Instacart fired my wife for running for office. My wife asked for approval to run from her boss, the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, who approved it and the company was excited for her to run.
A couple days after my wife launched her campaign, Instacart did a 180 and told her they had to fire her for running. Bad for business to run for office and criticize a Republican incumbent!
My wife was also pregnant and she told them. They fired her the next day.
My son lost his job so did InstaCart for a while. He got really good at it and started making good money. Then they sent him to an apartment complex but didn't give him an apartment number.
He called support who contacted the customer and said they were on their way and could he wait five minutes. Of course he did but 30 minutes went by.
Contacted support again who said customer would be there in five minutes but, 15 minutes later, support said to just take the goods back to the store.
He took the goods back to the store but the store refused to accept them. Support said he could just donate them or keep them.
Despite showing the back and forth text messages, he was deactivated for not delivering to the customer.
We're supposed to sue companies when they treat us like this but few of us do because it's a difficult process. Companies know this and act with impunity.
I wonder if this would have affected the result, though. I haven't been through either process, but it seems like either would be a venue for making your case and getting a fair judgement. My understanding (which could be totally wrong, please correct me) is that companies mostly force arbitration because it is cheaper and less variable than trials, not necessarily because the results tend to be biased toward them. Is that true?
Buuut it’s probably better for society to not kneecap ordinary folks just for trying to run for office. Otherwise, you only get folks in office with deep pockets who can take the hit.
> The lawsuit says Instacart violated a California law that bars companies from preventing their employees from becoming candidates for public office, among other complaints.
What would be the consequences of ensuring that only those with enough personal wealth to be able to go without a job while campaigning can run for office?
She approached to ask for permission. If they had any reservations, that was the time to discuss them. She did what was expected of an employee. The fact that they blessed her and then went back on their word seems wrong.
Not a lawyer but my intuition says there might be some legal grounds here favouring the wife.
My take is someone even higher up found out later and did not like it. Now it’s entirely possible the individuals who gave their blessings were supportive of the party the wife was standing for, and the ones above them weren’t? Still whoever blessed the campaign did so in their capacity as a senior officer of the company. A total shit show nevertheless.
To the original commenter: sorry this happened to your wife. Hope she’s able to find another job that treats her right. Also congrats on the baby, hoping parenthood makes up for all of this and more. Sending the best of wishes your way.
AFAIK in every US state a company can fire you for any reason that’s not protected, and “we told you this was okay but changed our minds” is as good a reason as any in the law’s eyes.
In many US states a company can fire you even for protected reasons, and just fabricate a reason that isn't protected. Of course there are examples of people fighting this because it sometimes is a fight worth having, but the vast majority just have to accept being discriminated against and try to find another job.
Puerto Rico is technically not a state, but as part of the US, and counted in the statistics of the (federal) Department of Labor, I would also count it as a _not "at-will"_ state.
Correct. If she had something in writing, signed by a person with proper authority in the organization, she might be on stronger footing. But they could just find some other reason, or state "no reason" for her termination, and that's perfectly legal in an at-will employment.
If I ask my employer if I can start a YouTube channel and then after getting permission I start posting videos that make the company look bad, and showing how awesome competitor products were I wouldn't be surprised if I got fired. I wouldn't be fired for the account but what I did with it.
Even if an employee has the authority to make a decision, executive leadership should still have the legal right to terminate someone if they disagree with that choice. Let's not make running a business illegal.
Political beliefs or views are not a "protected class" in US federal employment law. That said, most employers at least say that they support political participation, but once you start taking public actions it becomes a bit different.
If a person made a large contribution or gave other public support to an extremist candidate, an employer might not want any association with that.
If running for an office is going to take up a significant amount of one's time, such that it might impact availability for work during normal hours, an employer would care about that.
In this specfic case, if she was featuring "I work for Instacart" in any way in her campaign they might care about that.
If she was saying anything inflamatory or controversial, Instacart might not want to be associated with that.
So running for a nonpartisan office such as a local council or school board or similar would normally not be any issue. Anything where party politics feature prominently is going to be riskier.
It's a standard practice in suppressing democratic norms yes. The US has a long sordid history of the elites absolutely hating when commoners practice democratic beliefs.
Let's not forget that many of our "founding fathers" deeply hated democracy and when speaking of the "democracy problem" of the 1780s in America it was mostly referring to commoners in Massachusetts participating in civic duties.
This tradition has never went away and is still practiced today.
I mean, running for office is essentially a full time job right?
It seems totally reasonable to both have a law that protects a citizen’s right to run for office without losing their job, but it also seems reasonable to require some sort of coordination with an employer.
(Knowing nothing about this, it is seems like it should work roughly like an extended jury duty.)
> Bad for business to run for office and criticize a Republican incumbent!
I think it's a fully justified reason. If I'm in a senior position and I say something that in someway hurts the company reputation/income, I would be fired. If the company liveness depend on me being fired, the I think the decision is justified.
> Lisa Vedernikova Khanna, a candidate in Virginia, says in a lawsuit that the mobile shopping giant cited concerns her bid could hurt the company with President Donald Trump.
They always had a slimy reputation. I interviewed there very early on and two of the engineers interviewing me told me they fire people 1 day from vesting constantly...
I am of course very sympathetic to your wife and think it is outrageous that someone should lose their job this way but also given the insane behavior of the Trump administration, it seems like Instacart had no choice. I hope she wins the lawsuit and gets paid out but I can’t hate Instacart for being pragmatic.
Can you criticize them instead for firing her for something that their Chief Corporate Affairs Officer explicitly gave her permission to do? If it was a matter of pragmatism, they could have declined her request for permission. (One might separately argue about whether this should be a matter of right vs a matter of permission, but regardless, she did seek permission and was granted it.)
>> but also given the insane behavior of the Trump administration, it seems like Instacart had no choice
That's a terrible attitude that's resulted in some of the worst behaviour of capitulation history has ever recorded. What will you call their "pragmatism" when your the target?
