Uber Driver Tip-Hustling Schemes

I think it's a small part of the 3rd-biggest challenge they face.

1: Google LiDAR suit 2: sexual harassment 3: driver exploitation 4: local regulation

Though you'll notice the most recent problems are higher in the list, indicating short public memory/outrage.

I wonder if this varies by region? I ride with uber quite a bit here in Los Angeles, and I have never once been asked for a tip. I wonder what makes it different?

Taxi drivers in my city are notorious for, at least in my experience, attempting to swipe your credit card with Stripe on their personal cell phones. Not just for the tip, but for the entire fare. They openly commit fraud against their company by trying to steal the fare for themselves without reporting it to their company.

I've refused to pay for, and reported to their company, 4 separate drivers in the past 2 years for this practice. I have to assume that the companies somehow don't care that their drivers are going rogue, or else this wouldn't be happening so frequently. Where is the threat of dismissal, or even better, prosecution? Same thing goes for unlicensed taxi drivers moonlighting with a friend's car - taxi drivers here are required to hang their licensed ID on the side window, and the frequency with which you find someone driving "off the books" is downright reprehensible.

The worst part is, I feel my personal safety is at risk every time I report these criminals. They are likely to know it was me, and they know where I live. It's irresponsible, potentially dangerous, and unacceptable to permit them to operate in this way.

Our taxi companies are hook, line, and sinker in the pockets of our government. We have a history of corruption here, and taxi companies are definitely part of the equation.

They probably expect people to carry some cash for emergencies small purchases.

As they say at Goldman Sachs

"Always carry cash. Keep some in your front pocket."

If you have a problem with Uber's business practices, stop using them. That is the way this is supposed to work.

I try to upvote rather than +1, but chiming in to point out how wrong the parent comment is assuming they shouldn't tip.

Of course, scrolling down the thread just shows that waaay too many HNers live in their own bubble pretending to be Mr. Pink with their mightier-than-thousplaining that justifies their miserliness.

No matter how disruptive moving livery to cashless may have been, the truth remains: Uber's current business model is classic leveraging of unorganized labor in order to take advantage of a race to the bottom among drivers. Of course, this wouldn't be sustainable for a second absent Valley VC's willingness to subsidize this mirage until customers are hooked, regulators are left feckless, and then like clockwork, rates are raised with none for the drivers.

It'd be unethical, absent this sort of business being an accepted part of the marketplace. It's called hospitality, and it is driven by tipping. There's absolutely nothing new or justifiable about the type of thinking on this thread. Pool/Line are down to $2.50 for 15-20 minute rides. If you enjoy bragging about avoiding the social contract inherent in tipping economies, you are no different than Susan Fowler's HR encounters: looking the other way as Kalanick rips off those whose livelihood he actively suppresses.

You're not taking advantage of the driver. Uber is. It's the same thing with restaurants - you're letting yourself be guilted into subsidizing a corporation's business strategy, with the justification that it's either you that gets screwed, or their employees.

Neither you nor uber are taking advantage of the driver. If the driver feels underpaid, they should just not drive unless there's a surge.

Agreed. Used Uber for what? 2 years now? Just tried Lyft after all the crap about Uber and I liked it. I normally do tip the Uber driver for a long ride (I live in NorCal an my house is a pain to get to). Moving on to Lyft. I like the fact I can tip in the app.

Hmm, I'm normally against tipping, but now I'm wondering if this might be a solution to the problems with 5-star rating systems.

I've often thought that it would be better to have a simple thumb up/down for quality control and then a separate above-and-beyond option for recognising exceptional service, but that requires friction on the latter option to make it work properly. Initially I was thinking just requiring a minimum comment length would work, but having to tip e.g. $1 might be a good alternative to that.

With optional after-the-fact tipping, I'd still be concerned whether or not the fact you tipped is tracked. When you tip, is the driver individually informed? The next time you get the same driver, are they in a position to remember that you were a bad tipper on the last trip? Even if the driver isn't made aware of your individual tipping history, surely the company as a whole is tracking this information and building a (negative) profile for you. Do they charge you more on subsequent rides to compensate for your perceived poor history?

