10 ms·

It goes without saying, but if you're gonna use those apps, please please please tip your drivers. These apps make it so hard to discern how much they make, esp

It goes without saying, but if you're gonna use those apps, please please please tip your drivers. These apps make it so hard to discern how much they make, especially when "free money" for customers is involved. Personally, I think companies like DoorDash set a really dark precedent for the future of work in the US. Their primary value as a company is their ability to manipulate how thousands of people get paid, not to ensure top quality service.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
To add: Tip cash! Never tip in app! EDIT: To those who ask why, you cannot trust the app to disburse the "tip" to the worker.
- elefanten 6y ago
  That's a crazy ask and defeats at least some of the purpose of using these apps
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    I would also support tipping via Venmo, Cash App, or Zelle for those who aren't willing to keep cash on hand. The goal is to tip out of band to prevent the usual gig app shenanigans, further harming gig workers beyond the usual gig work transactional arrangement.
    - xorcist 6y ago
      If you don't want to support the "gig economy" then it is better not to use the apps. Cash payments will never lead to improvements in working conditions, pensions or health insurance.
  - hansjorg 6y ago
    DoorDash will steal from their workers tips if you pay it in-app. The societally disruptive idea of not paying your workers is the great "innovation" of the gig economy. The oldest grift there ever was.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      Seems like the better advice is to not use Doordash. Doordash likes it when you let them advertise lower prices and then help pay for their labor costs via unstated cash tips. Workers might like it too to avoid taxes, but that’s opposite to my interests.
      - hansjorg 6y ago
        Yes, I agree, but that's the reason why people are recommending to not tip in-app.
  - 1-more 6y ago
    I strongly encourage everyone who uses these apps to try delivering for them for a night or two. Just get a feel for what it's like. I do it as a hobby kind of and they're all bad for their various reasons. Uber Eats tells you what you stand to make up front but that depends on tip, which isn't guaranteed. Postmates is the only one that tells you what's in the order before you accept it (I can't carry a pizza and prefer to avoid fountain drinks). But you just don't know what it's like to deliver for the apps until you try it.
- kristjankalm 6y ago
  could you elaborate why? i mainly use deliveroo and tip with the app -- they also seek to minimise contact so usually i just get to pick up the food from my doorstep, cash tipping seems a bit suboptimal
  - notsuoh 6y ago
    The poster already edited, but to be more explicit: as I understand it’s some variation of some of these companies have been paying the driver X per hour, but if they don’t make X per hour, the tips fill in X-1. Effectively you’re paying the drivers wages instead of the company, rather than tips on top of their wages, in some cases.
    - bumby 6y ago
      Is this a moot point if the assumption tips are reported as wages? I was never a server, but worked in the back of the restaurant so maybe I don't understand, but this seemed to be the same dynamic. With all that said, tipping seems to be a weird cultural holdover where employers can keep labor rates down via a quasi-voluntary tax
      - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        Are you in USA? In UK (pubs/ restaurants that I've had an association with; some time ago) it was normal for tips to be shared with all staff. Maybe that was a UK/rural/independent establishment thing?
        bumby 6y ago
        I'm old, so this was some time ago. The servers were supposed to share tips with the dishwashers etc. but in practice it was hit or miss since most of the tips were cash and could be easily under-reported. Not sure if it was a law to share tips or not
      - dheera 6y ago
        The difference is this -- let's say your delivery company pays the driver $1 per hour plus "100% of the tips" but guarantees them at least $15 per hour. The reality is that $1 + tips almost never makes it to $15, so they always pay them $15 an hour. If you tip $5, they get $1 + $5 (from you) + $9 (from the company). If you tip $0, they get $1 + $14 (from the company). This is a shitty system designed to get you to offset company expenses. In a well-designed system they should not pay them $1 + 100% of the tips, they should pay them $15 + 100% of the tips and where tips are truly optional.
- janmo 6y ago
  It's a shame that some apps takes a commission on tips
- kawfey 6y ago
