering any moral opinions on what they do, just clearing up a few things from a driver's perspective.
Some of these places do the "We pay you a delivery fee based on distance + whatever the customer tips you", versus Doordash's "We will pay you X amount to deliver, all included". And, honestly, I prefer Doordash's method simply because it actually results in more pay on average than the other system (people are super cheap on average when they use a delivery app versus paying in cash).
Doordash doesn't shout out that they're using tips to subsidize (though they don't take a lot of steps to hide it from the driver either, the breakdown of where the money came from that you got paid for the delivery is right in the app), but they also don't mislead you by saying "We'll pay you the guaranteed amount plus tips" -- its clearly stated up front that the guaranteed amount includes any tips.
(Though, for the person that used the $20 tip as an example, you get pay over the guaranteed rate when that happens. Basically, the first $7 or so of the tip goes into the Doordash pot, and then the rest goes to the driver upon completion of the delivery. But they never mention over rate guarantees at any point during the orientation process, and it rarely happens anyway.)
I'm gonna start keeping some on hand because of this.
No joke, I tip entirely in cash now. I went from only cash as a college student to only cards in my twenties and now back to cash for tips in my thirties.
Especially when you look at credit card service charges and how tips may or may not be equitably divided amongst staff.
I've asked a few of my pizza delivery professionals and they enthusiastically endorse cash.
Cash can enable bad actors among waitstaff to withhold if the policy is to pool tips though. My old roommate used to complain about some of his coworkers that would do that so whenever I visited his bar I paid with a card.
Really, the solution here would be to just enforce playing workers a decent wage, to where tips aren't necessary.
But capitalism, so I know that's just a pipe dream for now.
Just as a side note to this discussion, I'm semi-retired and I do the set of food delivery gig jobs (Doordash, Ubereats, Skip the Dishes) to get myself out and about, and earn a few extra dollars. I don't support myself via these apps and mainly do it because I like driving and going places, so I'm not offering any moral opinions on what they do, just clearing up a few things from a driver's perspective.
Some of these places do the "We pay you a delivery fee based on distance + whatever the customer tips you", versus Doordash's "We will pay you X amount to deliver, all included". And, honestly, I prefer Doordash's method simply because it actually results in more pay on average than the other system (people are super cheap on average when they use a delivery app versus paying in cash).
Doordash doesn't shout out that they're using tips to subsidize (though they don't take a lot of steps to hide it from the driver either, the breakdown of where the money came from that you got paid for the delivery is right in the app), but they also don't mislead you by saying "We'll pay you the guaranteed amount plus tips" -- its clearly stated up front that the guaranteed amount includes any tips.
(Though, for the person that used the $20 tip as an example, you get pay over the guaranteed rate when that happens. Basically, the first $7 or so of the tip goes into the Doordash pot, and then the rest goes to the driver upon completion of the delivery. But they never mention over rate guarantees at any point during the orientation process, and it rarely happens anyway.)
It's good to know it's just the customer they are lying to then. That is a lot less shitty.
"The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
Just as a side note to this discussion, I'm semi-retired and I do the set of food delivery gig jobs (Doordash, Ubereats, Skip the Dishes) to get myself out and about, and earn a few extra dollars. I don't support myself via these apps and mainly do it because I like driving and going places, so I'm not offering any moral opinions on what they do, just clearing up a few things from a driver's perspective.
Some of these places do the "We pay you a delivery fee based on distance + whatever the customer tips you", versus Doordash's "We will pay you X amount to deliver, all included". And, honestly, I prefer Doordash's method simply because it actually results in more pay on average than the other system (people are super cheap on average when they use a delivery app versus paying in cash).
Doordash doesn't shout out that they're using tips to subsidize (though they don't take a lot of steps to hide it from the driver either, the breakdown of where the money came from that you got paid for the delivery is right in the app), but they also don't mislead you by saying "We'll pay you the guaranteed amount plus tips" -- its clearly stated up front that the guaranteed amount includes any tips.