How many examples do we need of the Trump administration doing some illegal move then getting slapped down by the courts? This would be a slam dunk for DoorDash. That they chose to capitulate instead is damning.
The courts eventually ruling against the administration doesn’t undo the harm caused. A Trump tirade against Instacart could be a death sentence for the business.
Based on the ground you're treading I'd be careful with your casual use of "death sentence" when talking about something that is nothing of the sort, but behaviours that are only a few steps from the real thing.
> DoorDash to Acquire Instacart to Help Local Stores Win
> to Help Local Stores Win
Any local store will tell you DD is a necessary evil they put up with but strongly dislike overall. From the % of sales they take to the incredibly rude delivery drivers, DD is not well liked.
On multiple occasions a family member's employees (or they, themselves) have had a DD delivery driver cut to the front of the line, interrupt the cashier, and shove their phone in their face. No words, no anything, just "here is the code/screen/whatever I need to show you to pick up the order". DD doesn't let stores rate delivery drivers so there isn't any recourse.
I worked at a local grocery store while unemployed, and I actually PREFERRED the Doordash/Instacart customers.
Quite a few of them spoke no English, so yes, they'd just present their phone screen. I didn't take it as rude. It was a very clear and direct communication. A simple scan, and boom, nothing further needed, I could just scan their items. Thr QR code scan handled payment and everything. They almost always helped with doing thier own bagging: Time is money, after all.
The supermarket where I shop has a specific checkout station for delivery drivers. I have never seen one in a normal checkout line (not that it might be very obvious, especially if they were shopping not just picking up an order).
What I don't understand is why DD gets any cut of the store's profit. They should be paying retail like anyone else, and their customer paying for the delivery costs.
The supermarket I worked at had a split system. Our internal delivery people had their own checkout area, but it wasn't open 24/7. Doordash and the like had to go through the regular lines regardless.
Yeah mixed blessing at best. Increased volume, but not every 30-table restaurant is set up to do much more; kitchens are sized to expected in-person dining.
And all the stuff you mention.
The one restaurant owner I know who’s happy with DD set up an entirely separate kitchen in an industrial park. But to get to the DD revenue necessary to justify that investment, he had a couple of years of DD hell in his main restaurant.
That sounds like a scary investment to make on behalf of what's effectively a single customer. Without some kind of contractual commitment that locks in volume and price, they would really have you over a barrel.
I hate industrial/ghost kitchens so much. Accidentally ordered from one with friends and it was so off-putting.
Could see the kitchen areas through a window and they weren't necessarily dirty, but looked sketchy for some reason. Few people, robots delivering orders, one set of cooks making the food. Just dystopian.
We might as well just build ready to eat food factories that pipe the slop directly into your house. We got rid of the "inconvenience" of going out to eat and enjoying a restaurant. Why not get rid of the pesky delivery middle-man too?
Look up commissary kitchens. A ton of food is made that way, and I don’t see it as being all that different.
And the DD-specific kitchen I know is basically just a typical restaurant kitchen minus attached dining. You can make slop in an industrial park, you can make slop in a real restaurant (I’ve certainly experienced that).
Why in the world would it be necessary to have dining tables for a kitchen to make good food?
> DoorDash said the median payment to be returned to workers amounts to around $48.
> City officials said about 700 workers are owed more than $10,000 each; more than 27,000 workers are owed more than $1,000; and more than 4,000 workers are owed more than $5,000.
DoorDash also spent (from what I can tell) (1+1.4+1.8) million dollars to campaign against Mamdani.
Culper Research released a report about a year ago indicating a large component of DoorDash labor is very likely undocumented workers (which is not meant to be derogatory towards these workers, but signal that DoorDash needs labor willing to take gig payments on offer to make the model work).
I don't think the platform economics are working post ZIRP ("zero interest rate policy") as wages rise and margins compress, would need more data to understand what forward curves look like.
I love the Mamdani DoorDash story because it demonstrates that government can work. When it doesn't, it's because it's made not to work or the people in charge have absolutely no interest in doing anything than feathering their own nests.
Back during Covid, Congress passed and Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act ("IRA"), which actually did a couple of good things.
One of those was the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax ("CAMT"). For non-Americans, AMTs are a weird thing where Congress basically gives up and decides the tax code is too complex so they give up and say whatever your deductions are, if the AMT produces a higher amount, that's what you have to pay. Every complexity is somebody's special interest so repealing them can be hard. It's kind of why the carried interest tax credit has never been repealed.
Repealing it, as Republicans tried to do, is hard to do because the counter-messaging is "well if the corporate tax rate is 21%, why do you care about repealing a minimum of 15%?". Everybody understands that companies through various tax schemes aren't paying 21% but you can't say that.
But the one I want to talk about is the 10 year plan to increase IRS funding to update incredibly outdated systems and increase enforcement. This was a good measure. And you can tell because the Republican Party lost their minds. They fairly successively propagandized it as the IRS hiring 80,000 agents to go after Joe Q. Citizen. No, it was enforcement against the ultra-wealthy and corporations. So it was killed in 3 years under the guise of "saving money" as well as not persecuting average citizens (which it was never going to do).
It's particularly stupid because money spent on IRS enforcement pays for itself. It's been estimated every $1 spent recovers $7. It pays for itself. But there was no counter-messaging and Republicans could push it through under reconiliation.
Compare that to the 4 year $175 billion increase in ICE funding.
Republicans and conservatives simply don’t believe in taxes, and will take any action to make it as hard as possible to collect them out of ideology. As you mentioned, Mamdani proves government can work [1], and I look forward to more reps like him as election cycles occur and the US electorate turns over.
The DoorDash subreddit is an interesting read. Lately, users are reporting being sent to retail stores to work for 30 minute stints. One anecdote: a person described taking a $25 gig that amounted to going to a Target and stocking one specific brand of shampoo. The stockers there had already filled the shelf, so he took a bottle down and then took a picture of himself putting it back.
