Why not just raise the prices a bit again? Now I'm worried I'll get down-starred for not tipping on Uber, which is just kind of annoying. I feel like not requiring a tip is Uber's biggest differentiator
You answered your own question. Why raise prices and risk losing customers when they can just use widely accepted social pressure to coerce you into subsidizing their cost of doing business for free?
It's not like they're fooling anyone though...regular users of uber will know the average outlay from using an uber is $X, whether it's through the fares charged or a lower fare plus expected tip. I would much rather have a higher fare than the stress of figuring out how much to tip. I could just decide on a tip to always give, but what about those times when the service is really shitty? Do I "get back" at them by leaving no tip? Isn't that the whole purpose of the tipping process? But that makes me feel like a shitty person, and the cognitive outlay in thinking about all of this is just annoying.
I'm gonna guess they'll keep the tips secret until many hours after the journey (and when both driver and passenger have left star ratings). They might even aggregate tips for the week/month.
That way, if you leave no tip, it can't come back and bite you.
But it will come back to bite me in a psychological way. I don't want to feel like the sort of person who doesn't tip when tipping is expected, I want to use a service where I don't have to think about tipping and can feel like a decent person. If that service has to cost more then so be it.
It would make drivers experience worse if they aggregated tips over weeks/months. This is primarily due to the "cash me out" feature where drivers may cash out a shift immediately upon completion.
Nothing to do with affording, and everything to do with the latent demand from people who don't want to have to think about or handle tipping when getting a ride, which was (at least a big part of) their original appeal.
This is the reason I refused to use Amazon Fresh. I'd rather pay higher subscription prices like with Prime as opposed to tipping every delivery. Even if it's optional, just the existence of the tipping feature adds social pressure.
Last I checked for Amazon Prime Now, drivers are only aware of their tips in aggregate, so leaving $0 is putting pressure on Amazon to pay their drivers more. It's kindof shitty, and I don't use the service often, but if Amazon is going to give me an option on who is going to foot the bill for the driver, I will pass on that every time.
I'd expect the driver software to let the driver rate the passenger before being shown the tip amount. Often times, I'll tip lyft drivers the next day or even the next time I open the lyft app.
Uber is going to use tipping as excuse to lower payouts to drivers.
If drivers get 80% of the fare now, they'll get 70% of the fare in a couple months because Uber will argue that drivers get tips now, which more than compensate for that loss.
Right Lyft already do this but there is no pressure because you don't have to tip right away. You get off and think about it.
I was a Lyft driver for one summer. Also Lyft supposely paid more.
Uber never encourage tipping and they didn't care about their driver at all. Their CEO was on the record for this.
I chose Lyft because they were more friendly and they didn't treat their worker like dirt.
I wouldn't ride an Uber or work for uber unless I really really have to. Most of the time I use Lyft for rides.
It's a crap managed company, threat their female co worker like Donald's locker room talk.
They threat their worker like crap. They did some really unfair things against Lyft. Including massive call on Lyft rides and then canceling it. They spy on their rival Lyft drivers. And they tried to steal Google's autonomous car tech.
" Riders will be asked whether they would like to leave a tip when rating their driver at the end of a trip." So exactly same as Lyft. Also do not forget Lyft would not exist without uber doing most of the "shady" work they did to get around and eventually change regulations which helped ride-sharing companies to operate .
And hell, Lyft has done plenty of shady stuff, too. They're just quiet about it and have a better PR department, and have branded themselves in a much more sympathetic way.
I don't know if their PR department is better, I think it is just that Lyft got lucky that the media, pundits, and commenters like us tend use "Uber" as a catchall for ride-sharing. Maybe it's a "first to market" curse for Uber.
