> They also didn't actually completely end flexible working hours, they ... required that they be performed during core hours
These are always equivalent in my experience. I've never seen a company that didn't use "core hours" to mean some large window centered around the middle of the day.
This doesn’t, however, make sense because Stitch Fix’s core hours cause entirely too many employees to be on the server at one time. Last week, the server went down at exactly 8 am every single day because it was the first hour stylist were allowed to be on. It also went down for 3 hours on Wednesday. Stitch Fix is not equipped to have this many employees on the server during these core hours. If the server goes down, you are to move your hours or take a pay cut— whether you are part time or full time. This is exactly what stylists saw coming, so they bowed out.
That's exactly the same thing a human stylist would do + making sure the outfit pieces look good together (Which I assume the algorithm is also trained to do).
As much as I want to believe that a human in the end would do a better job, I think an algorithm is capable of becoming a more accurate and dynamic stylist than a human.
Unless you want to be a trend-setter or do some artistic expression through your clothing. In those cases a human stylist does make sense. But for the regular Joe, I think a well trained algorithm can perform better than a human.