But doordash says this merger means more choice for the consumer, how could antitrust play a role here? I mean, unless they're lying about removing choices from the market place will result in more choices in the market place, but doordash wouldn't do that would they?
IMO grocery delivery is a game changer. I don't use either service, but use a different one[s]. Even with a tip (I have been doing $15/per delivery), it's not much more expensive than normal groceries at Trader Joe's etc, and I don't have to put on outdoor clothes, walk to my car, navigate traffic, navigate the aisles, wait in line, reverse... IMO big QOL of life increase.
And second-order effects like I can always have fresh fruit + veggies / not worrying about rot by getting it in smaller quantities delivered more often.
For those wondering about price: It's much cheaper than takeout or prepared food delivery, but more expensive than getting your own groceries. Offset a bit by less food waste.
I suspect this as well. Enjoying it while it lasts... I suspect the facilities being vertically-designed for this helps, but not enough(Especially the prime groceries; I suspect Whole foods has some but not the same extend?)
But if they were gone, the worst is you're putting pants on and getting your own products. There are not essential, they're simply a labor and regulatory arbitrage for gig workers to schlep product to consumers at very low wages.
Antitrust does not have "important service" requirement. What has happened in gaming is another travesty but there is plenty of people who would say it's not "important service". Antitrust must be universal.
TYVM. But I rely on Instacart as I live alone and can't drive anymore since my eye surgery 10 years ago. If I didn't have instacart I don't know how I'd ever get any groceries.
Grocery delivery is an important service for a large chunk of the population. About 40 million people in the country (mostly low income) live in food deserts. Plenty more don't own cars. Doordash & co have burned VC money for a decade to monopolize the delivery pipeline so restaurants and grocery stores rarely hire their own drivers anymore. And now with this kind of consolidation they can raise their prices unchecked.
Do you have a source that these low income Americans are the ones who are ordering food? My understanding was this was largely people with additional disposable income who were doing it for convenience and not necessity as the product for the price was a good enough trade off. I find it hard to believe low income Americans are getting their groceries delivered when they can’t afford the base prices for the most part.
The way this was handled before these gig economy food delivery companies sprang up. People didn't automatically die of starvation because they were disabled and became adults prior to DoorDash. Medicaid and Meals on Wheels fill in some of the gaps depending upon age and state.
These companies springing up put the old ones out of business. For example check the number of restaurants that hire their own drivers now. There's no going back to the "old way" when it doesn't exist. And now this kind of consolidation means they get to jack up prices however they want.
Luckily he came of age just as texting took off. I guess in theory he could of relied upon a translator to make phone calls for him, but his life was much improved by modern communication.
Even if new technology makes things easier for 99% of people who are lazy, but is essential for that last 1%, it's a net positive.
Consolidation in this industry is horrible for everyone. Less competition means higher prices and lower pay.
Could we have more discussion of our current legal/business environment, specifically, the economic opportunities it affords/constrains?
If this merger is approved via consumer welfare standard, should it be contingent upon some constraints? For example, should DoorDash be restricted from participating in the market it coordinates? If it’s a near monopoly in some regions, how will price be controlled without market pressure?
Historically, antitrust action also considers economic opportunity: Bell/AT&T licensed Unix source code for a nominal fee, largely because the 1956 consent decree restricted Bell/AT&T from selling products outside telecommunications.
My initial take to this news was “what about anti trust?!” But I was surprised to learn that DD is essentially non existent in grocery delivery and instacart’s non grocery deliveries are powered by Uber Eats. For two massive brands they really don’t offer the same product.(edit: not effectively, at least) If anything maybe this helps Instacart/DD compete in grocery with the real giants in Walmart and Amazon. I wouldn’t be mad to see DOJ block this but I was just surprised to learn about the landscape of grocery delivery.
For context Walmart, Amazon, and Instacart each have about a quarter of the online grocery delivery market with smaller outfits like Kroger and Albertsons eating up the remaining quarter. If you believe this data, that is.
https://talkbusiness.net/2025/04/online-grocery-sales-rise-2...
Might just speak to the competitive advantage of vertical integration. I.E “we make so much off the selling the product we don’t care if the sale originates on or off platform?” It is surprising though that they wouldn’t force users onto their service. They certainly have the power to
Hey - dumb question that is probably a derail: Is there a practical reason in the US to use Instacart over one of the Amazon services? It seems like they are fighting an uphill battle - Amazon has its own grocery warehouses (Prime food), and owns Whole foods. I haven't cross-shopped recently, but am having a hard time imagining them competing on price with either of those services. I suppose the obvious reason is you aren't limited to those two stores, so if you want specialty items, nice baked goods etc you would use Instacart?
They do compete on price. Amazon charges for Prime, charges extra for delivery, and Whole Foods is generally among the most expensive grocery stores. Instacart offers a ton of cheap alternatives.
> Do you find it, total price charged to card, to be competitive?
Yes. Instacart has low cost retailers like Walmart and Aldi in many areas, and their prices are generally better than Amazon groceries. Now Walmart does also have their own service, so technically you can do that, but then you're limited to just them.
I saw this show up in my newsreader and first thing that crossed my mind was the textbook example of eBay / PayPal acquiring everything, leaving us with probably the worst situation possible for auctions and payments.
I just want to say that the colour contrast on this post is atrocious.
#999999 on a white background is a 2.84:1 contrast ratio, when the minimum requirement for body text is 4.5:1. So this page technically violates the ADA and other accessibility laws.
Am I on the wrong side of perspective? I imagine of these companies are at big risk in a turn down with low margin - competitive space. The model is a tough one to work
Merging reduces platform inefficiencies and drivers can work both situation.
I am actually amazed both companies are alive and making a profit.
I hate this shit. Just another shameless ploy to find choke points in markets and further immiserate all participants in a two-sided market but the rentiers.
