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Comment by magicseth | Hacker News Reader

This fix seems a little lackluster. It would seem more upstanding to honor the agreement they had made, and collected money for: i.e. let the 71 users continue the delivery-fee-free plan (with no minimum) for the end of the term.

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It does not seem reasonable for a tiny startup to accept an unbounded downside risk just for PR purposes. The refund they're offering is fine.

I don't think it's just for PR purposes, but I understand your concern of an unbounded downside. Even a few free deliveries would be something.

They were caught having made a mistake: unilaterally changing the terms of a renewing contract without written notice.

The bare minimum they can do is to offer a refund.

Mistake or no mistake, if their goal is to "always try to go the extra mile," they are failing to do so here.

The bare minimum they can do is nothing, offering a refund on all of the delivery charges is an important step above, but offering a refund on the entire service so far?! That's quite an extra mile.

I'm afraid I didn't make it clear. I meant a refund for the most recent $99 auto renew charge that had changed the terms of service without notifying the customers.

No, Instacart made an agreement which they need to honor more faithfully. If the 71 customers had decided to change the terms of a business agreement similarly, their accounts would probably be closed and referred for debt-collection.

The fact that Instacart is a tiny startup has no bearing on whether they should honor their agreements.

That is not a reasonable demand.

You can repeat that until you are blue in the face if you like. That won't make it a true. It is ludicrous to modify a business agreement without actually giving notice, and expect to keep the proceeds of that mistake.

So, the pricing model as suicide pact principle.

If they no longer want to offer a free tier, they're free to end it. I don't think anyone is proposing otherwise. They are not, however, free to unilaterally move people to a tier that costs money and start charging them without an explicit agreement.

They've offered refunds on delivery charges and a full refund on the Instacart Express subscription fee for people who don't want to come along with them to their new pricing model.

Doesn't really matter. The fact that they charged without permission is seriously wrong, and I don't see them owning up to that. They seem to think their mistake was in not notifying people well enough.

What is the agreement that they are honoring in this case? They didn't have a plan for further $35 subscription, people were either moving to the more expensive subscription or canceling.

Allowing the customers who weren't aware to retrospectively cancel and also keep any value of the service they already used seems fair.

> First, we’re going to refund all delivery fees paid by the people affected by this bug.

I think I misunderstood that the first time, or just plain missed it. I'd be okay with it as long as what I quoted above means what I think it means.

What about one of them 71, whose credit card got overcharged because they weren't expecting another $99 on their statement?

They're a startup that's experimenting with different pricing models. If a plan they introduce isn't financially viable, it's unrealistic to expect them to continue to honor it otherwise they would drive themselves out of business b/c of failed experiments.

At the least, the 71 need to be refunded the delivery charges, without question or hesitation.

First, we’re going to refund all delivery fees paid by the people affected by this bug.

The post specifically says it.

Thanks, I missed it the first time.

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