  Last night I didn't realize Doordash doesn't even give me the option to tip for carryout. I came back to the restaurant to leave some cash in their jar labeled "DOORDASH TIPS!" We Americans really need a way to tip via app. I wish cryptocurrency was viable, because the POS ecosystem (Toast, Square, Clover, etc) is fragmented and takes a cut, the gig-app ordering systems take an even bigger cut, and it's just awfully annoying to have paper cash on hand. Crypto has yet to make any firm inroads though. It'll even be a great day for those who rely on gratituity when the US decides to mint $2 and/or $5 coins. $1 coins are so hard to come by and people think they're such a novelty yet they're immensely more useful, more durable, cleaner, and denser (10 $1 bills bursts my wallet and eventually turns into a chaotic mess in my pocket when I don't have time at the register to nicely stack and fold them back into my wallet; 10 $1 coins in my pocket is far more manageable.)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    > We Americans really need a way to tip via app What we really need is to change culture so that it's considered totally unacceptable for a business to pay service workers far below minimum wage, and rely on customers to make up the difference individually. I'm not Mr. Pink--I tip, but with full knowledge that all it's doing is enriching the business owner, who, instead of paying their staff properly, pockets an extra few dollars an hour instead.
    - cgriswald 6y ago
      Is there evidence that tipped employees in a states without a tip credit do better than in a state with tip credits?
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        I don’t know what you mean by tip credit, but in states where there there is only one minimum wage, regardless of tips, the people still expect to be tipped.
- buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
  Unfortunately this isn't practical. The drivers can see the tip before they accept the order. So if they see no tip, they will reject it. Eventually you'll probably find a driver that will bring you your food, but it will take a lot longer, and that driver is going to have to drive a lot farther to bring your order (depending on how many drivers rejected you ahead of them).
- nipponese 6y ago
  "Customers can leave a tip when they check out or after the delivery is completed. 100% of tips are yours on top of base pay and promotions. The amount DoorDash pays will never vary based on the tip amount. For example, for two identical deliveries where one customer leaves a $3 tip and another customer leaves a $6 tip, one Dasher will earn $3 more than the other." https://help.doordash.com/dashers/s/article/How-is-Dasher-pay-calculated?language=en_US#:~:text=Customers%20can%20leave%20a%20tip,based%20on%20the%20tip%20amount https://help.doordash.com/dashers/s/article/How-is-Dasher-pa....
  - phan 6y ago
    It is hard to believe a company that has been guilty of stealing tips in the past. https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/20/20825937/doordash-tipping-policy-still-not-changed-food-delivery-app-gig-economy https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/20/20825937/doordash-tippi...
- sammalloy 6y ago
  > Tip cash! Never tip in app! This is very, very bad advice. DD drivers filter out customers based on the size of the tip. If drivers see only base pay in the app, they will pass over your delivery request for more lucrative ones, meaning your food will take longer to get picked up and delivered, and in some cases, may not get delivered at all.
  - xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
    Why would you tip before hand? Doesn't this defeat the purpose of a tip?
    - strombofulous 6y ago
      yes
    - shawnz 6y ago
      Not a DoorDash user personally, but on Uber you can adjust the tip up to an hour after delivery.
    - Spivak 6y ago
      Yes, but we're so far gone from "tipping as a function of service" that there's no point in even pretending it's a thing anymore. If the food arrived or I got to my destination I give the same, good, tip. I think it's gross to make workers dance for their supper. It's not "a little extra you're paying to a kid in highshcool" anymore, it's almost their entire income.
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        I think it’s gross to sell something and not state it’s price upfront.
        Spivak 6y ago
        Oh I totally agree. I think we should completely abolish tipped wages, require listing and advertising taxes and fees included prices, and use some light regulation to discourage tipping like removing tip lines, prohibiting businesses from asking for them, and requiring a notice that explicitly says not to tip. But! BUT! This is a top-down change that has to has to come from leadership. Trying to do this by just not tipping or being a bad tipper does nothing except punish the poorest people.
- dchuk 6y ago
  I haven't physically seen a doordash driver since covid started, they just leave it at my door. I also don't want to exchange paper money with people at this point in time. The odds of DoorDash lying about tip distribution are basically 0.
