7 ms·

The only acceptable rating to leave an Uber driver is 5 stars

andsoitis 3y ago
Without thinking too deeply about the incentives and unintended consequences, it seems a better rating system would be "thumbs up" and "thumbs down", with the latter requiring some rationale (the text can be checked with AI to make sure it isn't just gibberish).
- integrale 3y ago
  Back when Foursquare was more popular, I always felt their ratings were much more accurate than Yelp’s. They use(d?) a ternary neutral/thumbs up/thumbs down. Not sure of their algorithm to generate a score of 1-10 – it’s possible it used more information than just the ternary rating — but their ratings could vary dramatically from sites like Yelp that used the usual 1-5 stars, and seemed to track much more closely to the actual quality of restaurants.
- parpfish 3y ago
  it would be even better if they stopped proactively pushing a rating prompt and defaulted to 'no rating' which means 'everything is fine'. provide the thumbs up/down in the app that people can use for the situations where it was noteworthy enough to go out of your way to register a vote. and it might be better to drop the thumbs-up option as well. the rating ecosystems have evolved to a point where the stars aren't a bipolar rating scale from bad->acceptable->great but rather a unipolar scale from bad->acceptable. there's a good chance that the same would happen with thumbs up/down, so why not just jump to the inveitable endpoint of "ratings are only used to report adverse events"?
- pointlessone 3y ago
  One of Uber's competitors have a 5 star system where 4 and 5 stars show you a few options below with the title "What did you like?". Those are optional. for 3 and 2 they will show "What was the issue?" and you have to write a shot message describing the issue. And for 1 they show no options but will call you and ask what was so terrible about your ride.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > And for 1 they show no options but will call you and ask what was so terrible about your ride. That sounds like a very effective way of getting riders to never leave a 1 under any circumstance.
- vinner_roy 3y ago
  I agree with this, although I wouldn't bother with the rationale. It's either you had an overall good experience or an overall bad experience. I'd add a third option called "favorite" or "star" which you could you only give out to 10 drivers/restaurants/places at a time to highlight really exceptional experiences.
turtleyacht 3y ago
The idea of a belief spectrum quantified from (0 or) 1 to 5, but because of perception around binary consequences (employed or unemployed), the ratings follow suit.
deleted 3y ago
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jrochkind1 3y ago
I don't use these services a lot, but I mostly just refuse to rate at all, don't want to participate. I don't know if there are any consequences to me of refusing to rate? I think all of the apps let you skip it if you insist.
- shubhamkrm 3y ago
  I don’t know about Uber specifically, but in my country, some food and grocery delivery apps pay their delivery agents more if they get a five star rating.
- marssaxman 3y ago
  I have been ignoring all invitations to offer a rating for many years now, and it does not seem to have had any ill effect.
misnome 3y ago
Good to know that I should have left the driver who crashed their car mid-trip and then charged us for the full trip a five-star rating.
- qlm 3y ago
  Your experience is obviously an insane outlier, not what the article is talking about, and more a matter for Uber support and/or the legal system.
  - rhaway84773 3y ago
    Yeah that doesn’t even fall into the ratings system at that point.
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    There are lots of uber experiences that are less than 5-star but do not rise to this level. I had a driver in LA who was both a terrible driver and terrified of freeways. With 3 near-misses and the bad route, it took 50 min to go somewhere that would otherwise take 15, making me late for a meeting (the LA area has some communities that are physically near each other, but separated by hills/mountains that are otherwise basically impossible to get around). 1 star seems merited for someone who literally can't do the job.
    - jdmichal 3y ago
      > *****: This person deserves to have access to this platform and the ability to earn a living through it > *, **, ***, ****: This person is a danger to me, themself, and others and should be removed from the service Sure sounds like your exact experience falls under that second group!
  - drowsspa 3y ago
    Hacker News commentators (or the Internet in general) love to point out a 0.001% exception when it's obvious it's not the case being discussed.
- 3y ago
willcipriano 3y ago
I went into a store this weekend, find my item walk up to the counter, the guy scans my item and I go to use my card, it prompts me to rate him out of 5 stars. What does a 1 star item scanning look like?
- toast0 3y ago
  Guy refuses to scan barcode, and manually keys the item; incorrectly, and refuses to fix it?
  - gabereiser 3y ago
    And all you wanted was a pepsi and the guy hands you a coffee. Charges you for the pepsi twice. No refunds.
  - 4ggr0 3y ago
    ...and still charges you, but puts the money in their own wallet. Doesn't give you change.
- RobotToaster 3y ago
  He gestures vaguely to the scanner for you to do it yourself, while playing a hentai game on his phone with the audio on max?
  - gabereiser 3y ago
    Sounds like my kind of Walmart? Seriously? Or was it just Kawaii sounds of War?
- deleted 3y ago
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- Eisenstein 3y ago
  > What does a 1 star item scanning look like? A self-checkout machine.
mg 3y ago
I often think that marketplace rating should work like this: Every 3 rides, you get asked "Which one of the last 3 rides did you like the best?". Then the driver you select gets 1 star. So an average driver would get 0.3 stars per ride. For display purposes, this can be normalized to whatever scale is most comfortable for users. This should completely get rid of the problems with the popular "rate every seller right after the transaction" approach.
- Majromax 3y ago
  > Every 3 rides, you get asked "Which one of the last 3 rides did you like the best?". Note that this is a variation of stack ranking, which has incentives for the usual sorts of manipulation like avoiding "difficult" times like rush hour.
  - mg 3y ago
    One could say that a "rush hour ride" is a different service than a ride at a less crowded time. Hotels in a small town might have better reviews than hotels in New York. But if you want to stay in NY, you compare between the hotels there. So the hotels in the small town do not have a benefit of their "manipulation" to offer rooms in a less crowded city.
    - gabereiser 3y ago
      But in this case, they are comparing the same trip at a different time and traffic congestion level. Make this the “difficulty multiplier”.
- rjmunro 3y ago
  Or just "was this ride experience better or worse than your previous ride" for every ride apart from the first one you ever take. You could then use the Elo rating system to track driver scores.
  - mg 3y ago
    When every transaction is rated, the buyer will still get nagged by the seller to give them the star. My thought behind giving one star to one of the last 3 rides is that the seller does not know when the buyer will give out that star. It might be 3 months in the future. So it seems futile to nag the buyer about what they will do then. Calculating an ELO value should also be possible for more than two players.
mydriasis 3y ago
Reading the article, I'm recalling the "Social Credit" episode of Black Mirror. My my, it seems to be coming true -- > Five stars is good. Everything else is bad. For riders, a couple bad ratings don’t mean that much, but for drivers they could be the difference between maintaining access to the app and being deactivated—gig-speak for being suspended or fired. I'm only being a _little_ dramatic. I swear.
- JustBreath 3y ago
  The parallels are eerie. > Sometimes, she gets worried about picking up passengers rated less than 4.8. Like a 4.79 is really low. I wonder, ‘Do I have to fear for my life with this person?’
  - Finnucane 3y ago
    I used to buy vintage cameras on ebay (not so much lately--no more room) and one of the things you quickly realize is that a 'seller rating' of less than say 95% means 'avoid'. The way the ratings are calculated mean that if they're getting enough dings to bring the score down even a few points, they're doing something wrong.
    - plorkyeran 3y ago
      I remember in the early days of ebay before they had the official rating system it became accepted that you had to leave a review containing A+++++++++++ if the shipper did an acceptable job because a grade of merely A+ meant that you got the thing you bought but something wasn't great about the experience and anything worse than that meant the seller was a scammer.
      - JustBreath 3y ago
        I used to really enjoy writing and reading those ridiculous reviews. "Shipping came so fast I had to duck!!!" "If I were locked in prison this seller could be my bunk mate!"
ChildOfChaos 3y ago
A rating for Uber is silly. It's just a ride to get you to A to B, having a five star rating system is what creates a situation where leaving a 5 star review i the 'only acceptable rating' I think maybe it should just be a few simple questions that are yes or no, based on did the driver follow procedures, get you to your location, provide a suitable vehicle etc. Maybe these questions are randomised so you only get asked one or two, to make the survey quick with riders that get a low yes rate on a certain question, having that question asked to more future riders to rank if it really is an issue or not, the app could even let you filter out riders based on certain feedback criteria if something is important to you.
- fantod 3y ago
  Agreed. Or have a function to report unacceptable behavior, but besides that no feedback is needed. I pretend this is the case. Never leave ratings anymore.
  - ChildOfChaos 3y ago
    Even a "Where you happy with your ride" Yes / No. If yes, then do nothing else, if No, then allow an option to provide feedback that can be monitored in a data driven way so you can see any potential drivers that have issues, else ignore.