This is the problem with tipping - there is ALWAYS room for abuse. I don't understand why you'd be at ease for not being "put on the spot" to tip, when the driver or company still knows afterwards. The facts haven't changed; they still know whether you tip, and any "consequences" for not tipping will still be in play. You're playing a mind game with yourself if you think that adding a few hours of buffer between service and tip is any different than tipping on the spot.

This is why, all employees - regardless of the company and its industry - should not be tipped. Pay your staff a proper wage, and fire people who do not provide good service. The very concept of tipping is ridiculous. It serves no other reason than to satisfy employers' lowballing of wage, while inducing anxiety to their customers.

There's in app-tipping in lyft. The driver doesn't know whether you've tipped them or not when they rate their experience with you. Moreover, it's relatively difficult for the driver to disentangle who tipped them what from their daily report at the end of the day[0]. So you really can pay based on what your judgement of their service level is.

[0] I did once got into a very friendly chat with the "owner of the world's second tallest yacht" (checked it on wikipedia; totally legit) and was memorable enough that I was curious if he tipped. He didn't.

> I would be more than happy to pay even a little more if it meant not getting guilt tripped over a tip

That does not sound very logical.

"hold the line against the excessive tipping culture " you mean screwing over some poor minimum wage worker and the IRS (which when it comes down to it is you)

Huh. I use Flywheel, and it has tipping with a default tip. You can change it during or at the end of the ride if you want, but if you do nothing, it sticks with whatever you picked as the default. I'm surprised Lyft doesn't do that.

> I prefer a UX as close to "type destination, arrive, done" as possible, which Lyft's whole tipping deal needlessly impairs.

I wonder if you used Lyft a long time ago, because I don't even notice the tip screen until next day sometimes. When I leave the car, my phone is in my pocket, or I'm already doing something else on it, so I do not see the tip screen until I happen to open the app next time. Dismissing the tip screen is a single tap with or without leaving a tip, so it's never been a usability concern for me.

I believe we're still a decade or more from true driverless vehicles / cabs. There are so so so many situations which require specialized decision making to get out of that we really need general AI to truly have cars drive themselves. I'm sure we'll get some sort of hybrid model sooner where the cars are driverless 95% of the time, but someone at a remote center can take over and pilot it around construction / through a power outage / on icy roads / in emergency situations / while getting pulled over by police / when there is a rally in the streets / on detours with workers waving you on / in freeway shutdown-type situations etc etc.

Uber is betting the farm on being able to solve this in the next couple of years or however much financial runway they have left. Good luck, but I don't see how.

"Johnny Cab asks for a Bitcoin" -- Wouldn't make a bad nerd culture faux folk song. (Or a Filk)

But isn't that covered in the "willing to pay more for the service" bucket? I find tipping awkward to the point of being willing to pay more for alternatives that bundle an otherwise expected tip into the service's initial pricing.

Sorry to single you out specifically, but I've seen people put themselves in dire situations for the sake of "doing a startup," and it always makes me cringe.

If you're struggling to make rent, maybe you should consider doing something like Upwork or Gigster then? Or even a full time job?

Either your startup is succeeding: you've raised enough venture capital to support yourself, or you're making enough revenue to be ramen profitable (I didn't quite interpret your post that way, though).

Or you are wasting time and energy on something that just isn't going anywhere where you should be making it a fun side project alongside a full time job instead of a VERY risky 10:1 all-in bet.

Most people besides the local SF Peter Pan Syndrome millennial dreamer crowd here would consider it to be very irresponsible to gamble away your time and savings on a stagnant business like that.

There's also plenty of great places to start a business that aren't the Bay Area and actually have reasonable costs of living, friendlier regulations, and less taxes (shout out to Pittsburgh!). I'd stay off the hive mind hamster wheel here that you HAVE to be in the most expensive place to live on the planet, or else you're living in Siberia (to borrow the literal smug wording of a Google employee friend justifying their renting at age 35 situation).

Exactly. As a non-American tipping seems like such a crappy concept to me.

Why should service providers be subject to arbitrary decisions of random customers?

