[twreactistricky]

Tipping is an awful and awkward practice that shouldn't ever be encouraged. I found I was way happier about paying for any kind of service in parts of the world where tipping isn't expected or even frowned on. Pay your employees properly. If you are self employed, roll gratuity into the fee for your service.

This is taking one of the best things about Uber and Uber-like services away. Ignoring the surge pricing BS, I don't have to keep an eye on the meter, I don't have to argue with the driver about the fare, I don't have to worry about the tip, I don't need cash on hand, etc.

[unsignedint]

This sounds like defeating the whole reason for Uber for many people. I find service like Uber more appealing for no frustrations dealing with cash payment, and also because of general hostility in taxi industry about dealing with credit card payment. (Latter one, you can pay your taxi fare using credit cards, but they are often "discouraged" and some driver even shows clear frustration. Apparently this comes from the fact they don't get paid for it until the following month for any credit card transactions, according to one of the drivers I've talked.)

[Fundlab]

Previously drivers were not permitted to accept tips and this was mandatory. I dont know if the new tipping arrangement is going to be foisted on the passenger if not I think it is only fair for drivers to be able accept a tip from anyone who generously feels the need to do so

[vertex-four]

The issue is that tipping culture in the US means that if tipping is accepted, the vast majority of customers will see it as necessary, leading drivers to see it as a usual part of the transaction, leading to customers who don't want to tip being seen as in the wrong. It would probably work better in nearly every other country.

On the other hand, putting on my "caring about people" hat, if Uber can't/won't pay a living wage for a day's worth of work, and keeps cutting its prices which have a direct impact on people's income, bring on the tipping.

[imgabe]

If Uber doesn't pay a living wage, drivers should leave and do something else.

[d33]

Damnit, that's no good news! :/ Uber was my #1 example of how modern companies are trying to kill the culture of tipping and it looks like I will have to look for #2.

[vertex-four]

Well, sure, but that makes the assumption that other companies will employ them. Uber has the one upside that it'll employ as many people as want to work for them, just not at a sustainable income.

Which would you rather have - some income, or none?

[cb18]

if Uber can't/won't pay a living wage for a day's worth of work, and keeps cutting its prices which have a direct impact on people's income, bring on the tipping.

So you can cover the cost of their employees while they intentionally run at negative margins, attempting to eliminate competition so they can later charge you monopolistic pricing?

[vertex-four]

Well, Uber's not going to go away, the practice of paying workers less than they can live on isn't going to go away under capitalism, and welfare is constantly being eaten away at - the best we can make of it is to make sure people can survive.

[meddlepal]

I wonder how this will affect rider scores if you don't tip.

[lucaspiller]

As long as the driver doesn't see the tip until they've dropped off the user and rated them, I don't see it being so much an issue. I've tipped Uber drivers in cash who have been exceptionally good, but I wouldn't do it as a normal thing.

[GreaterFool]

I agree. Tipping is a terrible practice. Also, Uber drivers receive ratings. I can already see that drivers asking for tips would probably get lower ratings. That's not going to end well.

[tomschlick]

Even worse. Drivers rate passengers. If you don't tip well they could rate you lower which would discourage other drivers from accepting your ride request.

[ghaff]

I don't see tipping as universally a terrible practice. Sure, if a driver goes above and beyond in some way, I'll put in a bit extra. But as a routine?

It's not hard for me to see this developing into conversations along the following:

"Um, tips aren't included you know."

"I don't have any change."

"Here let me make you some."

"I really don't."

'Tips are really expected."

"Fine, here's $2."

"That all?"

"Yes"

You: Rate 2 out of 5.

[jfarmer]

Riders receive ratings, too.

[GreaterFool]

Then it's all out war in the making. Suppose one takes a ride and the driver strikes a conversation about tips and how they're essential and so on. And the passenger doesn't tip. Then the passenger can assume the driver will give him low rating. So in return the passenger will give the driver really low rating.

