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Comment by RunawayGalaxy | Hacker News Reader

You answered your own question. Why raise prices and risk losing customers when they can just use widely accepted social pressure to coerce you into subsidizing their cost of doing business for free?

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It's not like they're fooling anyone though...regular users of uber will know the average outlay from using an uber is $X, whether it's through the fares charged or a lower fare plus expected tip. I would much rather have a higher fare than the stress of figuring out how much to tip. I could just decide on a tip to always give, but what about those times when the service is really shitty? Do I "get back" at them by leaving no tip? Isn't that the whole purpose of the tipping process? But that makes me feel like a shitty person, and the cognitive outlay in thinking about all of this is just annoying.

I'm gonna guess they'll keep the tips secret until many hours after the journey (and when both driver and passenger have left star ratings). They might even aggregate tips for the week/month.

That way, if you leave no tip, it can't come back and bite you.

But it will come back to bite me in a psychological way. I don't want to feel like the sort of person who doesn't tip when tipping is expected, I want to use a service where I don't have to think about tipping and can feel like a decent person. If that service has to cost more then so be it.

That is the best and most fair solution. You only find out your tip AFTER you've rated the passenger.

It would make drivers experience worse if they aggregated tips over weeks/months. This is primarily due to the "cash me out" feature where drivers may cash out a shift immediately upon completion.

This is the reason I refused to use Amazon Fresh. I'd rather pay higher subscription prices like with Prime as opposed to tipping every delivery. Even if it's optional, just the existence of the tipping feature adds social pressure.

Last I checked for Amazon Prime Now, drivers are only aware of their tips in aggregate, so leaving $0 is putting pressure on Amazon to pay their drivers more. It's kindof shitty, and I don't use the service often, but if Amazon is going to give me an option on who is going to foot the bill for the driver, I will pass on that every time.

I'm aware of that, and personally it doesn't matter. It only lessens the social pressure. It doesn't eliminate it.

Yeah, exactly. This doesn't cost them anything. If they add a button to add 10%/15%/20%, people will still just tap that instead of try to hail a cab.

For the same reason Uber originally went with the tip-free model for their service?

I can only assume that was when they could more easily afford to do so.

Nothing to do with affording, and everything to do with the latent demand from people who don't want to have to think about or handle tipping when getting a ride, which was (at least a big part of) their original appeal.

I actually think it was the attract customers.

Widely despised social pressure.

Doesn't matter if it's despised as long as it's accepted.

Edit: To be clear, I am speaking from Uber's perspective.

I despise how little drivers are paid. This is also accepted. What's your point?

My point is Uber doesn't care about what you despise so long as it serves their bottom line.

Right—but clearly they do.

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