  - boyobo 6y ago
    https://payup.wtf/blog/doordash-tip-theft https://payup.wtf/blog/doordash-tip-theft "That’s right — the more you tip in-app on DoorDash, the less DoorDash pays the worker."
ProAm 6y ago
Tipping the driver in cash hides the larger problem of the gig economy and the VC funded startups that take advantage of it. While I agree these people need real income, this isnt the way to do it.
- bgilroy26 6y ago
  People who hate tipping should run for public office, I swear. Damn Kantians! You don't get to act as though your behavior is a categorical imperative if you don't participate in writing laws that make such imperatives a reality. You do not live as Robinson Crusoe, Chuck Noland, or even Richard Hatch did. "Categorical imperative" is just a bad translation of "Law" which is a perfectly cromulent word.
  - conanbatt 6y ago
    Product(A) === Product(B) Price(A) > Price(B) => B > A -------------------- Simplification aside, tipping is a service as well. The tipper "feels" good about tipping, the same way people donate or buy because of donations when there are such campaigns. For a lot of people the utility of that is close to 0, so they don't tip. For some its very high. So it makes sense to have tipping as a way to implement price differentiation.
    - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
      > The tipper "feels" good about tipping This would be true if tipping was optional, rather than expected. But this isn't even close to how things work in the US. In the US, you tip so that the restaurant can advertise lower prices on their menu. That's it. They tell you a burger costs $12, when in reality it costs $15. And if you decide to only pay $12 instead of $15 the restaurant just makes the waiter eat the cost.
      - conanbatt 6y ago
        I think the economic analysis of tipping is pretty complex. Cash tips allow for a lot of tax avoidance, which makes a huge difference with payroll taxes. Also the price differentiation effect is very good for businesses, they increase revenues (not only the "split" between tips & wages)
mistersys 6y ago
Far more restaurants are accessible for delivery to customers due to these apps. That's not worthless, it's an under served market. Just because our regulatory frameworks allow DoorDash's workers to be taken advantage up does not mean that these apps have no value. DoorDash & others basically fed the whole young, well-off, urban dweller population that can't cook during lock down.
- save_ferris 6y ago
  I'm not arguing that DoorDash creates no value, I'm arguing that it creates a ton of value for executives and shareholders while exploiting workers who are vastly underpaid using opaque payment and tipping mechanisms. Yeah, affluent urban dwellers absolutely benefit from this system. But by choosing to use these services, you endorse this exploitation unless you choose to pay drivers anything close to a living wage, because the company sure isn't going to.
  - mistersys 6y ago
    Of coarse the company is not going to pay more then the market-rate for gig workers. It's actually impossible for them, and will be even more impossible once DoorDash goes public, they'll be legally obligated by their shareholders to make the most money possible. Our legal system supports companies making the most money the market will allow, if they paid more then the market for delivery drivers the executive that made that decision would be fired. You aren't supporting exploitative practices by using DoorDash, you're giving somebody a job where they otherwise they wouldn't have any. You're funneling money from affluent city dwellers to the pockets of DoorDash's share holders yes, but also to their delivery drivers. Attacking a company for creating jobs where there weren't any before is silly. Attack the issues with the legal framework, not the people that are using it as designed.
- lemax 6y ago
  I can cook quite well but honestly living in NYC and going to the grocery store to serve my partner and I ~2 meals a day every day of the week is nearly impossible with our work schedule. If I wanted to do nothing else with my day but work and cook, that might be fine, but Doordash et al. are making life a whole lot better. When we were launching our company, we joked that it was often just a stream of delivery drivers bringing us stuff to sustain ourselves.
dheera 6y ago
Please do NOT tip through DoorDash. DoorDash used to eat tips and it's still not clear what they do now. If you want to tip, leave an envelope on your door with cash tip and put a big fat sign that says "tips for doordash driver" so it's obvious. Separately, I really don't understand this tipping economy at all. Aren't tips supposed to be based on quality of service? Why do they ask you for the tip amount before you have received service? They should just charge a fair amount and pay drivers a fair amount and not over-complicate the checkout process. In general I absolutely hate "how much do you want to pay" type interfaces. I really hate thinking about that stuff. Just give me a number and I'll decide if I want the product or not -- that's how the rest of the world works.