(Though, for the person that used the $20 tip as an example, you get pay over the guaranteed rate when that happens. Basically, the first $7 or so of the tip goes into the Doordash pot, and then the rest goes to the driver upon completion of the delivery. But they never mention over rate guarantees at any point during the orientation process, and it rarely happens anyway.)
I know that as a customer, I'd be a bit ticked if I thought my tip was going to the delivery person on top of their pay, but it was actually just letting the company get out of paying them part of their agreed upon compensation.
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I am going to have to move if they were being sarcastic . I really hope they get the tips.
That and I wouldn't be surprised if it's in their agreements with the restaurants. I have a close friend that owns a sushi place in Cleveland and he told Grubhub to fuck off when they approached him because he didn't want anyone seeing a menu with his restaurant's name on the top but with every roll's price increased by $2. It's seriously such a waste of money I can't believe they are as popular as they are.
People love convenience and will happily pay for it as long as they don't realize they are paying for it.
Charge someone $10 for a sandwich and a $15 delivery fee and they will say no thanks, charge them $17.50 for the sandwich and 7.50 for delivery and they will say yes please. People feel that delivery should be cheap, because they undervalue labor and lowball how long they think it takes. If a restaurant isn't charging you a hefty delivery fee, it's because they are overcharging everyone who doesn't get delivery.
And you can choose to tip your cash deliverer digitally through the app, or have the app charge you a convenient $3 fee to break your cash delivery into smaller bills so you can tip in cash!
How about:
Tipify
- Is an overlay that sits over your gig apps.
- You place an order, Tipify intercepts it, places the order for you, but with the minimum tip.
- Tipify app on the delivery guys side syncs with your Tipify order, as does the restaurant.
- Restaurant menu is displayed unaltered in the customer's Tipify app, along with the savings if you hadn't ordered with the other app, but instead gone to the restaurant.
- Can tip directly to the delivery guy through Tipify, bypassing the other app.
- Clearly denoted 1% of Tips goes to sustaining the app, shown before Tip is sent.
Most of the bigger gig economy apps aren't stealing tips. Uber and Lyft aren't. So this app would be strictly worse for the workers in most situations.
In the great many states that allow lower “tipped employee” minimums, employees are still guaranteed the full normal minimum wage if their tips don’t get them there. So a server might make (using approx numbers from the last time I worked in a restaurant) like $2.15 an hour plus tips, but if they earn no tips the restaurant has to pay them the difference to get them to $7.25 an hour.
Which means that the first $5 an hour of tips they received were effectively going to the employer.
It’s the same exact system. You are guaranteed $Y after tips, but the employer only pays $X if you are actually tipped with X<<Y. The only difference is it’s happening in a restaurant where you are sitting, and that it’s a custom that goes back to before you were born.
Edit: To be clear, this isn’t to suggest any of this is a good thing. Just interesting that it’s been going on so long in one context that nobody bats an eyelash, but once it’s happening in an app it’s an uproar.
Edit: Aaaand of course I also just noticed that those minimum numbers above haven’t changed since the last time they were relevant to me. And that’s depressing
I think the fact that it’s in no way unique to doordash or the gig economy is relevant. There are literally millions of non-app employers doing this exact same thing today in the US. It’s the widely accepted norm.
Call me legitimately curious why DoorDash doing it is of unique concern.
Because servers who work for tips universally make more than minimum wage and it's only the same as long as $tip is less than $7.25/hour.
If I give a server at a restaurant a $30 tip then they get $30. If I give a DoorDash driver a $30 tip they get whatever 20% of my order was and the rest goes to DoorDash, which isn't what it says I'm doing in the app.
If the app just said, "There's a 20% tip for the driver factored into your bill" then that'd be fine. Instead it has a "pick how much you want to give the driver" control that doesn't actually determine how much the driver gets.
Because (as has been pointed out in the Uber thread) these services sold themselves on being better than what came before. If they're doing all the same bad practices as their predecessors (as well as adding new ones) - why should we support them?