Great, both are generally terrible. Nothing like ordering a pizza and having it sit in someone's car for an hour with a driver who has no attachment to the restaurant, who could not care less about what you think. At least delivery drivers employed by the restaurant had some slight incentive to get food to you while it was still edible.
Third party delivery services essentially break the chain of responsibility... food late and cold? tough luck, but please tip in advance. If you don't tip your driver will be very mad at you, maybe they'll text you about it, and we pay them so poorly that it's actually your fault for keeping them impoverished. Talk to our customer service bots and maybe we'll give you a $5 coupon for your next Doordash order.
I do deliveries via gig apps for extra cash and to get away from the computer and it's basically a complete toss up.
Some people are professional about it (I bring my own drink carriers, food bags, etc and have a minor Andretti gene so orders are as quick as the law allows), but most of the others I see doing it may as well not be. Slow, lazy, check nothing, and look like they just fell out of a methadone clinic (read: not the person you want showing up at your door in the dark at 8pm).
It's frustrating if you try to do it properly but get judged by customers like you're some out of work junkie (when, ironically, most people I deliver to live in a lower-income situation than I do).
From the driver's side, you get inundated with low-paying orders, often rapid-fire as you're driving to either pick up or deliver another order (like so bad that if you're not paying attention, you could get into an accident). Like literal Pavlov's dog, bell jingling over the top of the navigation instructions and a big pop up on screen. Essentially [1].
The entire thing is a psychological rat trap (by design as best as I can tell as these apps aren't terribly complicated to build/design; just scale), so it's not a total surprise when your driver fails to provide good service. They actually make it quite difficult to provide good service (e.g., I routinely get "already picked up" orders on my late night runs w/ no compensation for sitting/waiting on restaurant staff).
I think a lot of people should try doing deliveries via these apps a few times just to experience it. The psychological pressure alone likely makes a lot of people crack. It's all quite fucked up.
On the other countering opinion, I am a generally happy customer of both parties for years now (I pay for dashpass). I think I’m probably one of their heavier users as I use both services multiple times per week. Being a caretaker and a new father simultaneously where both DoorDash and Instacart have been a blessing. Life happens and sometimes you really can’t spend the time out of your day to quickly drive out and pickup something or grocery shop.
Food generally arrives warm and if not, a quick heat up in the air fryer generally solves most things. Soup based noodles are generally packed separately that you need to prepare it at home anyway.
My main gripe is there is the general occasional missed small item (like sauces, a drink), which I do complain about in DD. I imagine DD does provide this feedback to restaurants because it has been trending better over time.
On a more macro level this consolidation seems to be trending to a 2 party competition. Uber (and Uber Eats) vs Lyft + DoorDash + Instacart. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lyft and DD merged at some point. Well bought by DD. They already have a partnership.
Instacart fired my wife for running for office. My wife asked for approval to run from her boss, the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, who approved it and the company was excited for her to run.
A couple days after my wife launched her campaign, Instacart did a 180 and told her they had to fire her for running. Bad for business to run for office and criticize a Republican incumbent!
My wife was also pregnant and she told them. They fired her the next day.
Congratulations on the merger.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/15/instacart...
My son lost his job so did InstaCart for a while. He got really good at it and started making good money. Then they sent him to an apartment complex but didn't give him an apartment number.
He called support who contacted the customer and said they were on their way and could he wait five minutes. Of course he did but 30 minutes went by.
Contacted support again who said customer would be there in five minutes but, 15 minutes later, support said to just take the goods back to the store.
He took the goods back to the store but the store refused to accept them. Support said he could just donate them or keep them.
Despite showing the back and forth text messages, he was deactivated for not delivering to the customer.
We're supposed to sue companies when they treat us like this but few of us do because it's a difficult process. Companies know this and act with impunity.
Did you mean "mandatory arbitration"? Suing is such a 20th century action.
I wonder if this would have affected the result, though. I haven't been through either process, but it seems like either would be a venue for making your case and getting a fair judgement. My understanding (which could be totally wrong, please correct me) is that companies mostly force arbitration because it is cheaper and less variable than trials, not necessarily because the results tend to be biased toward them. Is that true?
Fascinatingly, this is not prima facie illegal in many US states! Wow. We live in a corporatist hell hole don’t we?
I'm curious to hear other people's perspectives on why they think they should be illegal?
For example: Suppose you hire someone to help you move furniture.
You can decide you dont like the color of their shoes and tell them to kick rocks.
You dont owe anyone a job, and labor for pay is a contractual agreement, nothing more.
Color of shoes is one thing, that’s fair game.
Buuut it’s probably better for society to not kneecap ordinary folks just for trying to run for office. Otherwise, you only get folks in office with deep pockets who can take the hit.
Sure, it's a dick move. But it's important to distinguish "shouldn't" from "legally can't".
Should you be racist? No. Should you call someone fat and ugly? No.
But personal liberty and freedom require we allow people to make choices and have opinions we don't personally agree with.
It limits the ability for someone to run for office. Making it only so people who CAN afford to not work to run. Seems unfair.
Brendan Eich was fired from Mozilla for a $1k political donation.
Corporatist hellhole was your reaction to that too I imagine.
* Technically resigned, but there was significant pressure from Mozilla.
What would be illegal about firing an employee who you think is causing your company to get a bad image?
The thing about legality is that you kinda get to chose. In your case the companies' interests weight more than the people's interest.
For example in the US it's totally legal to spy on your employees with key loggers &co, in most of Europe it isn't
> The lawsuit says Instacart violated a California law that bars companies from preventing their employees from becoming candidates for public office, among other complaints.
What would be the consequences of ensuring that only those with enough personal wealth to be able to go without a job while campaigning can run for office?
She approached to ask for permission. If they had any reservations, that was the time to discuss them. She did what was expected of an employee. The fact that they blessed her and then went back on their word seems wrong.
Not a lawyer but my intuition says there might be some legal grounds here favouring the wife.
