Ask HN: Has tip economy moved to the digital world? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Has tip economy moved to the digital world?

12 pointsitchyjunk4 comments

I recently got Walmart plus subscription service. I made an order of ~$50 and no where during my checkout experience did I chose or manipulated the tip. Apparently I have to go back and change it later. It looked like I could change it to $0 that way if someone choose to. In my case, it was set to $7 by default.

This seems like a dark pattern to me. Has the tip economy gone digital? Are those drivers in similar position as some service workers where they can't make their ends meet without those tips? Or maybe I am overthinking and this is a solution that does work.

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I've noticed that for small orders, Uber Eats/Doordash/etc will suggest flat values, usually larger than standard tip sizes compared to your order., sometimes over half the order price (and that's after they add fees to make small orders too expensive).

But in larger orders the suggested tip sizes suddenly are percentages, as opposed to large flat values and are usually closer to customary sizes. To me it sounds like they know tips are important for the drivers, and without tips there's barely going to be any takehome as those companies will take most of it themselves (and still be unprofitable), but as a solution the try to get users to enter large tip amounts.

In my country, we have various different grocery chains with their own delivery services. Off the top of my head: Picnic [1], AH Delivery [2], AH Compact [3] (yes, one grocery store chain has two competing delivery services, really), Jumbo [4], Crisp [5], and none of these even offer the option to give a tip.

The 15-minute delivery services like Flink [6], however, do offer at least the option to give a tip.

[1] https://picnic.app/

[2] https://www.ah.nl/over-ah/gemak/online-groceries

[3] https://www.ah.nl/over-ah/gemak/ahcompact

[4] https://www.jumbo.com/boodschappen-bestellen/thuisbezorgen

[5] https://www.crisp.nl

[6] https://www.goflink.com/en/

I hate tip culture. It’s just a way to hide and then pass on the true cost of employee wages to the customer. I agree with you, expecting a tip by default is an anti pattern. If someone is feeling generous or really impressed with the level of service provided, they should be free to offer a tip, but I hate feeling compelled to do so even if the service provided is mediocre at best.

Especial when I'm asked to tip before the service is even delivered! That's just a surcharge and one of the main reasons I don't use Uber Eats

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