Comment by StableAlkyne
2 days ago
[Caveat: there aren't many Lyft drivers in my town, so I have only used Uber]
The problem is their system extorts you into tipping. If you don't tip, the driver will give you a 1/5 rating. If your rating averages low enough, nobody will pick you up. It's more of a bribe you pay for a good passenger rating than an actual tip.
As a result, you're forced to tip if you want to use it long term.
Personally, I'm hoping Waymo takes Uber's lunch money. I will gladly pay more for a service has not been infected with tipping.
That’s straight up false. I don’t tip and my Uber passenger rating was ~4.95 last I checked.
A single anecdote does not a dataset make
I never tip because it's not a custom in my country, but out of your two contradicting stories I believe the other one more. Does the driver even know the tip amount before rating the passenger? It works make sense if they didn't.
If he does it's indeed a bit weird (in a country where tipping is almost mandatory).
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And yours isn’t a single anecdote? Oh wait, it’s actually not:
> If you don't tip, the driver will give you a 1/5 rating.
It’s a definitive, and provably false statement.
Don't the drivers only see the tips in aggregate form at the end of the week?
Unsure. But they at least know you've tipped. "Steve thanked you for your tip."
I haven't really thought about whether it's known or unknown. I've assumed it was known, but often I tip cash anyway.
I don’t know if that’s really how it works with Uber, but surely Waymo could charge extra for “priority pickup” if it got popular enough.
Unless the app changed in the past year, they can see individual tips and can change their passenger ratings for those who don't pay the "optional" tip.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/uber/comments/18x5rxj/do_drivers_se...
If it's actually for priority that's okay. It will only have a significant effect when they're hitting their capacity limits, and it ends up being similar to surge pricing.
If they start refusing to pick up people that don't pay, while having idle cars, I expect them to get in trouble in various ways.
They have to rate long before you tip/rate.