Plus, what DoorDash is doing is worse - they're just outright pocketing the tip.
My misunderstanding, I must have missed the post where this was discussed. Every story I’ve seen, including the OP, deals with cases where the tip is less than the guarantee, and deducted from it.
I was under the assumption that tips in excess of the guarantee still go to the driver, and simply wipe the guarantee. But that a $30 tip does mean the driver gets $30. I guess I was wrong? Pocketing tips in excess of the guarantee seems like it would be illegal though.
It's not worse? A restaurant also basically pockets the difference between the wage without tips and minimum wage. Sure the timing is different but it is effectively the same.
I'm pretty sure these services sold themselves on being more convenient for the customer.
In the handful of states (including the entire west coast) where tipped employees are paid the full minimum it’s definitely worse. In the many states where tipped employees are paid nearly the same, it’s probably also worse.
But yeah, in the majority of states this story is “DoorDash drivers are basically paid like tipped employees.” Not really shocking. This is how tipped employees are paid across most of America.
He touches on the anti-labor philosophy of Silicone Valley, Stanford cranking out plutocrats, Saudi Arabia propping up climate change, philanthropy as image-cleaning, and a few other things.
He gives a pretty good overview of the shittyness of the gig economy.
No joke, I tip entirely in cash now. I went from only cash as a college student to only cards in my twenties and now back to cash for tips in my thirties.
Especially when you look at credit card service charges and how tips may or may not be equitably divided amongst staff.
I've asked a few of my pizza delivery professionals and they enthusiastically endorse cash.
@zek @HamHamJ i am interested in this aspect of it. I still think they're doing something different from what you think you're doing. Did you see the posts I'm spoiling below? If there's any way they're actually doing an effort to protect the employee, I want to know, because it looks like they could have done this and didn't.
They could have done $10 plus anything the customer tips over $3, but instead they did $10 plus anything the customer tips over $6. They didn't just make a minim
@mcdermott my understanding is that for restaurants they do the minimum aspect of this but not the pay cut aspect. If you tip the worker enough that they would make minimum wage plus $5, the worker doesn't get minimum wage plus $2. In doordash they do. The minimum amount of tip for some of it to go to the worker is greater than the amount of extra pay the worker gets if there's no tip.
I get emphatic "Thank you!"s whenever even I pay pretty much any cash for tips, even if it's just a couple dollars and not close to the 20% most people expect.
Yes, I think you are! I am trying to look at it the same way - they were never going to just raise the pay and not pay attention to the minimum aspect. If they pay you the whole minimum when someone tips well, and you get the whole tip, that's not a minimum! That's just a raise!
What they MIGHT have done, which is what you're suggesting, is add in a minimum, but not change the pay if you got tipped past the minimum. So if you used to get $10 and a $10 tip, you get $20 now. If you used to get $10 and a $0 tip, you get $12 now.
What they DID is add in a minimum and cut the pay if you got tipped past the minimum. So if you used to get $10 and a $10 tip, you get $17 now. If you used to get $10 and a $0 tip, you get $12 now.
The gig economy just offloads all the overhead and additional expenses onto the employee. It would be like a restaurant who told waiters to go ahead and bring in their own plates and silverware.
There was an Adam Ruins Everything about tipping. The idea being pushed is that you should get rid of tipping altogether, but IF AND ONLY IF the restaurant/service in question is actually paying the employee enough that they don't need tips to supplement their income.
restaurants only do this in some states
doordash operates in states where restaurants are not able to do this
The difference is entirely in wording. A waiter is told they make $2.50/hr plus tips. That is the agreed upon wages. But, on the back end, if they are getting really shitty tips, the restaurant will guarantee they make at least $7.50/hr.
DoorDash (I think, I haven't actually checked), tells drivers they guarantee you will make say $7.50 for the delivery "plus tips". Except, just kidding, that plus tips really means tips over a certain amount, because the first $1-5 of the tip just goes to DoorDash not the delivery person. If they had said to the worker, you are making $2.50 for this delivery, plus tips (with the caveat that they will help you out if the tip is shitty so that you get at least $7.50), well the driver might not want that job.