- wkdneidbwf 3y ago
  exactly, starred ratings are weird for both the passenger and driver ..but they’re also fast to leave and well understood which i’m sure is why they’re used. if you started asking questions instead folks will stop providing feedback. maybe they could incentivize the behaviors through small credits for future rides or something.
  - jghn 3y ago
    > and well understood Are they? There's not a universal definition of what any of the discrete star ratings mean.
  - deleted 3y ago
jmclnx 3y ago
I have to disagree with this. In most cases I will say it is true. But as people here should know, people have had issues with Uber Drivers and I am sure there are scales of acceptable behavior. Not being a woman, I can see were some divers could somewhat hit (even unconsciously) upon some women. In many cases it is not be worthy of reporting, but I believe when that happens I would say a less than 5 should be selected.
- tiahura 3y ago
  Flirting is normal and healthy. If you've been convinced otherwise, you've been misled.
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    But maybe you shouldn't flirt with your customers. Also maybe you should stop if you get a less-than-warm response when you say "hello."
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      Properly done, flirting with customers can be fine. But most men don't know how to properly flirt. First, they confuse flirting with "hitting on". Those are two different things. But the main thing about flirting is that you sneak up on it. You start with interactions that are friendly and 99% innocent. The sort that will not offend or threaten anybody. If you get responses in kind, you gradually escalate. If you don't, or if they stop, then you stop as well. In a way, flirting is more like a dance. If your partner isn't dancing with you, you need to stop doing it with them.
  - 4ggr0 3y ago
    it's a pretty toxic thing to flirt with someone while they're "trapped" in your car. Especially if the passenger thinks they have to be polite because of certain power dynamics. of course people should be allowed to flirt with each other but from what I've heard from female friends - do it in a bar or public, leisurely places. Not inside of an Uber etc.' And especially if the passenger also doesn't show any special interest. YMMV I guess. And it's a touchy topic anyways, I know more guys than I expected who just don't think that cat-calling and "no is not an answer"-flirting is pretty messed up, most of the times. And proceed to call me a white-knight snowflake when I explain my viewpoint.
hakuseki 3y ago
I think a median rating of 5 stars makes sense for a taxi service. You want the rating system to be able to express varying levels of bad. There are many levels of bad outcomes for a car ride. There are not many ways to improve on the median experience.
thoughtpalette 3y ago
TIL you can view your own passenger score in the Uber app.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  That there is a passenger score at all is another major reason that I stopped using Uber entirely.
deleted 3y ago
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carlossouza 3y ago
I'm not a psychologist, but I'm sure one can explain this insight: Whenever I'm rating an Uber (or any service), the number of stars I leave is often more correlated with how I feel at that particular moment (regardless of the service) and less with the service itself If I'm having a good day or in a particularly good mood, everything is 5 stars, regardless of the service... and vice-versa
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  That's why people give horrible reviews for their hotel on Booking.com if it rained when they were holidaying, and vice versa.
wonderwonder 3y ago
Its similar to the option to tip being on everything now. Guy scans your soda at checkout, how much would you like to to tip? 20, 25 or 30%. Oh tipped on the first order but forgot to add a cookie for your kid? Thats a second tip. Everything requires some sort of rating or payment now. I have a guy that calls me once a week to update me on an order thats 2 months late. He asks me to rate him after every call. I hang up each time though, its like a 10 question survey, its crazy, takes longer than the update call.
Jamie9912 3y ago
I just checked my rating and i'm a 4.62. I have never had a problematic ride, i'm always waiting exactly where I summon the Uber to. Not once have I made an Uber wait for me. I sit in the back and don't say a word unless spoken to.. is that what i'm doing wrong?
- AnotherGoodName 3y ago
  Have you always lived in the USA? My country rates differently and I've heard stories from my countrymen of difficulty getting an Uber when visiting the USA since not everyone in Australia gives 5 stars.
- jghn 3y ago
  If you don't have many rides a single 1 star review can knock you down a lot. Also, I lurk in r/uberdrivers and one thing I've found is that a) some drivers are just jerks and 1 star at the drop of a hat, and b) some of it seems regional as well in that some countries/areas are more likely to use the 2-4 star options for minor things. IIRC Lyft only looks back over the last 100 rides, which allows old ratings to cycle out. I know I've only been dinged once on Uber in the last several years but the rating is still held down by some old dings in the early teens.
