This reporter is far too trusting.
> Instacart still hasn’t explained exactly what went wrong in calculating Arrigo’s 80-cent fee. But it shows the risks inherent in relying entirely on the “black box” of algorithms that, regardless how clever they are, can sometimes produce baffling results.
if driver_pay < 3:
driver_pay == 3
[Edit:] LOL as seen below. That's probably how they coded it.
Though this is kind of frustrating. Because 99%+ Instacart themselves knew what the formula is. I give a 1% change they legitimately did the math wrong and somehow got it through QA and code review into production and a 99% chance they are being intentionally deceptive by calling it an "algorithm glitch".
They need to come out and say “all tips goes to the driver” or they are going to dies in distrust. No-one wants to buy from or work for a company that downright steals tips from its employees.
US Labor law doesn’t allow tip theft, and changing pay rate dependent on tip value is clearly tip theft.
In effect it is retroactively reversing the pay rate. This is theft.
Just imagine... paying the price that’s advertised. How practical and convenient that would be!
The obvious solution is a law banning the soliciting of tips, and let’s require prices to include sales tax while we’re at it. Call it the “pay what’s advertised” or “fair pricing” law.
Amazing how this glitch also impacts DoorDash, GrubHub, ... and the glitch is to cap how much they will use to offset their costs not actually honor the intent of the tip.
And the quality has gone way down, they'll buyers would suggest a better deal, now they pick the worst if it makes their shopping faster