Walmart wants associates, not gig workers, to deliver more orders as the retailer struggles to verify the identity of its Spark drivers

Tech Insider
A Walmart employee in the beauty, makeup aisle
Walmart wants associates to deliver more of its online orders.

Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / AP

Instacart deactivated a shopper, and he nearly lost his home. He battled the company and won $28,000 in back pay.

Tech Insider
The back of an Instacart shopper who's wearing an Instacart shirt while shopping at Whole Foods.
An Instacart gig worker shops for groceries.

Cyrus McCrimmon/Getty Images

The freight recession is finally letting up as the post-pandemic trucking slump reverses

Tech Insider : Economy, Economy
truck swift transportation
A semi truck pulls into the Petro Truck stop in Girard, Ohio July 9, 2012.

Aaron Josefczyk/Reuters

Uber CEO says his time moonlighting as a driver showed him the company didn't pay enough attention to its drivers. It sparked an all-hands called 'Why we suck.'

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Dara Khosrowshahi
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says his time moonlighting as a delivery worker and driver showed him the company "didn't take pride in the driver product."

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A 57-year-old UPS driver in Texas died after collapsing in the heat while making deliveries

Tech Insider
UPS driver stands behind his truck with packages on a dolly.
UPS-worker Christopher Begley, not pictured here, died after being exposed to extreme heat, local news station WFAA reported.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

TikTokers are calling out DoorDashers using others people's accounts. 'You open the door for Ebony, and Ebony actually happens to be Steve, that's not okay!'

Tech Insider
A DoorDash delivery driver in New York City
Some gig delivery drivers aren't who they appear to be.

Ribeiro/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Instacart's profitability relies in part on batching orders together — something that its gig workers hate

Tech Insider
A man wearing a face mask and sunglasses backwards on his head looks at a receipt while standing in front of a shopping cart at a Giant grocery store in Washington DC in 2020.
Instacart has gotten its shoppers to deliver more orders at a time for the same or less pay over the last few years.

Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

Instacart just filed for its IPO and revealed a plan to sell $175 million in stock to PepsiCo

Tech Insider
instacart shopper
Instacart filed a prospectus, a document outlining its business and planned IPO, on Friday afternoon.

Photo by Nick Otto for the Washington Post/Getty Images

A hidden consequence of the gig economy is that workers keep asking customers for sex or dates

Tech Insider
delivery driver handing a customer a brown paper bag of food
1 in 3 younger Brits have been targeted by workers asking for sex or dates, the UK's data watchdog found.

Jackyenjoyphotography/Getty Images

Some Instacart customers are losing hundreds of dollars to scammers after connecting bank accounts or Paypal to the app

Tech Insider
A woman with red hair puts a box of Wheat Thins in a brown paper grocery bag sitting in a cart at a Safeway grocery store in early 2020.
Some Instacart users are reportedly out hundreds of dollars after placing orders on the grocery delivery app that never arrived.

San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images

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