Hacker News Reader

Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

To users, one of the great appeals of Uber (and other similar services) is its simplicity. Tips are ridiculous and arbitrary, and getting out of a car without having to think about that is a huge win for users.

Ratings already replace tips as an incentive for good service, in a far more transparent and actionable way.

And if drivers start getting tips regularly, you can guarantee their overall earnings won't go up -- Uber will simply pay them even less, because they can. Whether payment is technically part of a base fare or tip doesn't do a thing to change the law of supply and demand.

(Example -- how restaurants pay waiters far less than minimum wage, and are legally allowed to, because the tips make up for it.)

Moving back to tips is a huge step backwards -- especially when forward-thinking restaurants in NYC are moving away from them as well.

View on HN

That's a good point. I would also add that reliance on tips rewards drivers for targeting affluent neighborhoods in hopes of high tips. Not to mention relying on tipping stereotypes to discriminate against passengers

I use Lyft these days primarily _because_ I have the opportunity to tip the driver for great service without using cash. I don't believe ratings (especially Uber ratings) are meaningful at all because it's either five star or you're fired, and as a customer you pay the same rate for terrible service as you do for excellent service. I don't believe tips are an excuse for getting around the base fare in this case or for avoiding min wage laws.

Being able to easily tip a driver for exceptional service is great, makes me feel better as a customer, and provides an incentive for drivers beyond stars. What's the harm in making it easy if your base rate is the same? As long as it's not an expectation I think it works quite well.

> As long as it's not an expectation I think it works quite well.

Other people have pointed out potential and real problems with tipping, but I think that a direct counter argument against what you said is that it will become an expectation.

>What's the harm

I think the issue is the opposite outcome of your scenario: "As long as it's not an expectation"

It will become an expectation. Many people find tipping a hassle and they don't want drivers using a new social standard to guilt them into it.

Also, any discretionary tip amounts become another datapoint for drivers to give bad ratings to riders. ("Oh she only gave me a 15% tip instead of a 30% tip so I rate her 1 star!")

This is easily countered by requiring drivers to rate passengers to receive the tip.

So now the "passenger ratings" become worthless because the Uber drivers won't rate less than 5 stars for fear of retaliation by a customer giving a low tip amount. Also, instead of the rider immediately exiting the car and be on her way, she has to sit and wait for the driver to rate, and then she has to submit a tip.

The combination of driver/rider ratings _and_ tipping leads to little social games of petty blackmail.

again, easily solved.

1. send tip 2. driver sends rating 3. tip and rating available.

So now the rider can give $0 as a tip (if the Uber allows that option) and the rider doesn't have to worry about retaliation of a bad rating from the driver. Game theory is fun.

To generalize, if people disagree with an app's user interface (e.g. tips), both sides perform little acts of rebellion against it.

If Uber app does not have tips, some Uber drivers rebel by hassling riders for not using Lyft which has a tipping option or asking for cash tips on the side. This annoys the passengers.

If the apps does have tips, some riders rebel by paying $0 because they think the whole idea is stupid. This annoys the drivers.

> What's the harm in making it easy

Because it's now non-optional or I'm a terrible person.

Just fucking pay people enough.

If it's not an expectation now, it will be soon. Tipping became a thing partly because managers started telling their employees to start asking for tips, and soon enough it became effectively mandatory. It's better to just not have things set up to create the problem in the first place. I don't really want waiting staff or taxi drivers forced to coerce tips out of me.

As others have said, it'll become an expectation, however, I'll add:

- I expect that I should never get bad enough service that a driver deserves to be paid less. If something really bad happens, I expect Lyft to refund me entirely. As such, I want Lyft to be factoring a reasonable wage into the fare price.

- A car ride isn't really a service, it's a commodity. I'm paying for someone to pick me up, drive along a predetermined route (whatever Google Maps/Apple Maps/Waze says) and drop me off. This isn't like a restaurant where the server can get your order wrong, ignore you the whole night or forget to top up your drinks, this is more like a supermarket where you're going through a checkout. Items go in, items go out. Passengers go in, passengers go out. A better comparison actually is a flight or bus. You don't tip your flight attendants or bus drivers.

- I don't want to think about how to compensate my driver. I'm not an employer, I have no idea how much this person's time is worth, I don't know how much of a tip is "good" and how much is an insult. I want Lyft to factor all that into my fare price so I don't have to think about it.

How did ratings replace tips in an actionable way as a consumer?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com