My take is someone even higher up found out later and did not like it. Now it’s entirely possible the individuals who gave their blessings were supportive of the party the wife was standing for, and the ones above them weren’t? Still whoever blessed the campaign did so in their capacity as a senior officer of the company. A total shit show nevertheless.
To the original commenter: sorry this happened to your wife. Hope she’s able to find another job that treats her right. Also congrats on the baby, hoping parenthood makes up for all of this and more. Sending the best of wishes your way.
AFAIK in every US state a company can fire you for any reason that’s not protected, and “we told you this was okay but changed our minds” is as good a reason as any in the law’s eyes.
In many US states a company can fire you even for protected reasons, and just fabricate a reason that isn't protected. Of course there are examples of people fighting this because it sometimes is a fight worth having, but the vast majority just have to accept being discriminated against and try to find another job.
I think Montana is the only state not "at-will"
Puerto Rico is technically not a state, but as part of the US, and counted in the statistics of the (federal) Department of Labor, I would also count it as a _not "at-will"_ state.
Correct. If she had something in writing, signed by a person with proper authority in the organization, she might be on stronger footing. But they could just find some other reason, or state "no reason" for her termination, and that's perfectly legal in an at-will employment.
If I ask my employer if I can start a YouTube channel and then after getting permission I start posting videos that make the company look bad, and showing how awesome competitor products were I wouldn't be surprised if I got fired. I wouldn't be fired for the account but what I did with it.
Well in normal countries…firing them for something they did outside work. In American vernacular, something something free speech.
You have the right to free speech. Your employer, like anyone else, has a right to not be associated with what you say.
Even if an employee has the authority to make a decision, executive leadership should still have the legal right to terminate someone if they disagree with that choice. Let's not make running a business illegal.
I see this totally wild she even had to ask permission for running for office, or at least from an European perspective.
I don't understand it from an American perspective. Is this a standard practice in large companies?
Political beliefs or views are not a "protected class" in US federal employment law. That said, most employers at least say that they support political participation, but once you start taking public actions it becomes a bit different.
If a person made a large contribution or gave other public support to an extremist candidate, an employer might not want any association with that.
If running for an office is going to take up a significant amount of one's time, such that it might impact availability for work during normal hours, an employer would care about that.
In this specfic case, if she was featuring "I work for Instacart" in any way in her campaign they might care about that.
If she was saying anything inflamatory or controversial, Instacart might not want to be associated with that.
So running for a nonpartisan office such as a local council or school board or similar would normally not be any issue. Anything where party politics feature prominently is going to be riskier.
I believe only California lists "political affiliation" as a protected class.
So most states you can be fired for voting wrong.
Apparently.
It's a standard practice in suppressing democratic norms yes. The US has a long sordid history of the elites absolutely hating when commoners practice democratic beliefs.
Let's not forget that many of our "founding fathers" deeply hated democracy and when speaking of the "democracy problem" of the 1780s in America it was mostly referring to commoners in Massachusetts participating in civic duties.
This tradition has never went away and is still practiced today.
I mean, running for office is essentially a full time job right?
It seems totally reasonable to both have a law that protects a citizen’s right to run for office without losing their job, but it also seems reasonable to require some sort of coordination with an employer.
(Knowing nothing about this, it is seems like it should work roughly like an extended jury duty.)
I don't understand why this is getting downvoted, I'm surprised as well
How's the lawsuit going?
[dead]
> Bad for business to run for office and criticize a Republican incumbent!
I think it's a fully justified reason. If I'm in a senior position and I say something that in someway hurts the company reputation/income, I would be fired. If the company liveness depend on me being fired, the I think the decision is justified.
Even after being specifically told that running was ok?
> I would be fired
Ok, but _should_ you be fired? And - if so - why?
Wow. Cant you sue for wrongful termination ? I am assuming this was considered and not followed through. What are the legal details here ?
Literally article's description:
> Lisa Vedernikova Khanna, a candidate in Virginia, says in a lawsuit that the mobile shopping giant cited concerns her bid could hurt the company with President Donald Trump.
It should be illegal to do what instacart did to your wife.
And still people will continue to use their services. :(
They always had a slimy reputation. I interviewed there very early on and two of the engineers interviewing me told me they fire people 1 day from vesting constantly...
In California the courts look very poorly on that, just in case that ever happens to you.
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I am of course very sympathetic to your wife and think it is outrageous that someone should lose their job this way but also given the insane behavior of the Trump administration, it seems like Instacart had no choice. I hope she wins the lawsuit and gets paid out but I can’t hate Instacart for being pragmatic.
> I can’t hate Instacart for being pragmatic
Can you criticize them instead for firing her for something that their Chief Corporate Affairs Officer explicitly gave her permission to do? If it was a matter of pragmatism, they could have declined her request for permission. (One might separately argue about whether this should be a matter of right vs a matter of permission, but regardless, she did seek permission and was granted it.)
>> but also given the insane behavior of the Trump administration, it seems like Instacart had no choice
That's a terrible attitude that's resulted in some of the worst behaviour of capitulation history has ever recorded. What will you call their "pragmatism" when your the target?
How many examples do we need of the Trump administration doing some illegal move then getting slapped down by the courts? This would be a slam dunk for DoorDash. That they chose to capitulate instead is damning.
The courts eventually ruling against the administration doesn’t undo the harm caused. A Trump tirade against Instacart could be a death sentence for the business.
Based on the ground you're treading I'd be careful with your casual use of "death sentence" when talking about something that is nothing of the sort, but behaviours that are only a few steps from the real thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Always_Chickens_Out
I can hate for you then.
Same.
> DoorDash to Acquire Instacart to Help Local Stores Win
> to Help Local Stores Win
Any local store will tell you DD is a necessary evil they put up with but strongly dislike overall. From the % of sales they take to the incredibly rude delivery drivers, DD is not well liked.
