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Comment by codyb | Hacker News Reader

Why would you ignore the tip? Points one and three are valid, and you should always hop in before you direct, but ignoring the tip on what is essentially a luxury good (metro is $2.75 a ride and you can transfer as many times as you need to get where you need to go) is quite rude when it's expected and part of the culture.

If you can't afford to tip your taxi driver, take the train. Sorry.

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A tip is additional compensation for great service solely at the discretion of the passenger.

If cab drivers expect a tip regardless of service quality, then the tip might as well be added to the cab rate.

It should be like that, but it isn't. Mostly because, on those few cash fares, they would prefer not to report the income.

> If cab drivers expect a tip regardless of service quality, then the tip might as well be added to the cab rate.

Yeah, it should be, shouldn't it? But it isn't. The system is fucked, of course, but it's fucked in a very deliberate way where "protesting" by not tipping hurts the cabbie significantly, and the people responsible for the system not at all.

I guess not tipping enough is linked to its previous point around rudeness. This happens to me in the city. They are usually rude, and when I tip them %10 or less, their rudeness becomes even more apparent. Meh.

That is no justification for the driver to be rude or snarky.

Hmm, I'm not sure if I agree.

In certain Asian households it is expected that you take your shoes off, if you know this, and still stomp around the household in your shoes, would you say there was no justification for the owner of the household to be rude or snarky?

You might be able to argue that the enlightened person might say "I don't know what has happened to this person today, or why they're doing this, and I will try to find out their story before assuming they're just being an uncultured ass", but there is certainly justification, especially when it comes to the fact that these people are earning their livelihoods in this way and the tips are an essential part of that.

> In certain Asian households it is expected that you take your shoes off

As well as all of Canada (when we have a house party, there can be a pile of 30+ shoes at the front door, and someone inevitably loses one or both shoes), and most other countries...

Shoes in the house is the strangest part of the US to me.

Well, if you really want to carry the analogy over, you have to tweak the scenario: imagine that it's really hard to know if you should take off your shoes in any particular Asian's house, and you get multiple conflicting standards depending on who you ask, but they mostly agree that if the host owes you money, the convention is not to take off your shoes.

In that case, the host should at least consider the possibility that they forgot about money they owe you, or that this was an ambiguous case, before concluding that you're committing a faux pas.

The analogy is that tipping is supposed to be "optional" in some sense, and there's tremendous disagreement about what is appropriate in what context, and that "if you felt this person didn't provide you with great service, you can reduce or withhold the tip".

Thus, if you tip too little, the driver should consider it to be possible feedback about underperformance.

Of course, they way it really works is that they expect you to give 20% irrespective of service, but want to maintain a pretense that it's "for service", enforced by rudeness-with-impunity.

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