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180 Days of Change – Our Commitment to Drivers – Uber

21 points by dhruvarora013 9y ago

troydavis 9y ago
From the post: > Tipping is coming > Great service deserves to be rewarded. Tipping is now available in Seattle, Minneapolis and Houston. We’ll be adding more cities over the next few weeks, and will make tips available to all U.S. drivers, by the end of July 2017.
chipgap98 9y ago
These all seem like no brainer features. I wonder why its taken them so long to implement them
smpetrey 9y ago
I guess the painful hemorrhaging of countless Uber drivers and customers has yielded some results!
ejlangev 9y ago
It's a shame it took 6 months of terrible PR for them to make these changes which actually do sound like they will be good for drivers. Can't help feeling like it would have taken relatively minimal effort to do these things in the past. Drivers have been complaining about lack of tipping for a while now. Seems to come from a place of wanting good PR rather than caring at all about drivers. Will see what the rest of the 180 days bring, maybe they are turning over a new leaf. I wouldn't bet on it though.
ojm 9y ago
Guess they realised they will need meat based drivers a bit longer now that their autonomous division is in strife.
ubertossaway1 9y ago
I don't want tipping to be a thing. I'm also hoping that it doesn't impact how the driver will rate me after-the-fact (I'm assuming it won't. I don't know how that system works. It's unclear to me, and the landing page + click-through page doesn't seem to identify that well enough for me.) I use Uber to commute in Seattle (often both ways) and have encountered repeat drivers. Will they give me a lower score now that they realize I'm not tipping them? Not tipping is what made Uber more simple and required less effort on my part. Tipping a taxi driver was annoying and this will be annoying too. I was also wary of using food delivery app services for the longest time because of the tipping. I am glad that I can just do a $5 tip (or whatever) + built delivery fee IN THE CHECKOUT process and not worry about it AFTER they have showed up at my doorstep with the delivery. TLDR: I don't want to tip because it requires more effort and consideration from me as a rider after the fact. I will not tip like this. As an aside, I've tipped an Uber driver ONCE before because it was a distant airport ride and he helped with the very heavy luggage my girlfriend and I had. I gave him cash. Edit: For whatever it's worth, I tip waiters and stylists very well. I don't have anything against tipping itself, just this kind of implementation into an app service where it didn't have tipping before.
- icelancer 9y ago
  >I don't want tipping to be a thing. I'm also hoping that it doesn't impact how the driver will rate me after-the-fact (I'm assuming it won't. I don't know how that system works. It's unclear to me, and the landing page + click-through page doesn't seem to identify that well enough for me.) You definitely get to see it per-trip, which is terrible. Tipping should be anonymous and pooled, reporting done daily across all riders.
  - ubertossaway1 9y ago
    > You definitely get to see it per-trip, which is terrible. Tipping should be anonymous and pooled, reporting done daily across all riders. I see what ya mean now: http://imgur.com/a/FMyX9 http://imgur.com/a/FMyX9 Agreed. But, dang it. At least my photo isn't attached... :-/ or maybe if they click-through? I dunno
- gdulli 9y ago
  I actively avoid any situations that require tipping, outside of restaurants where it's too inseparable from the experience. Tipping waiters is unavoidable but I'm not going to put up with any new scenarios where a business gets away with paying a worker unreasonably low pay and the gap is passed on to the customers.
  - ubertossaway1 9y ago
    > business gets away with paying a worker unreasonably low pay and the gap is passed on to the customers. Yup that's exactly what this is. It's upsetting. :(
eljimmy 9y ago
I really hope they have a strategy for dealing with drivers rating their riders poorly based on tips. Maybe aggregate all the rider tips into one and delay how soon they can view that amount? I really don't want to be given 1-star ratings just because I didn't tip the driver.
joekrill 9y ago
Really not looking forward to this change in tipping. One thing I really love about services like this is that I don't have to worry about dealing with tips. They already have ratings, why not just adjust pay based on driver ratings? That seems much more "fare" to me (ba-dum-ching). Also, are drivers now going to be able to rate me based on my tip?
BronSteeDiam 9y ago
Uber is finally bowing to irrational pressure from drivers, the media, and the paper belt. The customer is now just another 'stakeholder'. Goodbye Travis, you fought a good fight.
sctb 9y ago
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14596529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14596529
_1 9y ago
Finally, I hang the prospect of a tip over these pblebs' heads.
malandrew 9y ago
I don't see why this is a dupe. There is way more in this blog post than in the article that was linked to in the other story.

21 points by dhruvarora013 9y ago

From the post: > Tipping is coming > Great service deserves to be rewarded. Tipping is now available in Seattle, Minneapolis and Houston. We’ll be adding more cities over the next few weeks, and will make tips available to all U.S. drivers, by the end of July 2017.

chipgap98 9y ago

These all seem like no brainer features. I wonder why its taken them so long to implement them

smpetrey 9y ago

I guess the painful hemorrhaging of countless Uber drivers and customers has yielded some results!

ejlangev 9y ago

It's a shame it took 6 months of terrible PR for them to make these changes which actually do sound like they will be good for drivers. Can't help feeling like it would have taken relatively minimal effort to do these things in the past. Drivers have been complaining about lack of tipping for a while now. Seems to come from a place of wanting good PR rather than caring at all about drivers. Will see what the rest of the 180 days bring, maybe they are turning over a new leaf. I wouldn't bet on it though.

ojm 9y ago

Guess they realised they will need meat based drivers a bit longer now that their autonomous division is in strife.

ubertossaway1 9y ago

I don't want tipping to be a thing. I'm also hoping that it doesn't impact how the driver will rate me after-the-fact (I'm assuming it won't. I don't know how that system works. It's unclear to me, and the landing page + click-through page doesn't seem to identify that well enough for me.) I use Uber to commute in Seattle (often both ways) and have encountered repeat drivers. Will they give me a lower score now that they realize I'm not tipping them? Not tipping is what made Uber more simple and required less effort on my part. Tipping a taxi driver was annoying and this will be annoying too. I was also wary of using food delivery app services for the longest time because of the tipping. I am glad that I can just do a $5 tip (or whatever) + built delivery fee IN THE CHECKOUT process and not worry about it AFTER they have showed up at my doorstep with the delivery. TLDR: I don't want to tip because it requires more effort and consideration from me as a rider after the fact. I will not tip like this. As an aside, I've tipped an Uber driver ONCE before because it was a distant airport ride and he helped with the very heavy luggage my girlfriend and I had. I gave him cash. Edit: For whatever it's worth, I tip waiters and stylists very well. I don't have anything against tipping itself, just this kind of implementation into an app service where it didn't have tipping before.

icelancer 9y ago
>I don't want tipping to be a thing. I'm also hoping that it doesn't impact how the driver will rate me after-the-fact (I'm assuming it won't. I don't know how that system works. It's unclear to me, and the landing page + click-through page doesn't seem to identify that well enough for me.) You definitely get to see it per-trip, which is terrible. Tipping should be anonymous and pooled, reporting done daily across all riders.
- ubertossaway1 9y ago
  > You definitely get to see it per-trip, which is terrible. Tipping should be anonymous and pooled, reporting done daily across all riders. I see what ya mean now: http://imgur.com/a/FMyX9 http://imgur.com/a/FMyX9 Agreed. But, dang it. At least my photo isn't attached... :-/ or maybe if they click-through? I dunno
gdulli 9y ago
I actively avoid any situations that require tipping, outside of restaurants where it's too inseparable from the experience. Tipping waiters is unavoidable but I'm not going to put up with any new scenarios where a business gets away with paying a worker unreasonably low pay and the gap is passed on to the customers.
- ubertossaway1 9y ago
  > business gets away with paying a worker unreasonably low pay and the gap is passed on to the customers. Yup that's exactly what this is. It's upsetting. :(

eljimmy 9y ago

I really hope they have a strategy for dealing with drivers rating their riders poorly based on tips. Maybe aggregate all the rider tips into one and delay how soon they can view that amount? I really don't want to be given 1-star ratings just because I didn't tip the driver.

joekrill 9y ago

Really not looking forward to this change in tipping. One thing I really love about services like this is that I don't have to worry about dealing with tips. They already have ratings, why not just adjust pay based on driver ratings? That seems much more "fare" to me (ba-dum-ching). Also, are drivers now going to be able to rate me based on my tip?

BronSteeDiam 9y ago

Uber is finally bowing to irrational pressure from drivers, the media, and the paper belt. The customer is now just another 'stakeholder'. Goodbye Travis, you fought a good fight.

sctb 9y ago

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14596529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14596529

_1 9y ago

Finally, I hang the prospect of a tip over these pblebs' heads.

malandrew 9y ago

I don't see why this is a dupe. There is way more in this blog post than in the article that was linked to in the other story.