On multiple occasions a family member's employees (or they, themselves) have had a DD delivery driver cut to the front of the line, interrupt the cashier, and shove their phone in their face. No words, no anything, just "here is the code/screen/whatever I need to show you to pick up the order". DD doesn't let stores rate delivery drivers so there isn't any recourse.
I worked at a local grocery store while unemployed, and I actually PREFERRED the Doordash/Instacart customers.
Quite a few of them spoke no English, so yes, they'd just present their phone screen. I didn't take it as rude. It was a very clear and direct communication. A simple scan, and boom, nothing further needed, I could just scan their items. Thr QR code scan handled payment and everything. They almost always helped with doing thier own bagging: Time is money, after all.
The supermarket where I shop has a specific checkout station for delivery drivers. I have never seen one in a normal checkout line (not that it might be very obvious, especially if they were shopping not just picking up an order).
What I don't understand is why DD gets any cut of the store's profit. They should be paying retail like anyone else, and their customer paying for the delivery costs.
The supermarket I worked at had a split system. Our internal delivery people had their own checkout area, but it wasn't open 24/7. Doordash and the like had to go through the regular lines regardless.
because they can get away with it and some VCs say best companies dont have customers, they have hostages.
Going by other comments in this thread it seems like if you kicked out the driver they'd probably get fired from Doordash.
Yeah mixed blessing at best. Increased volume, but not every 30-table restaurant is set up to do much more; kitchens are sized to expected in-person dining.
And all the stuff you mention.
The one restaurant owner I know who’s happy with DD set up an entirely separate kitchen in an industrial park. But to get to the DD revenue necessary to justify that investment, he had a couple of years of DD hell in his main restaurant.
That sounds like a scary investment to make on behalf of what's effectively a single customer. Without some kind of contractual commitment that locks in volume and price, they would really have you over a barrel.
I hate industrial/ghost kitchens so much. Accidentally ordered from one with friends and it was so off-putting.
Could see the kitchen areas through a window and they weren't necessarily dirty, but looked sketchy for some reason. Few people, robots delivering orders, one set of cooks making the food. Just dystopian.
We might as well just build ready to eat food factories that pipe the slop directly into your house. We got rid of the "inconvenience" of going out to eat and enjoying a restaurant. Why not get rid of the pesky delivery middle-man too?
Look up commissary kitchens. A ton of food is made that way, and I don’t see it as being all that different.
And the DD-specific kitchen I know is basically just a typical restaurant kitchen minus attached dining. You can make slop in an industrial park, you can make slop in a real restaurant (I’ve certainly experienced that).
Why in the world would it be necessary to have dining tables for a kitchen to make good food?
Many resstaurants are just heating up frozen portions delivered from Sysco or similar providers anyway.
Since some other people are posting links about DoorDash, here’s one: https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/09/mayor-mamdani...
From the NYT version of this story:
> DoorDash said the median payment to be returned to workers amounts to around $48. > City officials said about 700 workers are owed more than $10,000 each; more than 27,000 workers are owed more than $1,000; and more than 4,000 workers are owed more than $5,000.
DoorDash also spent (from what I can tell) (1+1.4+1.8) million dollars to campaign against Mamdani.
NYC recovered $131M in unpaid wages from DoorDash.
https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/09/mayor-mamdani...
Culper Research released a report about a year ago indicating a large component of DoorDash labor is very likely undocumented workers (which is not meant to be derogatory towards these workers, but signal that DoorDash needs labor willing to take gig payments on offer to make the model work).
https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/cc91fda7-4669-4d1b-81ce-a0b...
I don't think the platform economics are working post ZIRP ("zero interest rate policy") as wages rise and margins compress, would need more data to understand what forward curves look like.
I love the Mamdani DoorDash story because it demonstrates that government can work. When it doesn't, it's because it's made not to work or the people in charge have absolutely no interest in doing anything than feathering their own nests.
Back during Covid, Congress passed and Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act ("IRA"), which actually did a couple of good things.
One of those was the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax ("CAMT"). For non-Americans, AMTs are a weird thing where Congress basically gives up and decides the tax code is too complex so they give up and say whatever your deductions are, if the AMT produces a higher amount, that's what you have to pay. Every complexity is somebody's special interest so repealing them can be hard. It's kind of why the carried interest tax credit has never been repealed.
Repealing it, as Republicans tried to do, is hard to do because the counter-messaging is "well if the corporate tax rate is 21%, why do you care about repealing a minimum of 15%?". Everybody understands that companies through various tax schemes aren't paying 21% but you can't say that.
But the one I want to talk about is the 10 year plan to increase IRS funding to update incredibly outdated systems and increase enforcement. This was a good measure. And you can tell because the Republican Party lost their minds. They fairly successively propagandized it as the IRS hiring 80,000 agents to go after Joe Q. Citizen. No, it was enforcement against the ultra-wealthy and corporations. So it was killed in 3 years under the guise of "saving money" as well as not persecuting average citizens (which it was never going to do).
It's particularly stupid because money spent on IRS enforcement pays for itself. It's been estimated every $1 spent recovers $7. It pays for itself. But there was no counter-messaging and Republicans could push it through under reconiliation.
Compare that to the 4 year $175 billion increase in ICE funding.
Republicans and conservatives simply don’t believe in taxes, and will take any action to make it as hard as possible to collect them out of ideology. As you mentioned, Mamdani proves government can work [1], and I look forward to more reps like him as election cycles occur and the US electorate turns over.
[1] https://www.mamdanibulletin.com/p/everything-zohran-mamdani-...
The pendulum will swing back, and be the opportunity to prevent this from ever happening again.
The DoorDash subreddit is an interesting read. Lately, users are reporting being sent to retail stores to work for 30 minute stints. One anecdote: a person described taking a $25 gig that amounted to going to a Target and stocking one specific brand of shampoo. The stockers there had already filled the shelf, so he took a bottle down and then took a picture of himself putting it back.