A service has a price. Either it is provided adequately and you are happy with it in which case you pay the full damn price for it and move on with your life.

Or there's a specific problem in which case you can complain specifically and ask for a discount or refund/partial refund.

From a business perspective tipping can also be seen as an admission of failure and weakness. In the sense that the business is admitting that the quality of the service is so variable that it calls for a variable judgement of its value. Like maybe you get a crappy waiter and you don't tip, maybe you get an excellent one and now you must leave a good tip.

It is also "lazy" because it dumps the responsibility to the consumer. "Just judge how well we do and tip accordingly".

Instead as a consumer I want to have certainty and confidence that a given service provided by a business has a predictable and consistent level of quality.

And also as a consumer I want the employees to not be subject to my arbitrary personal judgement on a day to day basis. If there's a particular problem I may complain, otherwise just move on with your life.

In the EU, tipping is half legal -- technically it should be declared income and pay all income+social taxes ++ VAT(!) as the tip is not a direct salary but a service (and hence subject of VAT)

Same here.

Tipping also seems to lead into a more in-your-face service. A waiter might find tips go up if he/she draws attention to her work, starts conversations and offers all kinds of extras. In the end you can't argue that the service wasn't outstanding, but life would have been better for everyone involved if he/she just put the food on the table.

As an American living in China, I feel the same way. I also use Didi almost every day. It's so easy to pay too (using WeChat, AliPay, etc.), and there's no expectation of tipping. Kind of like a "black box" view of the payment process. It's even better than using regular taxis from the standpoint of giving feedback too. If I took a regular taxi without using Didi, there's almost no way of leaving feedback, other than calling the taxi company, which wouldn't do much. At least with the app, I might get a coupon to use on a future ride.

What do you mean that it's "much easier to just pay people a decent wage"? Do you mean that it's much easier to convince companies to pay their employees more than they have to, or that it's much easier to pass higher minimum wage laws?

Neither of these seem easier than "convince the public to toss in a few extra dollars when they use a lowly paid service".

I see "make sure that all working people are paid fairly" as a very difficult problem, and tipping as a moderately effective hack that's easier to implement than the cleaner fix of higher minimum wage of basic income.

What if we called it "pay what you can".

With 100% of the amount over the minimum ("the bill") going to the staff, not the ownership.

There's sharp disagreement among the patrons on whether to keep servers in rags or riches. Some of this comes down whether the particular customer sees the restaurant as 'good for a plate food' versus 'a part of the neightborhhod'. We allow people the option of choosing which they see it as.

> That, and tipping is akin to having paid servants

It feels like that because that's what it is - American tipping culture has its roots in slavery.

It is not. The greed of the consumer prevents raising prices. Not advertising the true price is the new scheme.

Tipping hides the true cost of services by forcing the customer's guilt on the ability of the employee to make a worthwhile wage.

No tipping restaurants have to have higher prices and the hyper-price-conscious consumer will defer to the cheaper ones. You could make a quality argument, but on equal terms the no tipping restaurant will lose. It is because it has not hidden its true cost of goods and services like the tipping resultants.

>It's so much easier to just pay people a decent wage, include it in the cost of things and then not have the pressure of tipping.

Yea but customers don't get to decide how much employees are paid.

What would really happen is that people who normally get tips would just lose income. Their pay will probably go up, but not enough to cover it. Waitresses make much more than regular unskilled labors.

Customers lose because we end up paying more, but it's at least going to a real person working for a living.

> Tipping sucks, sure, but it's part of a lot of service jobs in the states that you just accept.

I don't think most people "just" accept it. I think they accept it, with extreme reservations, often with a sense of anxiety around social pressure & guilt. So I think you underestimate how much sway a service that doesn't expect/require tips might have over one that does.

Having said, that, for me, it's a combination of things. I actually don't object to Lyft's tipping culture (and like you point out, tipping is implemented as close to perfectly as possible on their platform). I use Lyft when it seems to make sense (and tip, often ~20% for shorter rides), but often I find myself seeing a 6 minute estimated wait from Lyft while Uber is saying 2 minutes. I tend to walk a lot when I can, so most of the time I use Uber/Lyft when I'm running late or don't have the time to walk, so 2 vs. 6 actually matters. Or I request a Lyft, get matched with a driver, and see an estimate for a 3 minute arrival, which stays saying "3 minutes" for 10 minutes before I cancel and go back to Uber, and a car arrives to pick me up 2 minutes later. Or there was the time where Android Pay just stopped working in the Lyft app for two weeks.

