I saw the ceo speak at a YC event in NYC a few years ago, and I looked around the room and thought "what the fuck is this shit". I guess Instacart ticked the checkbox of tackling a problem that doesn't scale, something YC looks for. To me it symbolizes everything I hate about startup culture- the CEO trying to change the world by doing something mundane, the circle jerk celebrating a stupid idea and dubious ethical practices...etc.

> Yo, grocery store shopping doesn't suck bad enough to pay someone else to do both the shopping and delivering! I'll pick up the pre-picked-up/bought groceries. I don't need you to delivery them directly to my fridge; I think I can handle that part. Just bring them out to my car when I pull up.

Re: Pickup

Where I live (a huge city) this is easily an hour minimum affair. And I mean just going to, finding parking (the pick up spots are always full on weekends) and getting back home. And that's with the grocery store being a ~10-15 minute drive.

This isn't even considering the fact that I really don't enjoy grocery shopping. It's anxiety inducing for me. It was worth the $20-30 for me, personally.

I'd usually be at home doing chores I miss out on during the week while waiting for my order. Greet the delivery person, fridge the stuff and get back to chores/enjoying my infrequent time off.

I mean, Instacart is awful and I stopped using them the last time they fucked with their employees pay based on both moral grounds and the fact that it incentivized their employees to cut a million corners.

It is a useful service to me however. I no longer need to own a car or pay for two lyfts back and forth from the grocery store, so thats several hundred to several thousands dollars I save every year now that I got rid of my last need for a car. If I lived outside of a city where a car was mandatory I could see it being relatively worthless but in the city, its a massive cost and time saver

> grocery store shopping doesn't suck bad enough to pay someone else to do both the shopping and delivering

I actually like going to the grocery store, but I still have been using instacart a few times a month (up to today) for various reasons:

- One of my kids is homesick or having a nap and I can't go to the store

- My day is packed with work and I can't go to the store

- I have guests over the holidays that I would rather spend time with than go to the store

- I'm doing something important with my kids on the weekend and I'd rather do that than go to the store

- My kid tells me that they need something for school tomorrow and there's no gap of time left in the day when I can go to the store

All of that said, I'm stopping today because of this article. Their ethics are reprehensible. They specifically say in the app that 100% of my tip goes to the driver. That's true only if you look at it with very shaky logic -- they fail to mention that they deduct an equal amount from their base pay.

Instacart is great for people who live in urban areas and don't have a vehicle. If you live in a rural area or have a car then it's definitely not as useful. Because of things like instacart I can rely completely on public transit and am able to get rid of my car (saving hundreds a month).

> "The logistics of laser-guided-bomb-type delivery of groceries from store to fridge is asinine."

Eh, most grocery stores have offered delivery service for decades, but this service typically isn't advertised to the 'young yuppie/hipser with disposable income' demographic because traditionally it's been assumed that the people who need/want grocery delivery are the elderly and infirm.

If you go looking for it or ask about it, you'll probably find it's available. It's much less formal and digital than instacart; it's typically not as trendy and sexy as a smartphone app. But that's likely a reflection of the target demographic they have in mind.

I haven't had a good experience with those pick-up services either. For the amount of time I've waited in my car for the "ready" groceries, I could have just done my shopping.

And fuck the whole substitution thing. Now I have to make all the goddamn decisions I would have had to in the store anyway. Plus, if they don't have X, I'd get Y, but you're offering Cherry-X instead. So after my shopping, I still have to go shopping.

> literally is unscalable

Not everything needs to scale better than O(n).