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Instacart said the new payment system was based on extensive input from workers, and has been welcomed as an improvement by the vast majority of shoppers it has heard from. The company said the new system replaces a one-size-fits-all approach with one that better accounts for and provides information about factors like the number and weight of items in an order and the distance the worker will have to travel, while keeping the average earnings on the platform consistent with what they were before.

Because Instacart pays at least enough to ensure that its contribution plus the promised tip would total at least $10 for an order, a customer’s higher tip could lead Instacart to pay less on a small trip, according to the company, but that wouldn’t happen on larger jobs. Instacart said it won’t retaliate against shoppers for providing feedback, and that it expects to continue to tweak the payment system.

The fracas over the payment algorithm is the latest workplace controversy for the San Francisco-based company, which relies on a mix of some 70,000 employees and independent contractors to swiftly deliver shopping bags from grocery stores like Fairway and Key Food to customers in all 50 U.S. states and Canada. Instacart had been the exclusive delivery service for many Whole Foods stores, but the two are ending their agreement after Amazon.com Inc. bought Whole Foods in 2017.

Instacart agreed to pay US$4.6 million in 2017 to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by workers classified as contractors and to change its user interface to make clear the difference between a tip and a “service fee,” money that can go to the company instead of the worker. In California, Instacart has joined eight other gig-economy firms in urging lawmakers to shield them from a state Supreme Court ruling making it harder to treat workers as contractors rather than as employees entitled to minimum wage — a verdict the companies warned would “decimate businesses.”