I'm really unhappy with Uber's behavior as a company (and use it less where practical), but they just offer a better product, regardless of their stance on tipping.

Is it? I prefer Uber/Lyft because it's convenient (both in arranging the ride and payment) and auditable (account records) and accountable (driver and rider ratings). Being cheaper is a benefit, sure, but I'd still use it nearly as much if it cost the same as a taxi, which I rarely (if ever) used in SF before Uber, because their service level is so bad that I preferred to drive myself or suffer the discomfort, dirtiness, and trip length of Muni.

Yup, I'm merely one data point, but my POV is hardly unique.

I'm more dismayed that the thought of giving another human being a little extra money to thank them for good service is so painful to people that they try to avoid it at all costs.

Uber's model feels like it's trying to make the human driver into a robot. Until we have actual robot drivers, I prefer a system that has the tipping built in, e.g. Lyft.

If you have a really shady experience. You report it directly to Uber. Let them know that you think the driver may have adversely rated you, and I feel like customer service will roll it back if it's that important to you. but to be honest, an single experience will get averaged out in the wash.

> your cancel reflects poorly on you in Uber's rating system

This is simply not true. I just checked: My rating is 4.73. I've probably taken a few hundred rides with Uber. I assume they adjust ratings for bad experiences, especially if you're a regular rider.

By the way: It's not that hard to get consistent 5 stars as a passenger. Be respectful of the driver and follow these steps: 1) Say something like "Hi, are you looking for Brandon? That's me. Good evening. How's it going?" 2) Suffer less than 20 seconds of smalltalk 3) Go about playing with your phone or talking with your co-passengers quietly. 4) Say "This is my stop right there by the red car on the right. Thanks a lot, you have a good night!" - If you're an extrovert, you'd do this anyway (assuming you're not an asshole) and if you're an introvert, it's a good opportunity to exercise your smalltalk with low stakes.

The destination shows up when the ride starts (i.e. you get in the car). Calling beforehand is a an indication that the driver might want to cancel the ride if the destination is "inconvenient" (e.g. from city center to a remote suburb).

The app doesn't tell them so they can't cancel based on less desirable destinations.

Uber drivers have called me and said that they want to go to the airport, not anywhere within the city, and then driven in circles, &c.

The risk that they cancel you/reject the ride if they think you aren't going far enough, going too far, going somewhere they are unlikely to get a fare, going into a bad part of town, etc. Uber wants to provide service to where you want to go, not where it is most profitable for the driver to go.

> Maybe Uber should just pay you more and we can not encourage the antiquated custom of tipping.

they can't advertise higher rates than Lyft or they'll lose the price war

Is good service and hospitably an antiquated notion?

I'll happily give a bartender, server or a driver an extra buck or two when they make the experience pleasant/informative/friendly because, far too many people treat their jobs not as a privileged but a chore.

Without tipping far too many would take your money for granted and the quality of service would decline across the board because there is zero incentive to provide anything better.

But how are they going to get that 50b valuation if they don't squeeze their drivers?

I'm not really going to keep driving until they do that. I drive during football games in Santa Clara, though, since the rates are much higher.

Uber charges the amount that they need to get enough drivers to drive the number of customers they have. When there aren't enough drivers willing to drive at the given rate, they go into 'surge' pricing to intice more drivers to drive.

You know what would happen if they raised the rates and paid more to the drivers? Two things - fewer riders would ride, and more drivers would drive. You would end up with a lot of drivers sitting around not getting any rides. They would most likely end up making LESS money per hour because they would not have enough riders to drive around.

It's because I can drive for like an hour at 9 PM when the traffic isn't bad anymore and I can make $10 an hour and I can decide when to clock out.

