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>I break even by paying someone else that $10, if I value my leisure time as equivalent to my wage.

I value my leisure time at the arbitrary amount of $1000/hr. Have I broken even if I pay $1000 to someone so they'll do my grocery shopping?

Yes, that is exactly why people part with money in exchange for things they could do equally well on their own.

I disagree. In the example, I think, they've been robbed.

Is it a robbery if you agree on the price _before_ the service is done?

Even if you consider the situation robbery, they still broke broke even with a 1k gain and 1k loss.

This principal is why we don't make our own shoes and milk our own cows, just at a different scale.

Time isn't really the limiting factor for those two activities.

For value, yes. If not, perhaps you don't really value your leisure time at $1000/hr.

your value isn't set by your own standards - your value is what someone else will pay you for your time! I.e., the opportunity cost of leisure is the value of leisure.

That's true for the value someone else gets from my time, this is about how much value I get from my time.

It's more complex than that.

People on salary earn a fixed amount per month - they don't get paid extra if they work an hour longer in the evening instead of shopping.

People on most hourly jobs have their schedule set by their manager. They can't pick up an extra hour of work unless their manager has some to offer, and not at the time of their own choosing.

People working on their own businesses have an even less direct correlation between extra hour worked and extra income.

Only the very few people who do remote freelance work on an hourly basis have the flexibility to decide between going shopping for an hour or doing billable work for an hour.

For everyone else, the opportunity cost of leisure time is close to 0, but they might be willing to pay for services for other reasons.

> For everyone else, the opportunity cost of leisure time is close to 0, but they might be willing to pay for services for other reasons.

If you define leisure time as the time not spent in paid employment, the opportunity cost of leisure time is actually very high, since each of us has many unpaid tasks that we must do to keep our lives going (such as keeping the living space tidy, stocking the fridge with food, obtaining clothing, etc.)

If we opt for "leisure" and fail to do these things, the cost of rectifying the situation increases.

I think a more accurate way to look at it is that most of us have paid labor (hourly or salaried) and a lot of unpaid labor that we need to do to keep our lives in order. Things like chores, maintenance of our living space, etc.

Leisure time is actually what is left only after we've done all of the paid labor our job demands AND all of this unpaid labor.

For some people, this leaves very little leisure time, but it may leave some extra money that can be allocated to hiring out some of those unpaid tasks in exchange for more time available to do whatever else.

When I go to a physical store I frequently end up buying things I didn't really intend to, but with Instacart, I only end up with the things I actually wanted.

Specifically what products do you end up buying? I have always wanted some insight as to who buys these items near the register and why, as I rarely see anyone pick them up.

They're not necessarily talking about just those items. The entire store is designed so you buy things you weren't intending to buy. You never said/thought: "Ooh look ice cream's on sale..." and failed to resist?

People will do that without even realizing it because they (we, I) instantly come up with some rationalization for why they "really" want it.

Exactly, I rarely add anything from the checkout lane area, but I'm often enticed to buy unplanned stuff from the ethnic foods aisle, and now and then I'm taken in by the end-cap displays featuring product pairings, especially if I've been inclined to try a similar combination.

That is even easier with a website that has detailed data about your shopping.

Half of my pantry is food I found in the clearance and damaged goods sections. I never go to the store with the intent of buying three big cans of enchilada sauce, but the bent ones are half off and I'll use them eventually...

Gum and mints, for me. Sometimes batteries if I need them, even though they are cheaper at WalMart or Target.

I don't personally buy things like tabloid magazines, but I'm sure grocery stores have spent lots of time researching this to optimize the placement of these products

I'm the opposite - if I can impulsively buy a random snack on an app, I will. In the actual store, I'll feel bad about it during the checkout.

> More likely, most Instacart customers earn much more than $10/hour.

Why do you think that?

I was thinking mainly about the entertainment value of using scarce recreational funds to have groceries delivered, but as someone else in the thread pointed out, there are cases where taking a taxi to get groceries (as I did in college) is actually a lot more expensive than Instacart, so I could see it appealing to an even wider range of people for similar reasons.

The average US hourly wage is twice that, seems like a fair statement.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages