I used to drive Uber and deliver Uber Eats for something to do in retirement. I don't know why, but it struck me funny that I delivered a bunch of smoothies to the Uber Palo Alto office. They tipped well.
Someone gave me a 20$ tip for a bag of egg rolls once.
How do I know the service was any good? If it's grub hub it probably isn't so low tip is definitely justified. Hell if we go the traditional route of what a tip is, many actually deserve zero
Then they started pushing it hard, and it's received an almost universally poor response. We don't have a mandatory-tipping culture, because it's expected that everyone doing a job is at least earning a living-wage. Tipping is reserved for exceptional service or doing something out of the ordinary.
Edit: Some have questioned my $6 figure and have talked to drivers who say they are making good money. I think it's because they are not taking into account the wear and tear on their car and subsequent decrease in value. They are basically taking equity out of their car and putting it into their pocket and thinking they are making money.
disagree. I don't like tipping culture in general, so I welcome any effort to uproot it.
But, does Uber (or whatever other gig employer) actually pay that? I hate that in the US, as a consumer, I don’t know. Much easier in much of Europe, where wait staff is paid a reasonable wage and tipping isn’t expected.
As Scott said, "tipping, and the aristocratic idea it exemplifies, is what we left Europe to escape. It is a cancer in the breast of democracy"
At the start of the 20th century when Tipping was infecting the USA, it was common for business owners not only to fail to pay a salary, but to actually charge people to work for them!
Gunton's Magazine stated that tipping was offensively un-American, because it was contrary to the spirit of American life of working for wages rather than fawning for favors. Caiman's defence from that era boiled down to "you should be able to bribe your way to preferential treatment".
It's ironic that the "home of capitalism" is so much in favour of hiding information. Rather than a posted price for a given good or service, it's a price, plus an unspecified amount of tax, plus a tip of some sort which can vary from 0% to 30%.
Tips of course also allow us to bypass all those pesky problems that we try to eliminate. If you're a racist? Great, you don't have to pay black people, only white people (or vice versa). Don't like that waitress having a Trump2024 bumper sticker, don't pay her wage.