- djsumdog 6y ago
  > before you have received service One supposed origin of the word TIP is "To Ensure Proper Service. Ask people who are old enough and they'll tell you about how a tip was put on a table at the beginning of a meal. Today that's extremely rude, but it was common in certain areas.
justapassenger 6y ago
By tipping at large scale customers are showing support to the business model. If you worry about future that model is setting, last thing you want to do, is to ask others to help support that model.
- agentdrtran 6y ago
  punishing people at the poverty level for VC behavior is terrible.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    I minimize the services I use that “require” tipping, because I philosophically oppose it. Would the workers prefer I spend $0 rather than some?
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I really hope you avoid using any service where tipping is the expected norm if you won't tip. Otherwise, I hope that you either grudgingly tip or simply avoid those services whether it's convenient to do so or not.
  - jgalt212 6y ago
    yes, on a certain level you're right. it's a tough problem to fix. similar to the war refugee situation. if people feel it's very easy to flee a bad situation, then there's less of an incentive to keep your own house in order. but if people have nowhere to go, they'll invest and fight to keep their homes good places to live. see also, white flight.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      How are war refugees supposed to fix the fact that they are getting bombed out of their homes, particularly in one of the most recent scenarios as part of a civil war?
fizwhiz 6y ago
Do you tip based on the value of your meal rather than the volume/size, anticipated inconvenience for the dasher, or some other combination of factors? Or is it always flat regardless of what you order?
- mrgordon 6y ago
  Personally I feel like it should be based on the time to fulfill the order primarily if you have a good idea how long it took. For example, I used to order from a place that did bike delivery from less than five minutes away and I feel like obviously that was much more convenient than someone who has to drive 30 minutes to reach me and then go back to the restaurant.
  - fizwhiz 6y ago
    You could argue that bike delivery can be more dangerous than delivering by car. It's also hard to get visibility into how difficult it was for your dasher/delivery-person to actually acquire your order. Was the parking situation a mess? Was there a long line? Finally, there's the matter of delivering to your doorstep vs. delivering somewhere outside (an apartment building) where you need to still need to walk a block or two to get your food.
    - mrgordon 6y ago
      Sure I’m not saying it’s perfect. But I also don’t think it was harder for them to deliver if I order $30 in food versus $50 in food usually. Hence why I would try to pay them a fair amount based on their time, rather than rewarding the person delivering more food with more money even if they went significantly less distance and it was quicker Clearly it would be better if they were compensated fairly and I didn’t have to try to even it out with tips
jtbarrett 6y ago
One thing that frustrates me is that as far as I'm aware none of the delivery apps provide an option for me to tip the restaurant. Especially in these times I want to give some extra support to the workers preparing my meal. The lack of that option is one of the main reasons I usually pick up myself; if any of the delivery apps added the feature I would immediately switch to it!
- xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
  UberEats definitely had options to tip restaurants earlier this year during the early days of lockdown. Sadly the option seems to have been removed since.
  - shawnz 6y ago
    Yes, I definitely wish they would add this back permanently and also let me choose the tip rather than the small fixed tip they had before. But then again, maybe this would create an incentive for delivery services to raise costs for restaurants?
- jamesjyu 6y ago
  A few restaurants on caviar offered a $10 or $20 item on their menu that goes directly to their workers, which I thought was nice. Would be cool to see that productized.
jiveturkey 6y ago
absolutely 100% wrong incentive. if you insist on tipping for the reason that you believe the drivers are underpaid relative to the value received, tip them in cash, not in the app. tipping in general stinks and you should really set tip to $0. the driver sees the tip in advance and can take or not take the delivery. but then tip in cash if you want.

toomuchtodo 6y ago

To add: Tip cash! Never tip in app! EDIT: To those who ask why, you cannot trust the app to disburse the "tip" to the worker.

elefanten 6y ago
That's a crazy ask and defeats at least some of the purpose of using these apps
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  I would also support tipping via Venmo, Cash App, or Zelle for those who aren't willing to keep cash on hand. The goal is to tip out of band to prevent the usual gig app shenanigans, further harming gig workers beyond the usual gig work transactional arrangement.
  - xorcist 6y ago
    If you don't want to support the "gig economy" then it is better not to use the apps. Cash payments will never lead to improvements in working conditions, pensions or health insurance.
- hansjorg 6y ago
  DoorDash will steal from their workers tips if you pay it in-app. The societally disruptive idea of not paying your workers is the great "innovation" of the gig economy. The oldest grift there ever was.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Seems like the better advice is to not use Doordash. Doordash likes it when you let them advertise lower prices and then help pay for their labor costs via unstated cash tips. Workers might like it too to avoid taxes, but that’s opposite to my interests.
    - hansjorg 6y ago
      Yes, I agree, but that's the reason why people are recommending to not tip in-app.
- 1-more 6y ago
  I strongly encourage everyone who uses these apps to try delivering for them for a night or two. Just get a feel for what it's like. I do it as a hobby kind of and they're all bad for their various reasons. Uber Eats tells you what you stand to make up front but that depends on tip, which isn't guaranteed. Postmates is the only one that tells you what's in the order before you accept it (I can't carry a pizza and prefer to avoid fountain drinks). But you just don't know what it's like to deliver for the apps until you try it.
kristjankalm 6y ago
could you elaborate why? i mainly use deliveroo and tip with the app -- they also seek to minimise contact so usually i just get to pick up the food from my doorstep, cash tipping seems a bit suboptimal
- notsuoh 6y ago
  The poster already edited, but to be more explicit: as I understand it’s some variation of some of these companies have been paying the driver X per hour, but if they don’t make X per hour, the tips fill in X-1. Effectively you’re paying the drivers wages instead of the company, rather than tips on top of their wages, in some cases.
  - bumby 6y ago
    Is this a moot point if the assumption tips are reported as wages? I was never a server, but worked in the back of the restaurant so maybe I don't understand, but this seemed to be the same dynamic. With all that said, tipping seems to be a weird cultural holdover where employers can keep labor rates down via a quasi-voluntary tax
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      Are you in USA? In UK (pubs/ restaurants that I've had an association with; some time ago) it was normal for tips to be shared with all staff. Maybe that was a UK/rural/independent establishment thing?
      - bumby 6y ago
        I'm old, so this was some time ago. The servers were supposed to share tips with the dishwashers etc. but in practice it was hit or miss since most of the tips were cash and could be easily under-reported. Not sure if it was a law to share tips or not
    - dheera 6y ago
      The difference is this -- let's say your delivery company pays the driver $1 per hour plus "100% of the tips" but guarantees them at least $15 per hour. The reality is that $1 + tips almost never makes it to $15, so they always pay them $15 an hour. If you tip $5, they get $1 + $5 (from you) + $9 (from the company). If you tip $0, they get $1 + $14 (from the company). This is a shitty system designed to get you to offset company expenses. In a well-designed system they should not pay them $1 + 100% of the tips, they should pay them $15 + 100% of the tips and where tips are truly optional.
janmo 6y ago
It's a shame that some apps takes a commission on tips
kawfey 6y ago
Last night I didn't realize Doordash doesn't even give me the option to tip for carryout. I came back to the restaurant to leave some cash in their jar labeled "DOORDASH TIPS!" We Americans really need a way to tip via app. I wish cryptocurrency was viable, because the POS ecosystem (Toast, Square, Clover, etc) is fragmented and takes a cut, the gig-app ordering systems take an even bigger cut, and it's just awfully annoying to have paper cash on hand. Crypto has yet to make any firm inroads though. It'll even be a great day for those who rely on gratituity when the US decides to mint $2 and/or $5 coins. $1 coins are so hard to come by and people think they're such a novelty yet they're immensely more useful, more durable, cleaner, and denser (10 $1 bills bursts my wallet and eventually turns into a chaotic mess in my pocket when I don't have time at the register to nicely stack and fold them back into my wallet; 10 $1 coins in my pocket is far more manageable.)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ryandrake 6y ago
