Half of Instacart’s drivers earn less than minimum wage, labor group claims (opens in new tab)

I believe these services will fail if employment laws are ever strengthened, or held up more rigorously.

The 'not so dirty secret' of the American economy is that it 'depends' (i.e. in it's current form) on tons of cheating, illegal migrant labour, de-fact sub-minimum wage, skimping on health benefits etc. etc..

It's 'sustainable' only to the extent that some workers, particularly undocumented - are willing and able to take the crap for the opportunity for a new life. Which is only slightly fair (fair to the extent that were a foreign workers regime legalized, conditions would be ballpark where they are now, and it would legally be 'legit' and there'd be plenty of workers).

But in socialized countries, I just don't see it working, the numbers don't add up.

I see these services working in NY/SF/LA and 'parts' of Chicago, maybe Ft. Lauderdale, Boston i.e. wealthier areas - the rest - no way, at market wages. London of course, maybe Paris. Though probably most of Asia.

I just don't see this as mathematically viable in Scandinavian countries, or Canada, or most of the US.

The end-game will require more efficiency in delivery, for example like some kind of better pickup arrangements for buildings, maybe ownership by the grocery companies so there's fewer entities trying to take money from the pie, possibly some kind of 'weekly delivery/sign up' for longer term engagement etc..

All of these gig economy companies seem pretty fragile, they are all risky investments. Most of them are only one court decision or legislation from being put into a difficult position.

Instacart was straight up stealing tips until they were caught: https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2019/2/6/18214335/inst...

I wouldn't listen to anything they have to say on the matter of pay. They have zero credibility.

I hate their tip-stealing practice but I wish there'd been more concrete details of methodology for this. Car expenses are all tax deductable and yes paying 15.3% off the top in SSE employment taxes is a hit but it seems like these estimates may underestimate by a few dollars an hour. Not that that's saying much of course, it's still low. I just like hard data in these narrative-driven pieces.

A minimum wage job is not that hard to get if you own a car so I'm curious how long these people are working at less than minimum wage before they find another opportunity. Maybe these people are only working a few hours a week to make a few extra bucks?

I would like to highlight and submit the paradox at the heart of the gig economy. At one end, the gig economy relies on a critical mass of consumers willing to pay for additional value on top in the form of convenience and real-time demand networks, but at the same time the economic model also leads to a race to the bottom as it assumes and necessitates that every request is served with the least amount of friction possible (capital, labor or otherwise). Which creates a problem, if the future of work is an expansion of the economic trends behind the gig economy (cost reductions by passing the buck onto the employees and highly dynamic workforces), then that logically means the number of people who have the capability to afford it in the first place also decreases as the buying power of the populace decreases.

We are trapped in a strange loop. The excess buying power of consumers that has arisen from capitalism has also led the same system to incentivize services and practices that are reducing the buying power of consumers.

Our old way of looking at things in isolated subsets will bring us to ruin. We really should adopt a new perspective and a new way of doing things where we view our economies as ecosystems or networks might clarify why these changes are occurring (the gig economy is far from the only change that's happening). For example, we can look at excessive economic inequality and understand why it is bad by looking at natural ecosystems and how they are a closed loop.

For e.g. Consumers are like plankton. They are the injection of biomass (money) into the system that ensures money changes hands when they buy goods and services. A single entity, no matter how rich, cannot provide equivalent mass to the greater ecosystem than a large set of consumers. Or, in other words, a billionaire requires only so many pairs of sunglasses and Netflix subscriptions. Ergo, a broad base of wealth where people can afford the products around them is essential for a capitalistic ecosystem to function, as these plankton keep feeding entities higher up in the food chain through an accumulation effect.

For whatever reason, just like we have decimated our natural environment, we have also decimated our economic ecosystem. The number of entities with high purchasing power is rapidly decreasing, and this signals a significant problem for the future of the ecosystem. And it also suggests how automation can end up eating itself economically unless we institute measures - artificial or otherwise - that inject capital back into the building blocks of the economy.

I suspect that as computing gets better, we will eventually create models that will make the invisible transparent and make our debates about these topics quaint to people of this future. Maybe what we need more than just lobbying instacart is systems that allow us to see economies in real-time and simulate outcomes of individual, highly variable, irrational agents at unprecedented scales in order to give policymakers definitive answers about issues like this, for we are governing blind and I am afraid of what the future holds for us.

If they regulate the gig economy, most of these people will be out of work. The reason is that a company like Instacart will need to make sure that these minimum wage employees are bringing enough value to the company, which means less people being hired.

We need to ask the question, is it better to have more people making less money or less people making more money?

If you interviewed them again, do you think they would rather get paid less than minimum wage for a contract gig or nothing?

These are also contract gigs that allow a certain amount of flexibility that you don't have with a regular job (no boss, work when you want, etc).

If you can't afford to pay your bills, you should get a different job (Minimum wage jobs aren't hard to come by). This isn't going to be solved through government regulation nor should it be the fault of the company offering work.