I’d cry “antitrust” but who are we kidding at this point. The relevant parties have likely been paid off already.
"DoorDash and Instacart believe that communities benefit when Main Street competes"
That's rich! Communities benefit when small businesses compete against each other. Announced as part of a merger of two giant public companies.
But doordash says this merger means more choice for the consumer, how could antitrust play a role here? I mean, unless they're lying about removing choices from the market place will result in more choices in the market place, but doordash wouldn't do that would they?
I mean neither of these companies provide an important service. If they both disappeared tomorrow I think most people wouldn't care.
IMO grocery delivery is a game changer. I don't use either service, but use a different one[s]. Even with a tip (I have been doing $15/per delivery), it's not much more expensive than normal groceries at Trader Joe's etc, and I don't have to put on outdoor clothes, walk to my car, navigate traffic, navigate the aisles, wait in line, reverse... IMO big QOL of life increase.
And second-order effects like I can always have fresh fruit + veggies / not worrying about rot by getting it in smaller quantities delivered more often.
For those wondering about price: It's much cheaper than takeout or prepared food delivery, but more expensive than getting your own groceries. Offset a bit by less food waste.
How can that be profitable on the long run?
Feels like it will end up more expensive in a few years
I suspect this as well. Enjoying it while it lasts... I suspect the facilities being vertically-designed for this helps, but not enough(Especially the prime groceries; I suspect Whole foods has some but not the same extend?)
But if they were gone, the worst is you're putting pants on and getting your own products. There are not essential, they're simply a labor and regulatory arbitrage for gig workers to schlep product to consumers at very low wages.
Not everyone can just "put their pants on." For some, its more of an ordeal at a physical level.
if they were gone, the worst is you're putting pants on and getting your own products
Says someone with no problems putting on his pants and making a grocery run.
Just try to remember your own words when you get older. You'll get your turn. Everyone does.
Only the lucky get old.
Anyway what a strange attitude to have on a tech forum. Why do we need HN, let's discuss this over a game of bowling!
Valid!
Antitrust does not have "important service" requirement. What has happened in gaming is another travesty but there is plenty of people who would say it's not "important service". Antitrust must be universal.
TYVM. But I rely on Instacart as I live alone and can't drive anymore since my eye surgery 10 years ago. If I didn't have instacart I don't know how I'd ever get any groceries.
I know a lot of people who survive (almost) exclusively off take out and delivery. Especially in cities like NYC.
And takeout and delivery existed before this.
Takeout and prepared food delivery is much more expensive than grocery delivery.
Grocery delivery is an important service for a large chunk of the population. About 40 million people in the country (mostly low income) live in food deserts. Plenty more don't own cars. Doordash & co have burned VC money for a decade to monopolize the delivery pipeline so restaurants and grocery stores rarely hire their own drivers anymore. And now with this kind of consolidation they can raise their prices unchecked.
Do you have a source that these low income Americans are the ones who are ordering food? My understanding was this was largely people with additional disposable income who were doing it for convenience and not necessity as the product for the price was a good enough trade off. I find it hard to believe low income Americans are getting their groceries delivered when they can’t afford the base prices for the most part.
I'd be curious to see if it lowered food prices at all if these services and their upcharges weren't around anymore to influence pricing.
What if you’re disabled and need to order food ?
The way this was handled before these gig economy food delivery companies sprang up. People didn't automatically die of starvation because they were disabled and became adults prior to DoorDash. Medicaid and Meals on Wheels fill in some of the gaps depending upon age and state.
These companies springing up put the old ones out of business. For example check the number of restaurants that hire their own drivers now. There's no going back to the "old way" when it doesn't exist. And now this kind of consolidation means they get to jack up prices however they want.
Those restaurants simply didn't deliver at all in those days.
Pizzarias and other traditional delivery food businesses still hire their own drivers in many cases.
How many of their customers fit this description?
I had a co worker who was deaf.
Luckily he came of age just as texting took off. I guess in theory he could of relied upon a translator to make phone calls for him, but his life was much improved by modern communication.
Even if new technology makes things easier for 99% of people who are lazy, but is essential for that last 1%, it's a net positive.
Consolidation in this industry is horrible for everyone. Less competition means higher prices and lower pay.
Could we have more discussion of our current legal/business environment, specifically, the economic opportunities it affords/constrains?
If this merger is approved via consumer welfare standard, should it be contingent upon some constraints? For example, should DoorDash be restricted from participating in the market it coordinates? If it’s a near monopoly in some regions, how will price be controlled without market pressure?
Historically, antitrust action also considers economic opportunity: Bell/AT&T licensed Unix source code for a nominal fee, largely because the 1956 consent decree restricted Bell/AT&T from selling products outside telecommunications.
Is it even possible for doordash to be a monopoly? I understand that just about anyone can set up a website advertising food delivery for cheaper.
My initial take to this news was “what about anti trust?!” But I was surprised to learn that DD is essentially non existent in grocery delivery and instacart’s non grocery deliveries are powered by Uber Eats. For two massive brands they really don’t offer the same product.(edit: not effectively, at least) If anything maybe this helps Instacart/DD compete in grocery with the real giants in Walmart and Amazon. I wouldn’t be mad to see DOJ block this but I was just surprised to learn about the landscape of grocery delivery.
For context Walmart, Amazon, and Instacart each have about a quarter of the online grocery delivery market with smaller outfits like Kroger and Albertsons eating up the remaining quarter. If you believe this data, that is. https://talkbusiness.net/2025/04/online-grocery-sales-rise-2...
Interesting perspective.
They do serve the same market for gig workers that don’t want to be ride share drivers, though, right? I wonder what their market share is for that.
> compete in grocery with the real giants in Walmart
In my area Walmart is on Instacart and I've often wondered how that squares with their own delivery service.
Might just speak to the competitive advantage of vertical integration. I.E “we make so much off the selling the product we don’t care if the sale originates on or off platform?” It is surprising though that they wouldn’t force users onto their service. They certainly have the power to
Doordash as an app or a business model always feel scammy and full of dark patterns.
