I've heard bankers making 7 figures complain about their compensation model. I think there's no way to turn the knobs so that nobody complains. But indeed, service-oriented companies should absorb the flak and not leave the customer feeling vaguely guilty.
I think that's a reasonable principle to have if you're not allowing your service team to accept tips.
> I'm always hesitant to relate anything I hear from talking to Uber drivers because I'm worried that Uber might be smart enough to track online comments back to drivers.
Yes, I hope I haven't done that here... I intentionally eliminated as many details as I could.
I've never heard a negative complaint from an Uber driver either (sample size ~10 drivers). I have never used Instacart because I'm not in the Bay area.
I would also add that it is much easier for Uber to roll up their charges and markups into one fee (only one service provided and consumer generally has a wider range of acceptable cost) than it is for Instacart to do so (multiple products, easy to estimate cost of a loaf of bread).
(I started talking to most of my drivers after Jason Fried posted to Twitter that he'd been getting uniformly positive feedback from his drivers; that has not been my experience, although I've never gotten overtly negative feedback.)
I'm always hesitant to relate anything I hear from talking to Uber drivers because I'm worried that Uber might be smart enough to track online comments back to drivers.