  > We Americans really need a way to tip via app What we really need is to change culture so that it's considered totally unacceptable for a business to pay service workers far below minimum wage, and rely on customers to make up the difference individually. I'm not Mr. Pink--I tip, but with full knowledge that all it's doing is enriching the business owner, who, instead of paying their staff properly, pockets an extra few dollars an hour instead.
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    Is there evidence that tipped employees in a states without a tip credit do better than in a state with tip credits?
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      I don’t know what you mean by tip credit, but in states where there there is only one minimum wage, regardless of tips, the people still expect to be tipped.
buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
Unfortunately this isn't practical. The drivers can see the tip before they accept the order. So if they see no tip, they will reject it. Eventually you'll probably find a driver that will bring you your food, but it will take a lot longer, and that driver is going to have to drive a lot farther to bring your order (depending on how many drivers rejected you ahead of them).
nipponese 6y ago
"Customers can leave a tip when they check out or after the delivery is completed. 100% of tips are yours on top of base pay and promotions. The amount DoorDash pays will never vary based on the tip amount. For example, for two identical deliveries where one customer leaves a $3 tip and another customer leaves a $6 tip, one Dasher will earn $3 more than the other." https://help.doordash.com/dashers/s/article/How-is-Dasher-pay-calculated?language=en_US#:~:text=Customers%20can%20leave%20a%20tip,based%20on%20the%20tip%20amount https://help.doordash.com/dashers/s/article/How-is-Dasher-pa....
- phan 6y ago
  It is hard to believe a company that has been guilty of stealing tips in the past. https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/20/20825937/doordash-tipping-policy-still-not-changed-food-delivery-app-gig-economy https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/20/20825937/doordash-tippi...
sammalloy 6y ago
> Tip cash! Never tip in app! This is very, very bad advice. DD drivers filter out customers based on the size of the tip. If drivers see only base pay in the app, they will pass over your delivery request for more lucrative ones, meaning your food will take longer to get picked up and delivered, and in some cases, may not get delivered at all.
- xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
  Why would you tip before hand? Doesn't this defeat the purpose of a tip?
  - strombofulous 6y ago
    yes
  - shawnz 6y ago
    Not a DoorDash user personally, but on Uber you can adjust the tip up to an hour after delivery.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    Yes, but we're so far gone from "tipping as a function of service" that there's no point in even pretending it's a thing anymore. If the food arrived or I got to my destination I give the same, good, tip. I think it's gross to make workers dance for their supper. It's not "a little extra you're paying to a kid in highshcool" anymore, it's almost their entire income.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      I think it’s gross to sell something and not state it’s price upfront.
      - Spivak 6y ago
        Oh I totally agree. I think we should completely abolish tipped wages, require listing and advertising taxes and fees included prices, and use some light regulation to discourage tipping like removing tip lines, prohibiting businesses from asking for them, and requiring a notice that explicitly says not to tip. But! BUT! This is a top-down change that has to has to come from leadership. Trying to do this by just not tipping or being a bad tipper does nothing except punish the poorest people.
dchuk 6y ago
I haven't physically seen a doordash driver since covid started, they just leave it at my door. I also don't want to exchange paper money with people at this point in time. The odds of DoorDash lying about tip distribution are basically 0.
- boyobo 6y ago
  https://payup.wtf/blog/doordash-tip-theft https://payup.wtf/blog/doordash-tip-theft "That’s right — the more you tip in-app on DoorDash, the less DoorDash pays the worker."