I drive for Uber part time even though it pays literally 8x less than my day job. It's relaxing and gives me an excuse to drive my car while someone else pays for the gas and mileage.

Because they're exaggerating to put pressure on Uber to give them a better deal. Everyone does this. Waiters, union workers, teachers, actors, firefighters, etc. Complaining makes you feel good and has a small chance of making things better for yourself. Why not do it more.

$.40 per mile is not too far off from the federal rate of $.535 per mile, which does include depreciation. This is the number any driver should be using, short of crunching the actual numbers for your vehicle.

https://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/100715

The implied social judgment whenever Uber drivers come up is a bummer.

Yes, people prefer to make a little bit of money instead of not having money. This is surprising?

And when someone earns a little bit of money, they might wish that they made more money. Again--not news.

I think before getting critical about why Uber drivers are so dumb, it's worth thinking about why you don't drive for Uber. The answer probably starts with "because I don't feel like I have to." It does for me.

If someone has a great highly-paying full time job and still drives for Uber, then sure, question that person's judgment. Most Uber drivers are not in that situation though.

This is not the type of Uber driver I want. I don't want someone complaining about their life choices when I'm paying for an agreed service from A to B.

I've had some drivers straight-up tell me that they enjoy driving for fun, and they drive for Uber/Lyft just because it gives them an excuse to do it. And I'm sure that even if they don't make a profit, driving for Uber/Lyft is less expensive than just driving around and not getting paid at all.

Taking depreciation into account is a red herring unless the car is only used for Uber driving.

There is significant utility in owning a car. So much so, in fact, that many people are willing to take on the entire cost of ownership without ever earning direct income as a result of their driving.

> Can't they mark your home territory and try to schedule you rides that take you the right direction?

they had this feature

unfortunately, NOBODY LEAVES SAN FRANCISCO so it's pointless, you'll be waiting for someone to want a ride south for a very long time

they've since removed that feature because it hurts your bottom line to use it

They removed that already.

The only problem here is that this would limit the usefulness of the service. The most likely end game for this feature is that most downtown areas have a bunch of drivers fenced in, and nobody can find a ride to or from those areas. There are a ton of people in suburbs that would like to not drive into or out of the downtown in my area, and we use services like Uber/Lyft to avoid this. If the drivers in our area confined themselves to just near the downtown, we would have to drive there either way, and so the service becomes useless to us.

If the service instead allowed drivers to designate a "home zone" where the base price is payed, and then trips to successive neighboring zones have a multiplier applied, this would probably work better.

There couldn't possibly be any PR consequences if they did that. I mean, it's not like redlining at all.

I'm fine with a driver having an (unobtrusive, tasteful) tip jar in their car, but if a driver ever actively asked me for a tip, I'd give them a lower rating (commensurate with how hard they pushed for the tip) and report them to Uber for making me feel uncomfortable while captive in their car.

I use payment-in-app services in part because I don't like carrying much or any cash around, and when I do, it's usually just a few $20 bills, which aren't very useful for tipping in this scenario.

And yes, I do tip in-app when I use Lyft, in part because their social contract includes tipping, and I can do it without the on-the-spot pressure of needing to do so in the car. Uber explicitly states that tips are not expected or required, and does not provide an in-app way of tipping, so I wouldn't tolerate tip solicitation from a driver. (Hell, I wouldn't tolerate tip solicitation from a Lyft driver, either. Asking me for a tip when the app does it for you counts as "worse service" to me.)

I don't mind tipping in principle, but I really hate the payment terminals that are preconfigured with outrageous options, so it prompts you to pick 20%, 25%, 30%, "other", so you feel like a total sleaze giving a normal 10-15% tip.

It's the worst when I'm picking up takeout from a restaurant that also has tables. Like, am I supposed to tip in this scenario? Do I have to go into "other" to tip less than 20% for being handed a brown bag?

Some places in America are doing that. It's not always easy - and here's a NYT article that covers some of the benefits and issues: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/dining/restaurants-no-tip...

Locally even here in rural Idaho, one of our best local restaurants recently switched to no-tipping pricing. I'd say that as a diner, I _feel_ like I'm paying more for my meal, even though I always tipped at least 20% before the switch.