With this merger I have a feeling that things are only going to go worse.
A resounding victory for workers and customers, right?
Right?
Man, can only imagine this is more bad news for delivery drivers.
Hey - dumb question that is probably a derail: Is there a practical reason in the US to use Instacart over one of the Amazon services? It seems like they are fighting an uphill battle - Amazon has its own grocery warehouses (Prime food), and owns Whole foods. I haven't cross-shopped recently, but am having a hard time imagining them competing on price with either of those services. I suppose the obvious reason is you aren't limited to those two stores, so if you want specialty items, nice baked goods etc you would use Instacart?
Instacart delivers for costco
Instacart is also integrated with several stores. Kroger and Costco both use Instacart for their pickup and delivery services in their own apps.
They do compete on price. Amazon charges for Prime, charges extra for delivery, and Whole Foods is generally among the most expensive grocery stores. Instacart offers a ton of cheap alternatives.
Do you find it, total price charged to card, to be competitive? What if you already have a Prime membership?
> Do you find it, total price charged to card, to be competitive?
Yes. Instacart has low cost retailers like Walmart and Aldi in many areas, and their prices are generally better than Amazon groceries. Now Walmart does also have their own service, so technically you can do that, but then you're limited to just them.
Yeah instacart isn't limited to specific stores, you can even order from multiple stores and group them
I saw this show up in my newsreader and first thing that crossed my mind was the textbook example of eBay / PayPal acquiring everything, leaving us with probably the worst situation possible for auctions and payments.
Major competitors shouldn't be able to acquire each other in any society that cares about healthy markets.
I just want to say that the colour contrast on this post is atrocious.
#999999 on a white background is a 2.84:1 contrast ratio, when the minimum requirement for body text is 4.5:1. So this page technically violates the ADA and other accessibility laws.
Am I on the wrong side of perspective? I imagine of these companies are at big risk in a turn down with low margin - competitive space. The model is a tough one to work
Merging reduces platform inefficiencies and drivers can work both situation.
I am actually amazed both companies are alive and making a profit.
Profit? Who cares about profit today in tech? It's tomorrow's profit that matters. Whenever that is.
> Merging reduces platform inefficiencies
This was literally why Rockefeller was a big proponent of the monopoly. Unfortunately exploitation is the tradeoff that is enables
It's an argument he advanced in favour of monopolies. Then reason he was in favour of being a monopoly was, of course, that it gave him more money.
I'm mostly hoping this doesn't end up affecting Costco delivery, which works reasonably well and uses Instacart behind the scenes.
Great, just one less competitor in the marketplace.
I hate this shit. Just another shameless ploy to find choke points in markets and further immiserate all participants in a two-sided market but the rentiers.
I vividly remember the ZIRP era when there was a new food delivery (or e-scooter) startup almost every week.
Wow, really didn't see this one coming.
food delivery stayed around, the e scooters not so much
Great, both are generally terrible. Nothing like ordering a pizza and having it sit in someone's car for an hour with a driver who has no attachment to the restaurant, who could not care less about what you think. At least delivery drivers employed by the restaurant had some slight incentive to get food to you while it was still edible.
Third party delivery services essentially break the chain of responsibility... food late and cold? tough luck, but please tip in advance. If you don't tip your driver will be very mad at you, maybe they'll text you about it, and we pay them so poorly that it's actually your fault for keeping them impoverished. Talk to our customer service bots and maybe we'll give you a $5 coupon for your next Doordash order.
I do deliveries via gig apps for extra cash and to get away from the computer and it's basically a complete toss up.
Some people are professional about it (I bring my own drink carriers, food bags, etc and have a minor Andretti gene so orders are as quick as the law allows), but most of the others I see doing it may as well not be. Slow, lazy, check nothing, and look like they just fell out of a methadone clinic (read: not the person you want showing up at your door in the dark at 8pm).
It's frustrating if you try to do it properly but get judged by customers like you're some out of work junkie (when, ironically, most people I deliver to live in a lower-income situation than I do).
From the driver's side, you get inundated with low-paying orders, often rapid-fire as you're driving to either pick up or deliver another order (like so bad that if you're not paying attention, you could get into an accident). Like literal Pavlov's dog, bell jingling over the top of the navigation instructions and a big pop up on screen. Essentially [1].
The entire thing is a psychological rat trap (by design as best as I can tell as these apps aren't terribly complicated to build/design; just scale), so it's not a total surprise when your driver fails to provide good service. They actually make it quite difficult to provide good service (e.g., I routinely get "already picked up" orders on my late night runs w/ no compensation for sitting/waiting on restaurant staff).
I think a lot of people should try doing deliveries via these apps a few times just to experience it. The psychological pressure alone likely makes a lot of people crack. It's all quite fucked up.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7my1G0TrwT8
On the other countering opinion, I am a generally happy customer of both parties for years now (I pay for dashpass). I think I’m probably one of their heavier users as I use both services multiple times per week. Being a caretaker and a new father simultaneously where both DoorDash and Instacart have been a blessing. Life happens and sometimes you really can’t spend the time out of your day to quickly drive out and pickup something or grocery shop. Food generally arrives warm and if not, a quick heat up in the air fryer generally solves most things. Soup based noodles are generally packed separately that you need to prepare it at home anyway.
My main gripe is there is the general occasional missed small item (like sauces, a drink), which I do complain about in DD. I imagine DD does provide this feedback to restaurants because it has been trending better over time.
On a more macro level this consolidation seems to be trending to a 2 party competition. Uber (and Uber Eats) vs Lyft + DoorDash + Instacart. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lyft and DD merged at some point. Well bought by DD. They already have a partnership.
These two slimy companies do belong to each other. Perfect match made in hell.
"More Choice for Consumers"
A truly laughable fig leaf for the non-existent anti-trust regulators.
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