It's kind of like how tech shuttles get labeled "Google Buses" even though Facebook, Yahoo, Linkedin, Microsoft, etc, also have hundreds of buses. But colloquially, all white busses are "Google Buses"
I think this varies a lot by city. I don't know if you're in San Francisco, but it's never been my experience here that drivers expect a tip. But when I fly down to Las Vegas nearly all the Ubers I've taken have notes taped up in the back stating the driver expects to be tipped (in cash).
I suspect a lot of that has to do with culture. Consider how differently you might expect these three people who are expecting a tip to behave: an Italian from New Jersey, a middle class hipster in LA, and an illegal immigrant driving under an Uber account they share with a legal worker.
it absolutely does. Since the last rate cuts I rate lower for no tip. at 1.80/mile and 30c/ minute I felt I was paid
fairly. at 1.55/mile it was still okay. At .85/ mile. no, there should be a tip.
Yes,to an extent. I do not pick up low rated riders. You have to ne a real asshole to not maintain a decent rating as a rider. 4.70 is my cut off during the day. After midnight, I do not pick up anyone under a 4.8
The way Uber works now is it incentivizes the driver to give you a poor rating if you don't tip. By including the tip functionality in the app, and preventing the driver from seeing the tip before you are rated, it will remove this incentive.
I don't like tipping either but Uber had to do this and I'm confident the data showed it.
I'm a bit jaded on this subject, but even not-profit dollars contribute to revenue dollars, which helps secure future funding. So not "not any part of the tips", just a complicated hedging game on those tips.
I used to tip in cash to avoid the bad rating especially if I am travelling to airport and have heavy luggage. I hate carrying cash and this is a very welcoming change. Anything that would make them look less evil(Although i don't think they are any worse than most companies.) is a good PR move.
I have literally never given an Uber driver a tip -- and have used them for many, many airport trips, and overall have easily taken more than a thousand rides since I joined in early 2012 -- and my rating is currently 4.87.
Perhaps you live in a market where Uber drivers are aggressive about asking for tips, though, which is not the case in SF.
I think ultimately this is a good thing. If this gives drivers a bigger incentive to use Uber, that will translate to more drivers on the road, and lower surge pricing for riders.
I deleted Uber and installed Lyft after riding in a car in Portland where the driver had discreetly tucked a dollar bill in the console as a tacit cue to tip. I hate tipping. I avoid situations where I have to tip, or get pressured to tip.
Now I'm going to start using Lyft again. The tipping model is terrible and given the option I'll always shy away from it. Even though Lyft has the same feature, they pay better, so I don't feel bad for not tipping them.
Also having to deal with some of the shadier/creepier drivers expecting tips sounds like something I'd rather not deal with.
Perfectly logical if that was main reason not to use Lyft, now on a leveled field Uber may seem worse and Lyft wins the business. No tipping was kinda big difference for Uber.
Agreed, this is the only feature that kept me from using Lyft. Given every other reason not to use Uber as of late, now that the two platforms are basically the same, this is probably what does it for me.
I loved Lyft's tipping feature and used it over Uber because many times I had to take my cats to the vet and it was nice to be able to tip the driver for the extra hassle. Same was true if I ever took Lyft while taking my sick wife from her work to home and she threw up in the car.
Except, my Lyft ratings kept on tanking, and I didn't even know. At one time I tipped a guy nearly 60% of the tab. Despite of this, my Uber rating were 4.8 and Lyft ratings were 4.0.
Eventually I figured out, it is the way Lyft implemented their tipping mechanism. All tips are combined and given to the driver at the end of the week. I mean what is the point of tipping then?
"Also having to deal with some of the shadier/creepier drivers expecting tips sounds like something I'd rather not deal with." What makes you think you won't get them with Lyft? Pretty much same people drive for both services. I just look at both apps and pick a cheaper one.
The most important feature I liked in Uber relative to lyft was no tipping. Why not spike the price up a little and compensate them.
When they have started, the motto was, "Uber - Your private driver" and it was truly like that until today I tip the driver like every other service you get.
Why are people up in arms over this? Being able to tip on Lyft is one of my favorite parts and from what I've read and understood, it generally favors the drivers. You don't need to tip immediately, a nice little dialog pops up with pre-configured amounts, and you can go above and beyond if you had good service
Because in the US tipping isn't for good service. You tip 15% for regular, average service. I don't think it's unreasonable for me to pay a flat, quoted rate for getting from A to B.
You don't have to rate the driver anymore I believe. Even if you put the step of tipping after getting out of the cab, it's a step.
Having a preset option is a good way to take out the friction, but instead you could just not include tipping and pay higher wages. Tipping is a way for businesses to bury the actual cost of a service.
I understand as a driver, it's nice to get tips, but if you get paid a fair wage it shouldn't matter.
Because tipping is racist, sexist, and classist --- tips don't correlate with levels of service and reduce predictability in working and using a service.
One reason why Uber has been great for the black community is that hailing a cab has traditionally been more difficult. Studies show that Black patrons get lower levels of service and black waiters get lower tips than their white peers (because of enduring stereotypes).
> Sexist
Women are often tipped more based off of looks than their male peers. Similarly, warding off advances and harassment is a thing.
> Classist
A diner and a 5 star restaurant often have competing levels of service, yet % based tipping means that the restaurant servers take home much less more money. Similarly, things like crooked teeth can affect how your patrons regard your smile.
> Being able to tip on Lyft is one of my favorite parts
Feeling obligated to tip on Lyft is one of my least favorite parts, and in fact I refused to switch from Uber to Lyft much longer than I would have preferred to because of Lyft's tipping culture.
> it generally favors the drivers
You know what favors the drivers better? Paying them more. Not only does this put more cash in their pockets, but it also provides more predictable income for them.
The main reason I use Uber is so I dont have to get into this weird passive-aggressive social situation with drivers over tips. Just raise the prices. Tipping my uber driver is like tipping my McDonalds teller. If pay is an issue just raise prices.
Tipping is just something abused to keep base prices low. It makes no sense outside of dishonest pricing schemes.
Also do these drivers really want me to base my tip on the quality of their driving? I find most uber and cab drivers are unsafe and frankly, shitty drivers.
I can't wait for Uber to apply the restaurant model as an excuse to underpay their drivers even more. "Our drivers depend on your tips, please leave at least 15%."
I really don't like our tipping culture and enjoyed avoiding it with Uber. I'd be happy to pay 20% higher prices across the board in order to avoid tipping.
You can just tip 20% every time, its done through the app so its not really any more work, maybe one additional finger tap when you're rating the driver.
I'm happy for drivers but not a fan of this change.
In Los Angeles I booked a ride and the driver never showed up. After cancelling the ride I got the $5 charge and luckily their support took care of it.
But tipping is something that needs to go away. I liked Uber despite their troubles because I was paying for a service and the minimum viable product is that the driver gets me from point A to point B safely.
Now what's in a fare? An opportunity to get in a car to pay more money for them to do their job.
Not having to deal with tips is THE reason I never bother checking Lyft. Now I guess I have no reason not to check both. Smart move Uber?
Aside from that, this is terrible news to me. The tip system is so flawed. 99% of people in America do not consider tips optional, but service here is no better for it. I want to pay a fair wage. I don't want to tip. Is there simply no market for this?
If you've ever talked to a driver this is the thing they always say they want Uber to change. Props to Uber for listening, even if it took them a while.
Tipping, if done right, is a better solution. Some fraction of customers today want to tip without being prompted as an expression of gratitude or appreciation. Some fraction of those customers don't have cash and are then unable to tip their drivers because the app didn't provide a mechanism to do that.
This gives riders that option without hurting Uber's bottom line. Paying drivers more is all well and good, but an increase in fares on the rider side would reduce marketplace demand and might actually hurt drivers more than it would help. The alternative is for Uber to eat the cost of paying drivers more, but that simply isn't viable for a company that's already losing as much money Uber does. Put simply, Uber is a business that can't really afford to pay drivers more.