ProAm 6y ago

Tipping the driver in cash hides the larger problem of the gig economy and the VC funded startups that take advantage of it. While I agree these people need real income, this isnt the way to do it.

bgilroy26 6y ago
People who hate tipping should run for public office, I swear. Damn Kantians! You don't get to act as though your behavior is a categorical imperative if you don't participate in writing laws that make such imperatives a reality. You do not live as Robinson Crusoe, Chuck Noland, or even Richard Hatch did. "Categorical imperative" is just a bad translation of "Law" which is a perfectly cromulent word.
- conanbatt 6y ago
  Product(A) === Product(B) Price(A) > Price(B) => B > A -------------------- Simplification aside, tipping is a service as well. The tipper "feels" good about tipping, the same way people donate or buy because of donations when there are such campaigns. For a lot of people the utility of that is close to 0, so they don't tip. For some its very high. So it makes sense to have tipping as a way to implement price differentiation.
  - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    > The tipper "feels" good about tipping This would be true if tipping was optional, rather than expected. But this isn't even close to how things work in the US. In the US, you tip so that the restaurant can advertise lower prices on their menu. That's it. They tell you a burger costs $12, when in reality it costs $15. And if you decide to only pay $12 instead of $15 the restaurant just makes the waiter eat the cost.
    - conanbatt 6y ago
      I think the economic analysis of tipping is pretty complex. Cash tips allow for a lot of tax avoidance, which makes a huge difference with payroll taxes. Also the price differentiation effect is very good for businesses, they increase revenues (not only the "split" between tips & wages)

mistersys 6y ago

Far more restaurants are accessible for delivery to customers due to these apps. That's not worthless, it's an under served market. Just because our regulatory frameworks allow DoorDash's workers to be taken advantage up does not mean that these apps have no value. DoorDash & others basically fed the whole young, well-off, urban dweller population that can't cook during lock down.

save_ferris 6y ago
I'm not arguing that DoorDash creates no value, I'm arguing that it creates a ton of value for executives and shareholders while exploiting workers who are vastly underpaid using opaque payment and tipping mechanisms. Yeah, affluent urban dwellers absolutely benefit from this system. But by choosing to use these services, you endorse this exploitation unless you choose to pay drivers anything close to a living wage, because the company sure isn't going to.
- mistersys 6y ago
  Of coarse the company is not going to pay more then the market-rate for gig workers. It's actually impossible for them, and will be even more impossible once DoorDash goes public, they'll be legally obligated by their shareholders to make the most money possible. Our legal system supports companies making the most money the market will allow, if they paid more then the market for delivery drivers the executive that made that decision would be fired. You aren't supporting exploitative practices by using DoorDash, you're giving somebody a job where they otherwise they wouldn't have any. You're funneling money from affluent city dwellers to the pockets of DoorDash's share holders yes, but also to their delivery drivers. Attacking a company for creating jobs where there weren't any before is silly. Attack the issues with the legal framework, not the people that are using it as designed.
lemax 6y ago
I can cook quite well but honestly living in NYC and going to the grocery store to serve my partner and I ~2 meals a day every day of the week is nearly impossible with our work schedule. If I wanted to do nothing else with my day but work and cook, that might be fine, but Doordash et al. are making life a whole lot better. When we were launching our company, we joked that it was often just a stream of delivery drivers bringing us stuff to sustain ourselves.

