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Comment by nkrisc | Hacker News Reader

I can't tell if this is satire or just very sad.

What I've always found interesting about Uber is that if you have one bad night in San Francisco, it could adversely affect your ability to get a ride in Bahrain several years later.

Sure big companies create efficiencies, but they also create Orwellian situations like one above.

I doubt one bad night will affect your ability to get a ride, assuming you have a decent amount of other trips “proving” you won’t be a problem, driver or passenger wise.

If you're already at say a 4.2, a 0 could really bring you down if you don't ride a lot.

Also, IIRC drivers can and do reject rides for people at their predetermined threshold. E.g. they will pass on a 4.0 waiting for a 4.5 or above (or whatever the thresholds may be).

aka, always tip.

But how much? Do I need to tip more if I go unmatched on a pool? Should I have known I wouldn’t be matched at 4AM? If I get continuous matches/delays, can I tip less? Was the driver just pretending to be interested in my life story, so I should tip more because of that? Ahhhh, I liked it the way it was before...

20-25% is customary for service providers, especially if you're the only client being served at one time. Never tip less than $3.

Ludicrous. 15% is customary for restaurant waiters, other than that there is no need to tip. Can give barber a few dollars, doorman a certain amount at Christmas. I prefer a society without tips, and would like to know what something costs up front and know the vendor is providing their service to the best of their ability.

This is a forum for hackers, who are likely to obsess over systems like this. I don’t think it’s indicative of a society-wide focus on Uber passenger ratings.

It sounds like satire, reminds me of the Black Mirror episode.

I thought so, but then I read all the other comments. I'm not so sure. I don't think it's all satire.

If it's so hard to tell, doesn't that make it bona-fide dystopian?

In a certain sense it doesn't matter if the original post is satire - enough people unironically agree for it to be real.

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