Uber tipping? (home, unemployed, neighborhoods)

[chicagobear]

I see that Uber is now allowing tipping via the app after your ride. I did it once to try it out. I'd really rather have Uber just raise their prices if their drivers aren't making enough money so I don't have to think about it. I suppose if you don't tip, you will get bad ratings and no one will pick you up.

[BOBNCHI]

I always tip them outside the app so I know they are getting it.

[eureka1]

I tip, cash.

[emathias]

I'll be honest. I'm a great tipper. In restaurants where I'm a regular, I get awesome service partly because i'm genuinely nice to the staff, but probably at least in part that I'm a great tipper. And I tip cabbies well, too, for the most part.

But I also deeply believe that tipping is anachronistic and should be eased out whenever and wherever possible. People should be paid for their work in a fair manner and given that almost every study every done that looks at tipping and the demographics of the tipped, race and gender significantly affect tip quantity. That's just not fair, and is a terrible thing to be true in this day and age. So for that reason I was happy when Uber launched with zero tipping. I'm not going to tip with cash someone I pay electronically because it defeats the convenience purpose of electronic payment. And I noticed that, generally speaking, Uber fares were slightly higher than Lyft and I hoped that this meant pricing was making up for tipping.

But rather than Uber pushing Lyft into helping end tipping in one sector, the opposite has happened and it really irritates me. Here we have a high-tech solution that *could have* removed one place where inequality happens and instead of pushing for that ideal we as a society caved and regressed back to an inherently racist policy. And yes, since we *know* that tipping works out worse for certain races, if we support continued tipping *we, as a society, are racists*. If we weren't, we would fight for the fair thing to do, which is to pay the drivers more to make up for tipping being banned.

And, yes, you who were tipping with cash were propagating a racist system by pushing for tipping instead of equitable pay. You were. Period. I'm sure you're lovely people, but turning a blind eye to a racist system because you like the idea of handing someone cash and feeling generous for overpaying someone is dishonorable.

I actually have started taking cabs mostly again because of this. Because if we're going to regress even when technology could make things a more fair society, then I'm going to put my money into the hands of the people who played by the rules, who have to pay for medallion licenses that were, at one time, worth upwards of a half million dollars and now are nearly worthless because of the disruption from Lyft and Uber. Lyft and Uber's disruption created some great services, but they also have been unfairly terrible for taxis, businesses that were playing by the rules, who worked within the confines of a monopoly the city forced on them and were sold out by the City when it allowed Uber and Lyft to basically ignore all of the rules and regulations that taxis had to play by giving the upstarts an enormous, unfair advantage.

And then to backslide on tipping, that's just the last straw. If Uber and Lyft don't have the stomach to *really* improve their drivers' lives and to *really* work to mitigate, if not completely end, the financial impact of racist tippers then I just cannot feel good about using their service with any regularity.

[ToriaT]

I tip in cash.

[Kap Lovelake]

I don't use Uber or Lyft because I don't have a Smartphone. I don't often take cabs because they are so expensive, especially with the tips. I like the idea that tipping is not necessary with Uber & Lyft and would welcome an opportunity not to tip if I did use them, and if it were truly not expected.

To emathias, I would like to understand better why you think tipping is racist.

[Praline]

I am a frequent Lyft user because I do so much business traveling - I always tip the drivers with cash. I absolutely prefer Lyft to Uber.

[TBideon]

Restaurant food prices are kept artificially low because we have tipping, and they're still barely breaking even as is. If they have to raise wages to match the $20+ an hour that servers currently take home in mid-tier restaurants, there will be a lot of unemployed restaurant-owners and staff. I mean, that is like a 600% increase in labor costs (or whatever the math is).

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Kap Lovelake

...
To emathias, I would like to understand better why you think tipping is racist.

Tipping in theory is not racist.