There's a lot that could go wrong with tipping and it remains to be seen whether Uber rolls this out everywhere, but it's possible that this could end up being a feature where everyone wins.
It's not that the drivers don't deserve money- far from it. It's that you now have a company that is desperate for cash, and it is the one who tells the drivers how much they made in tips. What's to stop them from skimming the tips? Oh, not too much, not enough that anyone can really point it out, but just a little bit, right?
And let's not all pretend that a company as morally grey as Uber isn't willing to do it either. They'll write some legal bullshit into the contract, force all drivers to either agree to it, or stop driving, and then claim that everything they did was legal and therefore ethical.
For something that is supposed to be friction free, tipping really runs against that.
We all know that next there are going to be the subtle and not-so subtle encouragements from drivers to tip. Then the expectation to tip.
This move seems to only confuse me as a consumer, create something else for drivers to be annoyed about (the tips they receive vs what uber claimed they'll see), and adding an additional cognitive layer in payments.
I don't see the lasting benefit here. Just increase prices or increase driver share of payout.
> We all know that next there are going to be the subtle and not-so subtle encouragements from drivers to tip. Then the expectation to tip.
That already happened, with passive-aggressive comments about how you can tip in cash.
> I don't see the lasting benefit here. Just increase prices or increase driver share of payout.
There's a clear perceived benefit to Uber: PR with drivers, perceived improvement as a company (as opposed to having to fix hard corporate-culture issues), and the ability to keep the "advertised" price lower. (Of course, they're missing that they've now abandoned one of their major differentiators from their lead competitor.)
But there's certainly no lasting benefit to customers. Tips should be for extraordinary, stand-out service, not a customary hassle in every transaction.
Lyft seems to have nailed it - the tip is not necessarily immediate (and can be added 3 days later), and the payout to the driver is in a single anonymized chunk, so it's not easy (or too late) to track the rider to the tip amount.
Terrible decision. Tipping is harmful culture in the long term. It leads to employees (drivers in this case) being paid less than they should be "because they will be tipped anyway" and it gives customers anxiety about tipping. Plus, the employees will start to expect tipping or treat you badly, especially if their employers consider tipping as part of their salary.
How does this make Uber the nice guy if the riders tip drivers, not Uber? Uber still takes a cut of up to 25% of the fare. Anyway, riders can always tip drivers with small cash.
screw this; charge a fair price and pay people a fair amount. Relying on the random generosity of customers to pay your employees/contractors/indentured-servants a fair wage is a bullshit business model (yes, I am aware this is how the restaurant industry in the US survives).
Wow. There are a lot of people in here that have never worked in the Services industry or done the math for an Uber driver's take home pay after taxes/gas/maintenance.
It's ironic how the same people who say they don't mind paying a higher price vs tips, are choosing Uber because they are cheaper than a Lyft/Taxi.
I'd easily use NYC taxis if they had an app and payment system as convenient as Uber's. I HATE having to tip, but wouldn't mind paying higher to have it included in the price; I also abhor the taxi TV nonsense blaring in NYC cabs.
I don't take Uber because it's cheaper ... I take it so I don't have to worry about a "broken" credit card reader, getting an accurate receipt, or worrying about what is considered a "fair" tip. With Uber, I assume if the driver accepts the trip, then they are okay with their cut from Uber.
This is an anecdote, but I do not choose an Uber because it is less expensive. I choose Uber because it is easier than hailing a taxi. It provides more certainty. You dont need to fight other people on the street for a taxi. You dont need to wait 30minutes for a cab to arrive (or never arrive) despite the dispatcher saying "5 minutes." You dont need to begrudgingly hand a $20 note for a $6 ride to a cabbie who "doesn't have change." You can reimburse corporate trips because the cabbie is never out of receipts. There are so many reasons I use Uber rather than traditional taxis.
