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Comment by cortesoft | Hacker News Reader

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?

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Here in Salt Lake I have never been asked for a tip.

In general though, I've found Uber experiences to vary significantly by region. In Salt Lake, I usually sit in the front seat, drivers are chatty, and the whole thing feels like "someone giving you a ride". In NYC, by contrast, I mostly sit in the back (a lot of the time the driver will block off the front passenger seat), drivers don't tend to talk, and the whole thing feels like a cab ride.

In fact, I would guess that many Uber drivers in NYC are/were taxi drivers.

NYC requires Uber drivers to be licensed as "TLC" drivers (taxi and limousine commission) - so yeah, they are exclusively professional drivers who would usually normally be working for a car service.

Interesting! That somewhat defeats the purpose of Uber, doesn't it?

It might be in really tourist-heavy areas like Vegas and Orlando (where my bad encounters have been).

You're definitely an outlier. In San Francisco, tips are sought more than 10% of my trips.

Maybe I just look too grumpy, but I use Uber fairly regularly on longer rides, and sometimes on shorter ones, and I've not once been asked for a tip in SF.

Out of hundreds of rides in SF I've never had a driver ask for a tip.

ditto

Only dozens of rides here but in half a dozen cities around the US and not one asked for a tip. I've seen the polite-ish tip jar once. I don't typically carry cash but if I did I would have thought about it.

Frequent Uber user on East Bay. No tip pressure felt on any of my rides.

I had a guy who implied that he'd like a positive rating. Only one out of many.

I realize that EB and SF drivers probably stick to their preferred areas. I'm not disputing your experience, only adding my own.

I've never had a driver ask for a tip in the bay area. If one were to, I'd give a 1-star rating and write in "asked for tip" as the reason. If that's unacceptable behavior I'll stop using the service rather than join the under-the-table tipping game.

Sorry but your 10% number is just impossible to believe in San Francisco. I've ridden Uber multiple times weekly for years and managed a couple sales people who also used Uber under our business account (in aggregate several hundred rides) and I've never once heard of such a thing until just now reading this article.

Gender may play a role here. I (male), too, have never been solicited. My girlfriend uses uber much less frequently, but has had it happen a few times.

In Chicago it may not quite be 10%, but it's close. Both confirmed by my own experiences and a random office poll. General consensus is "it's getting bad fast".

I've stopped taking Uber for this reason for those "marginal" trips where I might be tempted for the convenience vs. public transit. I see tip begging no different than being asked for change on subway, and if I have to potentially deal with it either way I'll just take the cheaper option.

I've been using Uber (mostly UberX, after it was launched) in SF since mid-2012, and have easily taken at least 1000 rides. The closest I've ever had to a tip solicitation was one single ride when there was a (tasteful) tip jar on the front seat center console.

Clearly, at least in this thread, I'm the outlier. Interesting.

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