[jasode]

>Tipping is an awful and awkward practice that shouldn't ever be encouraged.

It seems like there's an easy free-market solution to this.

Since Uber was on the losing side of eliminating tips from a policy standpoint, just let customers en masse accomplish the same goal: Simply add another field to the screen explicitly showing if the driver expects tips or not.

Some example screenshots from Uber showing a driver profile to modify:

http://therivardreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/uber_s...

http://cdn.moneycrashers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/uber...

  * Add a column stating "Tips: Yes/No"
  * Add a filter option of "Tips=No" for customers to eliminate drivers who want gratuity
  * Rank/bias the list of available drivers such that "Tips=No" are shown first

This concept would be similar to filtering ebay sellers that offer free shipping (aka built into the final selling price) or expect extra shipping charges. Another point of seller differentiation is allowing "returns/refunds" or "all sales final." Instead of ebay dictating a rigid policy, the ebay bidders can use filters to avoid sellers with undesirable attributes.

The Uber drivers would learn very quickly whether "expecting tips" is a smart business strategy to maximize income.

For curiosity's sake, I went to Lyft to see their policy on tipping: https://help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/articles/213583978-How-to-Tip...

Since Lyft seems to encourage tipping, I'm guessing this is one of the reasons why many consider their platform more "driver friendly." It would be interesting to see what % of passengers tip Lyft drivers. That might be predictive of how Uber passengers would choose the "tipping=No" drivers.

[simonswords82]

This approach encourages tipping which is exactly what the OP isn't in favour of.

IMO all jobs, cab driving included, should be paid well enough that tipping simply isn't necessary. Companies shouldn't encourage tipping (which is often also tax dodging) just because they don't want to pay their employees enough that tipping isn't required to sustain them.

Having said that, while tipping shouldn't be encouraged if somebody does go above and beyond the call of duty for me I'm going to find a way to reward them. That might be a simple "Thank you so much, that was really nice of you" up to and including paying extra if I can afford to do so and feel it's warranted.

[jasode]

>This approach encourages tipping which is exactly what the OP isn't in favour of.

Yes, I understand that OP and you don't favor tipping but we're already past that point. (The lawsuit was already settled and Uber lost the battle about tipping.)

In other words, we can have 2 types of discussions about this:

#1) a hypothetical clean slate where Uber didn't exist and a lawsuit was not settled. Therefore, we can discuss social idealization of not tipping, etc.

or

#2) the settled lawsuit is a reality and tipping (in some form -- but still possibly optional) is a fait accompli. In light of that, we discuss business responses in terms of practicality, customer filters, UX/UI complexity, etc.

My post was talking about #2.

If the OP's scope of "shouldn't ever be encouraged" includes a total revamp of Uber to remove all text throughout the website and internal documents referring to "tipping", I suppose that may be possible but I don't know how realistic it is. To me, it's just relabeling money that was classified as "tips" as "service fee" or even not label it at all. Money is fungible so there are many ways to game it.

Lastly, I couldn't tell if your assertion of "this approach encourages tipping" meant that it would lead to isolated decisions of tipping or universal tipping. If you meant isolated tipping -- then yes, that would be obvious. However, if "encourage tipping" meant the entire economic ecosystem of Uber drivers converges towards tipping, that's not so obvious to me. Since Lyft has a tipping option, has social pressure caused 99% to 100% of Lyft passengers to always add a tip? (I'm not privy to Lyft's statistics so I don't know the answer to that.)

[IanCal]

This all sounds very complicated. A driver has to say they expect maybe some extra money, which then users can filter on with some vague cultural acceptance of the amount to add...

Isn't the simplest "free market" solution to allow drivers to set their own prices? Just give me a price, not a price + "and then maybe some more".

[denzil_correa]

> Tipping is an awful and awkward practice that shouldn't ever be encouraged.

There's an interesting Freakonomics Episode titled “The No-Tipping Point.” which talks about the same.

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/danny-meyer/