After thousands of uber tips, 100% of my drivers have said they enjoy the freedom and ability to work when and where they want without commitment. Employment destroys all of that and would mean many of them would lose this income source.
If people do want to drive full-time, that job already exists. There are numerous places to work as a commercial driver. In fact, Uber Black leverages exactly this and is routinely serviced by companies that employee full-time drivers.
The fact that many drivers don't choose to be full-time professional drivers is far more telling than the tiny but whiny minority that seem to not realize what rideshare driving is.
Tipping does not increase the service you get from someone. It just makes the customer feel guilty or pay more. Look at Publix: Rated No. 1 in the Temkin Customer Experience Ratings and No. 2 for Customer Service. But Tipping their baggers, even if they help you out to your car, is against company policy.
Well, there goes my last reason for using Uber. I had been really excited that they were the one oasis pushing back against the tipping culture[1].
Particularly troubling is the framing:
>Uber is enabling passengers to tip its U.S. drivers with a tap on its ride-hailing app for the first time, part of a push to recast itself as a company with a conscience and a heart.
What? As if anyone preferring that a service be upfront about prices is "heartless"? Anyone who doesn't want tip jars at the grocery store checkstand or bus farebox is heartless? All of Europe and Asia are heartless?
As if all of the alternatives for increasing driver compensation are heartless? (Higher payouts or the Sidecar drivers-set-prices model.)
[1] Before anyone says it, yes I know you have to pay more for a tip-free service; I'm not an idiot. I'm fine with that. I'm not fine with the lack of consistent, clear, compatible expectations it involves, and being stuck in the position of either a) overpaying, b) making a silent faux pas, or c) having negative feedback misinterpreted as stinginess.
Yeah, all the tipping advocates are probably not aware that most countries don't have tipping. Restaurant staff are paid according to local wages. So a racial minority won't be paid less than someone from the majority race. European and Australian restaurant staff aren't depending on arbitrary tips. They know exactly what they are going to make at the beginning of their shift. They don't feel like they're working for peanuts for rolling napkins or putting chairs on tables.
It's probably not a bad idea to just select the $0 option when the tip screen shows up... until drivers start insisting on seeing you enter your tip before awarding your 5-star rating.
375 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 190 ms ] threadEdit: To be clear, I am speaking from Uber's perspective.
That way, if you leave no tip, it can't come back and bite you.
If you're a frequent customer of a certain driver and consistently don't tip then I can see some problems there.
If drivers get 80% of the fare now, they'll get 70% of the fare in a couple months because Uber will argue that drivers get tips now, which more than compensate for that loss.
I was a Lyft driver for one summer. Also Lyft supposely paid more.
Uber never encourage tipping and they didn't care about their driver at all. Their CEO was on the record for this.
I chose Lyft because they were more friendly and they didn't treat their worker like dirt.
I wouldn't ride an Uber or work for uber unless I really really have to. Most of the time I use Lyft for rides.
It's a crap managed company, threat their female co worker like Donald's locker room talk.
They threat their worker like crap. They did some really unfair things against Lyft. Including massive call on Lyft rides and then canceling it. They spy on their rival Lyft drivers. And they tried to steal Google's autonomous car tech.
They got greedy with their expansion too.
It's kind of like how tech shuttles get labeled "Google Buses" even though Facebook, Yahoo, Linkedin, Microsoft, etc, also have hundreds of buses. But colloquially, all white busses are "Google Buses"
I think this varies a lot by city. I don't know if you're in San Francisco, but it's never been my experience here that drivers expect a tip. But when I fly down to Las Vegas nearly all the Ubers I've taken have notes taped up in the back stating the driver expects to be tipped (in cash).
It would annoy me to no end, and I would be surprised if Uber would have been cool with that before now.
I don't like tipping either but Uber had to do this and I'm confident the data showed it.
It'll form an income stream.