dheera 6y ago

Please do NOT tip through DoorDash. DoorDash used to eat tips and it's still not clear what they do now. If you want to tip, leave an envelope on your door with cash tip and put a big fat sign that says "tips for doordash driver" so it's obvious. Separately, I really don't understand this tipping economy at all. Aren't tips supposed to be based on quality of service? Why do they ask you for the tip amount before you have received service? They should just charge a fair amount and pay drivers a fair amount and not over-complicate the checkout process. In general I absolutely hate "how much do you want to pay" type interfaces. I really hate thinking about that stuff. Just give me a number and I'll decide if I want the product or not -- that's how the rest of the world works.

djsumdog 6y ago
> before you have received service One supposed origin of the word TIP is "To Ensure Proper Service. Ask people who are old enough and they'll tell you about how a tip was put on a table at the beginning of a meal. Today that's extremely rude, but it was common in certain areas.

justapassenger 6y ago

By tipping at large scale customers are showing support to the business model. If you worry about future that model is setting, last thing you want to do, is to ask others to help support that model.

agentdrtran 6y ago
punishing people at the poverty level for VC behavior is terrible.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I minimize the services I use that “require” tipping, because I philosophically oppose it. Would the workers prefer I spend $0 rather than some?
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I really hope you avoid using any service where tipping is the expected norm if you won't tip. Otherwise, I hope that you either grudgingly tip or simply avoid those services whether it's convenient to do so or not.
- jgalt212 6y ago
  yes, on a certain level you're right. it's a tough problem to fix. similar to the war refugee situation. if people feel it's very easy to flee a bad situation, then there's less of an incentive to keep your own house in order. but if people have nowhere to go, they'll invest and fight to keep their homes good places to live. see also, white flight.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    How are war refugees supposed to fix the fact that they are getting bombed out of their homes, particularly in one of the most recent scenarios as part of a civil war?

fizwhiz 6y ago

Do you tip based on the value of your meal rather than the volume/size, anticipated inconvenience for the dasher, or some other combination of factors? Or is it always flat regardless of what you order?

mrgordon 6y ago
Personally I feel like it should be based on the time to fulfill the order primarily if you have a good idea how long it took. For example, I used to order from a place that did bike delivery from less than five minutes away and I feel like obviously that was much more convenient than someone who has to drive 30 minutes to reach me and then go back to the restaurant.
- fizwhiz 6y ago
  You could argue that bike delivery can be more dangerous than delivering by car. It's also hard to get visibility into how difficult it was for your dasher/delivery-person to actually acquire your order. Was the parking situation a mess? Was there a long line? Finally, there's the matter of delivering to your doorstep vs. delivering somewhere outside (an apartment building) where you need to still need to walk a block or two to get your food.
  - mrgordon 6y ago
    Sure I’m not saying it’s perfect. But I also don’t think it was harder for them to deliver if I order $30 in food versus $50 in food usually. Hence why I would try to pay them a fair amount based on their time, rather than rewarding the person delivering more food with more money even if they went significantly less distance and it was quicker Clearly it would be better if they were compensated fairly and I didn’t have to try to even it out with tips

jtbarrett 6y ago

One thing that frustrates me is that as far as I'm aware none of the delivery apps provide an option for me to tip the restaurant. Especially in these times I want to give some extra support to the workers preparing my meal. The lack of that option is one of the main reasons I usually pick up myself; if any of the delivery apps added the feature I would immediately switch to it!

xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
UberEats definitely had options to tip restaurants earlier this year during the early days of lockdown. Sadly the option seems to have been removed since.
- shawnz 6y ago
  Yes, I definitely wish they would add this back permanently and also let me choose the tip rather than the small fixed tip they had before. But then again, maybe this would create an incentive for delivery services to raise costs for restaurants?
jamesjyu 6y ago
A few restaurants on caviar offered a $10 or $20 item on their menu that goes directly to their workers, which I thought was nice. Would be cool to see that productized.

jiveturkey 6y ago

absolutely 100% wrong incentive. if you insist on tipping for the reason that you believe the drivers are underpaid relative to the value received, tip them in cash, not in the app. tipping in general stinks and you should really set tip to $0. the driver sees the tip in advance and can take or not take the delivery. but then tip in cash if you want.