But if you read what I wrote, there are dozens of studies on tipping that look at how well different demographics are tipped. In every single one of them, black employees, and sometimes other minorities, are tipped less on average than white ones. Every. Single. One. Additionally, depending on the job, sometimes men are tipped more than women, sometimes women are tipped more than men. For specific roles, that is also a consistent result in studies of the demographics of tipping. Sexism isn't any better than racism and is equally unfair to the workers. It's very difficult to study exactly what motivates customers to tip what they do, in large part because tipping is also unfair because it is largely capricious. But I'm even willing to accept that very few customers think, "My server is black, I'm going to give them less," or "My server is white, I'm going to give them more." Customers don't put that much thought into tipping. But many people who are never consciously racist have lingering subconscious race-based prejudices. It's largely not their fault - I mean, sure, they could perhaps be more introspective and come to realize that and consciously try to fight it, but most people just aren't that introspective. Most people don't consciously tip black servers less and white servers more, but for whatever reason the averages turn out such that white servers make more than black servers, and I refuse to believe that it's because whites actually provide better service. I think it's likely as simple as subconsciously customers are more likely to round up a tip for a server they identify with, and round down a tip for a server they don't identify with. It's probably just that simple but at the end of the day it creates economic harm for black servers and so should be phased out.

So while in theory tipping isn't racist or sexist, in practice it promotes racism and directly harms certain races. If salaries or wages were simply adjusted upward, or if a standard service charge were automatically added to a bill with no opportunity for the customer to add to it, that bit of racism would no longer happen.

That's why I'm anti-tipping. As I said, I won't unilaterally stop tipping in situations where tipping is customary. However, I do strongly believe that tipping should be phased out at every possible opportunity. Uber and Lyft really dropped the ball with the opportunity they had to promote fairness.

[FAReastcoast]

Originally Posted by emathias

Tipping in theory is not racist.

But if you read what I wrote, there are dozens of studies on tipping that look at how well different demographics are tipped. In every single one of them, black employees, and sometimes other minorities, are tipped less on average than white ones. Every. Single. One. Additionally, depending on the job, sometimes men are tipped more than women, sometimes women are tipped more than men. For specific roles, that is also a consistent result in studies of the demographics of tipping. Sexism isn't any better than racism and is equally unfair to the workers. It's very difficult to study exactly what motivates customers to tip what they do, in large part because tipping is also unfair because it is largely capricious. But I'm even willing to accept that very few customers think, "My server is black, I'm going to give them less," or "My server is white, I'm going to give them more." Customers don't put that much thought into tipping. But many people who are never consciously racist have lingering subconscious race-based prejudices. It's largely not their fault - I mean, sure, they could perhaps be more introspective and come to realize that and consciously try to fight it, but most people just aren't that introspective. Most people don't consciously tip black servers less and white servers more, but for whatever reason the averages turn out such that white servers make more than black servers, and I refuse to believe that it's because whites actually provide better service. I think it's likely as simple as subconsciously customers are more likely to round up a tip for a server they identify with, and round down a tip for a server they don't identify with. It's probably just that simple but at the end of the day it creates economic harm for black servers and so should be phased out.

So while in theory tipping isn't racist or sexist, in practice it promotes racism and directly harms certain races. If salaries or wages were simply adjusted upward, or if a standard service charge were automatically added to a bill with no opportunity for the customer to add to it, that bit of racism would no longer happen.

That's why I'm anti-tipping. As I said, I won't unilaterally stop tipping in situations where tipping is customary. However, I do strongly believe that tipping should be phased out at every possible opportunity. Uber and Lyft really dropped the ball with the opportunity they had to promote fairness.

This is interesting. I'd have to read the studies to fully understand the specifics of the tests, but I'll chime in with my experience of being a server from age 16-22. I don't have stats to back it up, but I'd wager a black server is more likely to serve a black table than a white table; just based on segregation in our country, and restaurants in AA neighborhoods are more likely to employ/serve AA people. Now...what i'm about to say will probably rub people the wrong way here, but, Black People, on average are terrible tippers. Does that mean all black people are bad tippers? no. BUT, from my experience, and the experience of my former colleagues, and my wife's family, who are in the restaurant business, black people tip less than white people.
Point being, I wonder how that plays into the results of these studies.