As someone who grew up in a "tipping culture" I'd say that the act of tipping doesn't bother me, so much as the pain point of having cash in the correct denominations for things like tipping Uber drivers or valets.

Tipping culture is actually one factor which makes it unattractive for me to travel in the US. Too much mental costs.

The part about Germany is not true at all! Sure servers may be surprised if you give them more than a euro when your total is less than 10 euros... Having been a server in a restaurant during most of my studies, i can tell you we definitely did not appreciate no or small tips - 5-10% is expected.

It's different because in restaurants and bars it is so well established and priced in, it's really just part of the price.

This is like saying, "paying for your food is subsidizing the business." No customer can "subsidize" a business. If anything, you're hurting the business by tipping your servers. If you were to pay the bar directly and not tip, you can't assume that 100% of that would go directly to the bartenders. Profits are generally seen as some percentage of revenue, so those would be taken out, then the inceased wage would mean the business would have to pay more in payroll taxes, so that gets taken out as well. The only way to ensure the bartender doesn't _lose_ money from the change would be to pay the bar _more_ than you would have tipped. But in that case, you'd buy fewer drinks. In the end, the only one who profits is the tax man while you get less beer and fewer appletinis.

It depends my friend worked as bartender when he lost a job in 2001 he made about 90K thanx to tips which was not too far off what he was making as software engineer. So I highly doubt a bar would pay anything close to it.

it would be worse for drivers, because uber would take a 30% cut of that 18%.

> So it's exactly anti-welfare for Uber.

Not quite. By "welfare for Uber", they meant the burden of compensating the driver shifts from Uber to the passenger themselves, rather than on Uber to the driver a "fair cut" (whatever that may be).

Lyft is the only major ridesharing app allowing in-app tipping, so they get to set the industry standard here, and in-app tipping is cut-free according to Lyft

https://help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/articles/213815618-Lyft-Commi...

"Lyft takes no commission from tips, which passengers can add easily through the app. That's right — drivers always keep 100% of tips, whether it's a buck or a Benjamin."

Hundreds of trips on Uber, in Australia -- There is no tip culture here. Out of those hundreds, I've had two ask for positive ratings, absolutely none ask for a tip.

With drivers who have seemed friendly enough I've tried to politely and diplomatically inquire about how fair they feel the system is. Several ex-taxi drivers have told me it is better than driving for an official taxi company in every way, including pay. (Note that taxi drivers are never tipped either.)

I have been surprised by the number of people who have been driving for Uber as a bit of cash on the side, and not as a primary income -- all of them have told me it's "worth it" except for learning a lesson early on not to drive late at night and pick up drunks, as the chances of having to clean up after an extremely messy fare is too high.

My solution is not to use services that have tipped workers. I do not get grocery delivery, in part because I'm not going to tip somebody when I haven't even had a chance to see if all my items were delivered. I visit full-service restaurants less because of tipping. And if tipping becomes expected on Uber, I will stop using it.

I don't think this solution helps tipped workers either. But I'm not going to be guilt-tripped into giving people money.

because 1) uber doesn't classify them as employees, they classify them as contractors, and 2) Uber doesn't give a shit about their drivers.

a shakedown, extortion

the reason for that is it takes the whole team (server, host, line cooks, busser, etc) working in concert to give you good service (timely, tasty, well-prepared food in an enjoyable environment).

I'm not sure why this is a caveat or how it is responsive to the post you are responding to. losteverything's post wasn't about "rewarding your waiter/ress for their service". It was about the disproportionate effect a little extra money can have for someone that's desperately poor. That applies even more so for dishwasher, bussers and line cooks as it does for servers.

Pooled tips across both parts of the house are a step forward on a broken system. It is unfortunately very difficult to do legally in NY.

This. I use uber over other ride share services and taxis because I know what its actually going to cost up front and I wont be pressured to tip at the end.

The difficult thing here is that neither of you are wrong.

>> into supporting a system in which drivers are underpaid and every customer has to individually think about how they can make up for that.

By using Uber and knowing they are underpaying, aren't you contributing as well?