It's about setting expectations for how much you are likely to make. The restaurant way is easy to figure out and transparent (if still shitty). The DoorDash way is bullshit.
First, I hesitate to say that overall pay went down based on a small self-reported sample. Without seeing overall numbers across the delivery base it’s entirely possible the median or mean remained consistent, and that what actually happened is high-achieving drivers saw a cut while low-achieving drivers were lifted.
Possible, mind you. We have no idea if that’s actually the case. And an across the board cut to drivers wouldn’t shock me either.
This is actually a concern in the “traditional” tipped employee industry as well. Believe it or not, a lot of servers aren’t entirely interested in abolishing tips; most would prefer a higher minimum *plus* tips, but that’s just saying everybody would like a raise. Duh. But as some restaurants have moved to a flat higher pay, and higher menu prices, with *no* tips expected many servers find their pay drops. Only the lower achieving servers, if any, really benefit from “flat” pay.
DoorDash sounds like they’re basically moving to a flat pay system as well, if the average tip doesn’t exceed the minimum delivery. So instead of the customer choosing whether or not to pay the driver, they’re choosing whether or not to pay DoorDash. The worst thing for DD in this situation is for the customer to figure this out, and best believe that once people are wise to it and stop paying tips via the app (because any tip less than the Min may as well be 0) then the minimum guarantee goes away.
exactly
what they did is shitty, but if they honored it once people get wise and stop tipping, and if they didn't work so hard to deceive everyone as to what they're doing, it would be roughly analogous to flat pay. But you're right, none of that shit was an accident, and once the grift stops working they'll change the system, because the grift was the point.
trim batsignals!
There's more to the story than the difference though, in that the old system exists. If pay went down, and mcdermott's anecdata response is well taken, then it's not just that they set the expectations wrong, it's that plus that they cut total compensation for their gig workers.
I’d be curious what the DoorDash agreement actually says, yeah. I’d be unsurprised if this is more a case of people not even skimming the terms on an app gig, whereas the fuckery in the restaurant industry is spelled out on the FLSA poster and well known through decades of tradition.
Also that making less than the “full” minimum as a tipped server is...very uncommon in my experience.
Edit: By comparison, in case the implication was unclear, I suspect that DD drivers clearing under minimum after expenses is the norm.
Cash can enable bad actors among waitstaff to withhold if the policy is to pool tips though. My old roommate used to complain about some of his coworkers that would do that so whenever I visited his bar I paid with a card.
I've normally heard the opposite on pool tips. Most of my friends that did service jobs hated them, especially for delivery, since they are often using their own car and dealing with the wear and tear that comes with it.
Some of these places do the "We pay you a delivery fee based on distance + whatever the customer tips you", versus Doordash's "We will pay you X amount to deliver, all included". And, honestly, I prefer Doordash's method simply because it actually results in more pay on average than the other system (people are super cheap on average when they use a delivery app versus paying in cash).
Doordash doesn't shout out that they're using tips to subsidize (though they don't take a lot of steps to hide it from the driver either, the breakdown of where the money came from that you got paid for the delivery is right in the app), but they also don't mislead you by saying "We'll pay you the guaranteed amount plus tips" -- its clearly stated up front that the guaranteed amount includes any tips.
(Though, for the person that used the $20 tip as an example, you get pay over the guaranteed rate when that happens. Basically, the first $7 or so of the tip goes into the Doordash pot, and then the rest goes to the driver upon completion of the delivery. But they never mention over rate guarantees at any point during the orientation process, and it rarely happens anyway.)
Really, the solution here would be to just enforce playing workers a decent wage, to where tips aren't necessary.
But capitalism, so I know that's just a pipe dream for now.
It's good to know it's just the customer they are lying to then. That is a lot less shitty.
I know that as a customer, I'd be a bit ticked if I thought my tip was going to the delivery person on top of their pay, but it was actually just letting the company get out of paying them part of their agreed upon compensation.