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Comment by quadrangle | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a user or support of Uber as a company, but I appreciate everything else about your post. The bizarre dysfunctional tipping tradition has so much wrong with it besides the math. Better that all employees just actually get paid reasonably to start with.

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The word on r/uber is that in NYC if you don't cash tip your uber drivers, you start getting 1-star passenger ratings, and some drivers don't take rides from passengers rated under 4.6 stars.

I'm pretty sure drivers don't get to see your tip until after they have rated you.

Hence why its based on cash tips

Next step: bot that tracks real-time history of your Uber ratings, determines when you have received a 1-star rating for "no cash tips" and creates a blacklist of drivers.

Right, but part of that is because Uber pays so little to the drivers.

And it is in no way the responsibility of the passengers to rectify this. It is a symptom of a broken system.

The passengers are benefitting from it.

"The company says it takes 20 to 25 percent of the fare. [...]Uber says drivers make around $19 per hour in the top 20 U.S. markets."

Do you want inflated taxi fares of old, or do you want supply and demand? You can't have both.

Uh, wrong.

"Uber says drivers make around $19 per hour in the top 20 U.S. markets."

Before or after paying the costs of driving?

Apparently for all the economic-related punditry, HN still doesn't understand economics. Jim, you do realize that "inflated" (relative term of course, since Uber is more expensive than taxis in some markets) is still part of the supply-demand curve, no? You absolutely have both. Go read a textbook before you chime in next time, k?

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the site guidelines. Not cool.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> or do you want supply and demand? You can't have both

There's tons of examples where supply-and-demand gets balanced with other considerations. It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing.

There is a lot of debate on whether you should tip an Uber: https://www.buzzfeed.com/venessawong/theres-still-no-consens...

I switched to Lyft a while ago but I never would cash tip my Ubers and I had a full 5 stars.

Anecdata: has never been an issue for me and I never tip uber drivers---in app or cash. No uber driver has ever asked me for a cash tip (perhaps they know that it would lead to a low rating?)

I'm skeptical, as one who hasn't cash tipped since they added tipping in the app. I'm 4.68 or so, after many hundreds of rides. Sometimes my rating drops, though, and I struggle to recap events to figure out why: he got mad because I asked to turn down the radio? He thinks I'm mad at him for making a wrong turn? and so forth. But since one of the main draws of Uber is the cashlessness of it all, I bet that's old r/uber news.

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