"why not work for someone else" -> Mostly because they have no choice.

they probably hadn't been, prior to paying for the car.

I'm talking about giving $2 to one person. A 10 second act

Don't forget that you're implicitly paying a premium to compensate for the unpredictability/lumpiness/[1] of the tips!

[1] as well as "the presence of people who deliberately flout the expectations" and whose non-payment must be made up, in expectation, by more honest customers.

I waited tables in college at a medium priced restaurant. On my great shifts I would pull down $50/hour on my best nights, $25-30/hour on typical weekends, and $10-20/hour on weeknights. Like most servers, I did not report most of my tips so it wasn't taxed.

This was AMAZING for me, the employee. If I was an hourly worker, I doubt I would have gotten paid over $10/hour.

To whoever downvoted this, I'd be interested to hear your reasoning.

Yeah, this is the problem when an establishment bucks the local trend and becomes a "no-tip restaurant" exception.

Go to a country where hospitality staff are paid a 'fair' amount and customers aren't expected to tip and this problem goes away.

> I'm consistently amazed at how many people I end up giving sub-five star ratings

That in itself is possibly a contributing problem. Incentives go all wonky when four-star ratings essentially don't exist. Five-star ratings should be reserved for exceptional service, and three-star ratings should be for average service, not "I'm unhappy with this but not enough that I won't feel bad giving a negative review, so I'll give it three stars." People don't know how to rate, and it makes all our rating systems much less accurate.

> Many drivers seem to act as if they are driving their friends around as opposed to driving their clients around.

Maybe they're just confused by everyone calling it "ride sharing."

My experience getting offered relates to southern/midwestern states, TN/NC/GA stand out to me, and the drivers I've met/spoken with who did this most regularly operated in areas of Atlanta and its surrounding suburbs specifically.

Although I have also experienced this several times in the upper Midwest. I suspect there might be some bias in my physical appearance that makes me get offered more? Several drivers had a sort of setup where they had goods in a box/console and opened it to make the offer, so it seems likely that if they didn't feel a fare to be the partying type they would simply not make the offer? One I saw had an entire cooler setup.

Another possible explanation could be that in very competitive areas like LA or the Bay the rank/yank system cuts out bad drivers more quickly than middle-america where there is maybe not as large of a pool of people applying to be drivers?

I have never had a bad or sketchy ride in Bay/NYC/Chicago/Dallas. (I have had no experience with Uber in LA)

>We're not bright, as a species

The people under paying labor would probably disagree with you.

If Americans would stop tipping then the current wages would become untenable and the restaurants and bars would lose staff. They would need to increase wages (and prices) accordingly. This is something the American people have the power to change without legislation.

There is a whole other inequity that arises out out of the ridiculous US tipping regime, I will quote restauranteur Danny Meter again:

"What is a tip? It’s a multiplier of menu pricing and as menu prices have gone up, so too has the multiplier over the course of my career which is now 30, 31 years.Tipped employees, happily for them, are making about 300 percent of what they were 31 years ago. During that same period, everyone in the kitchen — the dishwasher, non-tip eligible employees — have seen their hourly income go up about 20 percent."[1]

http://www.eater.com/2017/1/12/14250128/danny-meyer-tipping-...

Why even keep it as a service charge.. just put it into the price

I understand that they count on it as salary, it's the same with the Uber drivers - they don't make enough so they depend on the tip. Either way it's not acceptable - if they can't support themselves on the wages they have they should demand higher wages from their employers who equally raise the cost of the product.

Tipping is an incentive for employers to squeeze the workers even more. Employers need to pay the workers a decent wage rather than them relying on tips.

Then you are just enabling that process to continue. You are subsidizing their wages and making it seem ok for their employer to pay them peanuts.

I don't tip anyone and tipping is not a common practice where I live. In fact, most people would feel insulted if you gave them a tip here.

The cook in the kitchen gets no tip. Unlikely to be appreciated, gets no share of the tip, and could make my dish a delight, or spit in it.

The guy/girl says "i'm gonna be your waiter tonight", and that's the last time you see them, others bring the dishes and clean the table. And by law, they cannot share the tip.