>Uber won’t take any part of the tips given drivers.[1]
IIRC, it would also be legally dubious to do so.
[1] And for the record, I prefer this phrasing to the more common "Drivers keep 100% of tips", which is not true unless they're evading taxes.
Perhaps you live in a market where Uber drivers are aggressive about asking for tips, though, which is not the case in SF.
This is one of the orginal features that helped drive customers away from cabs.
Also having to deal with some of the shadier/creepier drivers expecting tips sounds like something I'd rather not deal with.
Except, my Lyft ratings kept on tanking, and I didn't even know. At one time I tipped a guy nearly 60% of the tab. Despite of this, my Uber rating were 4.8 and Lyft ratings were 4.0.
Eventually I figured out, it is the way Lyft implemented their tipping mechanism. All tips are combined and given to the driver at the end of the week. I mean what is the point of tipping then?
Since then I only give cash tips.
Perfectly reasonable reason to give a tip.
It's not the option that bugs me, it's the expectation.
When they have started, the motto was, "Uber - Your private driver" and it was truly like that until today I tip the driver like every other service you get.
Are cash tips expected on Uber Black? My understanding is that segment operates on much more generous rates than cut-throat UberX.
Because in the US tipping isn't for good service. You tip 15% for regular, average service. I don't think it's unreasonable for me to pay a flat, quoted rate for getting from A to B.
Cabs
1. Find a cab
2. Hail the cab
3. Get in cab
4. Decide what to tip the cab
5. Pay the cab driver
6. Get out of cab
vs
Uber (without tipping)
1. Hail the uber from phone
2. Get in uber
3. Get out of uber
You could make the argument that tipping is optional, but deciding not to tip is still a decision making step.
You don't have to tip the driver in the car dude.
You can just step out go home and rate and leave tip or not.
I was a lyft driver. You don't even need to tip cause I made a decent amount during the hours I work for. It's a nice gesture but I didn't care.
If you work around club hours and I forgot what they call it, in demand time, you're making decent money.
> Decide what to tip the cab
>___> dude it have preset option of 10% or something on there. Just click no.
You can do it outside of the car too jeez.
Having a preset option is a good way to take out the friction, but instead you could just not include tipping and pay higher wages. Tipping is a way for businesses to bury the actual cost of a service.
I understand as a driver, it's nice to get tips, but if you get paid a fair wage it shouldn't matter.
Surely this has to be facetious? If not I would love to hear you elaborate?
> consumers of both races discriminate against black service providers by tipping them less than white service providers
> Racist
One reason why Uber has been great for the black community is that hailing a cab has traditionally been more difficult. Studies show that Black patrons get lower levels of service and black waiters get lower tips than their white peers (because of enduring stereotypes).
> Sexist
Women are often tipped more based off of looks than their male peers. Similarly, warding off advances and harassment is a thing.
> Classist
A diner and a 5 star restaurant often have competing levels of service, yet % based tipping means that the restaurant servers take home much less more money. Similarly, things like crooked teeth can affect how your patrons regard your smile.
Feeling obligated to tip on Lyft is one of my least favorite parts, and in fact I refused to switch from Uber to Lyft much longer than I would have preferred to because of Lyft's tipping culture.
> it generally favors the drivers
You know what favors the drivers better? Paying them more. Not only does this put more cash in their pockets, but it also provides more predictable income for them.
Tipping is just something abused to keep base prices low. It makes no sense outside of dishonest pricing schemes.
Also do these drivers really want me to base my tip on the quality of their driving? I find most uber and cab drivers are unsafe and frankly, shitty drivers.
In Los Angeles I booked a ride and the driver never showed up. After cancelling the ride I got the $5 charge and luckily their support took care of it.
But tipping is something that needs to go away. I liked Uber despite their troubles because I was paying for a service and the minimum viable product is that the driver gets me from point A to point B safely.
Now what's in a fare? An opportunity to get in a car to pay more money for them to do their job.
