Alarming only if it contributes to therapists making minimum wage which is not a given. Otherwise, I love not having to deal with tips. I wish every service had tips baked in and we could do away with them entirely.
The success model for startups these days is deceit and breaking laws. If a startup is claiming to be the "Uber of <blah>", I interpret that as a company which thinks being disruptive means breaking laws and screwing people over for the sake of growth and attempting to make good on the outrageously high investments they receive.
What I'm looking for is concrete proof that over the long run, not just in a recruitment surge, therapists end up making a living as good as or better than when they're employed by a spa. If that's not the case, then this is simply another widener of the wealth gap in this country.
Tips are entirely optional. Official payroll isn't.
If this wasn't the case, Soothe is lying to me, the customer, and not providing what I paid them for. That's deceit.
A profit-seeking corporation is going to minimize expenses as much as it can.
My point is that those wages Soothe pays probably won't be as high as a typical tip-based wage one could earn without Soothe, because Soothe will want to minimize its costs as much as possible. Why pay high tips if it doesn't have to? You're not okay with that? Well fine, you can leave, because in this environment, there are plenty of other people who will work for less generous tips.
Not only does it probably degrade the client experience (the provider doesn't need to go above and beyond because it's not his brand being impacted by his service), but it commoditizes an otherwise vibrant and special service into a dull, grey blob of robots all doing the same thing.
That's my expectation for the long term.
In the short-term, I'm sure their rates will be appealing enough to attract good massage therapists, and I'm sure Soothe will do what it can to make sure its clients feel special. That's what venture capital is for.
But again, isn't that how almost every job works? I mean, the vast majority of us are working for companies which want to minimize their costs as much as possible. Message therapists just happened to join the other 90% of us. Why the special concern?
This may be a cultural issue, since where I come tipping is much less common.
In a traditional job, there's no subjectivity in what you're paid. You have a rate or a salary and are paid according to that. It's pretty straight-forward.
With Soothe or any tip-driven service (in the US, that includes waiting tables, cab driving, barbers, and a host of other service jobs), there's a significant amount of subjectivity that determines your income.
If you do well, you're tipped well. On just a regular $50 dinner here in the States, I can tip anywhere from $5 to $15 depending on how satisfied I am with the waitress' service.
But what if the restaurant took responsibility for the waitress' tips? It wants to maximize its profits. Chances are it's not going to pay $15 or even $10 for each table...it's going to pay a lot less.
How much less? I contend it will pay the least it can before it starts running into talent problems.
That rate, whatever it is, assuming the waitress is good, MUST be less than the average customer would pay in tips. The restaurant sees all its waitresses as good, so it can't pay any one more than the other. That would be unfair and illegal.
Customers can. And they would pay more for good service. That's why, I think, on average, at least here in the States, a tipped employee does worse when working for a company like Soothe.
I'd love to see a study on this topic for Uber et al to see what's really happening.