When I pay for service, I'd like the employer and the market to figure out for me what's a fair wage. Don't put it on me, 1) I'll most likely be wrong and unfair, and 2) I just cannot tip the cook.

In practice it's any sort of delivery job that you personally interact with the worker. It's pretty uncanny actually. Taxis, waiters, bartenders, some couriers & porters. People who have worked those jobs feel strongly about tips. People who were left out of the tipped class feel like it was bullshit.

A bunch of others expand with a communal tip jar, but it's very rare for anyone to care about putting something in the jar. You don't tip cafe workers, convenience store workers, retail workers and so on even though they get paid the same minimum wage.

So even when someone treats you like shit (your words) you still give them more than you owe? Why?

They cut anyone with a rating below X where X is determined market by market in order to balance out the number of new drivers they have coming in with the number of drivers they are cutting for bad ratings and also taking into account growth for demand in the market. In new or rapidly growing markets they hardly cut anyone ever but in mature markets with ample supplies of drivers they demand a very high average rating. At one point the cut off for being let go in LA for example was something like 4.6 out of 5.

I'd argue it's easier to not tip when you have the option to tip in the App. If you're transacting with cash the driver knows if / when you aren't going to tip them. It'd be next level aggressive to sit and watch if you tip the driver on the app before you get out of the car. Personally, I'm fine to tip since the normal barrier to tipping for me is having cash, but either way in app tipping seems to make things easier.

What I like about the Lyft tipping model is that allows you to decide the (optional) tip after you have left the ride - when the driver says goodbye, they have no idea if you will or will not leave a tip.

Removing the on-the-spot pressure of tipping and the immediate human response makes it feel like a very different experience. It makes me feel truly generous when I do tip, but I also know that my personal rating does not depend on that decision in any way.

I always hated tipping because I had to have cash on hand. I always appreciated how Lyft lets you leave a tip electronically. Now when I use Uber I make sure I have cash on hand so I can tip the driver. Why? Because I think their rates are too low, and I can afford to help someone who pleasantly moved me from Point A to Point B. I don't blame other people for not tipping, because maybe they have neither the cash nor the inclination. But I will continue tipping. Lyft is better than both taxi and Uber in this scenario because you can choose to tip after you get out (that said, I always do).

Why does tipping suck?

Why does tipping suck?

> Then some assholes sued and now Uber drivers are allowed to ask for tips. Nice job breaking it, hero.

err, tipping isn't mandatory. "The assholes" you are talking about are not employed by Uber therefore should be allowed to ask for tips if they want. Remember, Uber "is just an app", or so they say... "The assholes" want to make hands meet, just like you. You might not care about their point of view or their interests but nobody's going to be driving you at loss or with ridiculous margins for much longer. So there is no need to insult people who fight for their rights.

Rich and powerful people use the law to their advantage all the time when they don't blatantly violate it like Uber. I didn't see you complain about that, nor call them "assholes".

You seem to want to kill the messenger here. If Uber's practice was unlawful, it would've been stopped eventually.

And why was Uber's practice unlawful? The "free market" of contractors Uber relies on to drive down costs also allows drivers freedom of speech to ask for tips. Uber can either have an open driver market or they can limit their drivers' speech — they can't do both.

I'm sorry it's harder to take advantage of underpaid service workers now. I'm sure folks will get over it.

Interesting. In Orlando, Fl I have never been called ahead of time and I use Uber rather frequently.

Different markets I suppose. It's also pretty easy to drive considerable distances around here.

I thought Uber was about pure capitalism, with surge pricing and all. I actually thought that drivers knew the destination and that the price was going up until a driver accepted the ride.

Uber's tipping scheme is extremely transparent: Don't tip.

The "self employed contractors" who pick you up may have tipping schemes inconsistent with one another, though.

Why would you be upset? It's just a participant in the free market playing the game. After all you just can hang around for a few hours for the surge to end.

Maybe this is a thing that is starting up north and slowly working its way south? In Brisbane, nobody asked for, or per se expected tips, but a tip jar was present often with a handwritten sign that said "Tipping is good karma" or "Tippers are sexy" or similar.