Aside from that, this is terrible news to me. The tip system is so flawed. 99% of people in America do not consider tips optional, but service here is no better for it. I want to pay a fair wage. I don't want to tip. Is there simply no market for this?
This is Uber's attempt pass on the burden of compensation to their passengers. Uber rides just got a little more awkward.
This gives riders that option without hurting Uber's bottom line. Paying drivers more is all well and good, but an increase in fares on the rider side would reduce marketplace demand and might actually hurt drivers more than it would help. The alternative is for Uber to eat the cost of paying drivers more, but that simply isn't viable for a company that's already losing as much money Uber does. Put simply, Uber is a business that can't really afford to pay drivers more.
There's a lot that could go wrong with tipping and it remains to be seen whether Uber rolls this out everywhere, but it's possible that this could end up being a feature where everyone wins.
Just charge me what it costs to give them a living wage and I'm happy!
It's not that the drivers don't deserve money- far from it. It's that you now have a company that is desperate for cash, and it is the one who tells the drivers how much they made in tips. What's to stop them from skimming the tips? Oh, not too much, not enough that anyone can really point it out, but just a little bit, right?
And let's not all pretend that a company as morally grey as Uber isn't willing to do it either. They'll write some legal bullshit into the contract, force all drivers to either agree to it, or stop driving, and then claim that everything they did was legal and therefore ethical.
We all know that next there are going to be the subtle and not-so subtle encouragements from drivers to tip. Then the expectation to tip.
This move seems to only confuse me as a consumer, create something else for drivers to be annoyed about (the tips they receive vs what uber claimed they'll see), and adding an additional cognitive layer in payments.
I don't see the lasting benefit here. Just increase prices or increase driver share of payout.
That already happened, with passive-aggressive comments about how you can tip in cash.
> I don't see the lasting benefit here. Just increase prices or increase driver share of payout.
There's a clear perceived benefit to Uber: PR with drivers, perceived improvement as a company (as opposed to having to fix hard corporate-culture issues), and the ability to keep the "advertised" price lower. (Of course, they're missing that they've now abandoned one of their major differentiators from their lead competitor.)
But there's certainly no lasting benefit to customers. Tips should be for extraordinary, stand-out service, not a customary hassle in every transaction.
Just a lose-lose situation.
It's ironic how the same people who say they don't mind paying a higher price vs tips, are choosing Uber because they are cheaper than a Lyft/Taxi.
If people do want to drive full-time, that job already exists. There are numerous places to work as a commercial driver. In fact, Uber Black leverages exactly this and is routinely serviced by companies that employee full-time drivers.
The fact that many drivers don't choose to be full-time professional drivers is far more telling than the tiny but whiny minority that seem to not realize what rideshare driving is.
Particularly troubling is the framing:
>Uber is enabling passengers to tip its U.S. drivers with a tap on its ride-hailing app for the first time, part of a push to recast itself as a company with a conscience and a heart.
What? As if anyone preferring that a service be upfront about prices is "heartless"? Anyone who doesn't want tip jars at the grocery store checkstand or bus farebox is heartless? All of Europe and Asia are heartless?
As if all of the alternatives for increasing driver compensation are heartless? (Higher payouts or the Sidecar drivers-set-prices model.)
[1] Before anyone says it, yes I know you have to pay more for a tip-free service; I'm not an idiot. I'm fine with that. I'm not fine with the lack of consistent, clear, compatible expectations it involves, and being stuck in the position of either a) overpaying, b) making a silent faux pas, or c) having negative feedback misinterpreted as stinginess.
It's probably not a bad idea to just select the $0 option when the tip screen shows up... until drivers start insisting on seeing you enter your tip before awarding your 5-star rating.
And pretty much every bar/restaurant I know of pools tips, not the opposite as you suggest.
If any driver did that to me, I would give them a 1-star rating, no tip, and immediately report them to Uber's customer support.