- vxNsr 3y ago
  You don’t tip. I have a similar rating for the same reason. Tipping is obnoxious, especially when it’s asked for at the start of the transaction.
  - alkonaut 3y ago
    The Uber app should ask the driver to rate the passenger before knowing whether they tipped. Otherwise it's just a rate of tipping which together with local expectations is a recipe for just making it useless. Do drivers really see tips before rating riders?
    - jghn 3y ago
      There are drivers out there who'll ding you for not tipping *in cash*
irrational 3y ago
If this is true, maybe they should change to a binary system. I rarely give five stars. I reserve those for truly exceptional service. Everyone else gets 2 (poor), 3 (average), or 4 (above average).
donkeyd 3y ago
I have a single 4 star (passenger) rating. I don't know when I got it, but I think it happened when I was very drunk one time while abroad, so I probably earned it to. I personally always rate 5, unless there was something very wrong with the car or the driver.
hirundo 3y ago
I have opted out of all rating and feedback requests by default. I now just give them rarely, for things that are out of the ordinary. And by preference I use email and my own words, rather than a form. The constant pummeling of these requests has just gotten too much, a bit of a water torture. My eyes were opened by a company that actually offered to pay me for the feedback. I bought a scanner from Raven, and they contacted me and offered $20 for a short interview about my experience with it. How extraordinary, to actually offer to pay me for my time! I accepted their offer and tried to give good value for it. Now all of the others who request my time in return for nothing just seem like a poor deal. No, thanks, I don't feel that I owe you my time to review your product in return for a purchase, even 30 seconds of it.
teeray 3y ago
I feel like a rating system encourages lots of unintended dimensions of ratings to come into play. Some people want engaging conversation between them and the driver. Others want absolute silence. It can also vary for passengers and drivers day-to-day and trip-to-trip. This could also lead to neurodiverse passengers and drivers receiving low scores inappropriately because of mismatched expectations on the social dimension of the trip. All of this has nothing to do with what the ratings should focus on: did the driver do the job of getting from A to B well (and safely)? Was the passenger respective of the driver's time and space?
disruptiveink 3y ago
I favour taxis over Ubers these days because of the stupid "rider rating" system. There should be no "rider rating" system. Either I should be banned from the platform or not. I'm at the pickup location when the driver gets there. I don't ask for detours. I should have a perfect 5, yet I don't, why? Did I ask for routes that the drivers disliked? Did I not make conversation? Something else? Is it because in the US, everything is 5* but I took too many rides in Europe, where maybe people don't 5* by default? Between the possibility of paying for a service and not being able to relax with the "fear" of getting my rating lowered and then getting worse service in the future vs just getting into a cab, guess which one is easier and more relaxing for me?
wimagguc 3y ago
Freakonomics has a great episode on Uber and their dataset: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-uber-is-an-economists-dream/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-uber-is-an-economists-d... ...which makes me think that Uber ratings may have less to do with the driver and more to do with the person giving the rating. I, for one, struggle giving people a bad review knowing that their livelihood depends on it — it's either 5 stars or crickets.
brk 3y ago
For any rating system, I tend to reserve the top-tier ranking for something that exceeds normal or reasonable expectations. So the average Uber trip gets 4 stars when I rate it. 4 means it met my expectations, nothing went wrong, but also nothing was beyond expectations. 5 stars is basically perfection, and it is silly to expect perfection as the standard experience. It is also difficult to roll up the entire trip experience to a single rating. A seamless trip in a car that should have been vacuumed, and the driver is wearing enough cologne for an entire basketball team, is not a 5 star experience. But it's also not the end of the world. It's about what I expect from a gig worker. 4 stars. Would ride again.
- Georgelemental 3y ago
  Your Uber rating habits are perhaps more "logical" than those of others, but they don't match the behavior of everyone else, so the actual effect of your rating is that you are punishing good drivers. An Uber driver will likely be banned from the platform if their rating drops below 4.6
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    But isn't it unfair to riders to expect this behavior from them without telling them that's the expectation? The whole thing is just BS. Why even have a sliding scale rating system? This is one of the larger issues that got me to just stop using Uber entirely.
Simulacra 3y ago
The only acceptable rating to leave an Uber driver is the one the customer feels like leaving. Even if it's 1 star or three stars. The rating weeds out bad drivers and is there for drivers, and passengers.
msaltz 3y ago
The Revel app (which is rolling out rideshare in NYC where all drivers are actual employees) has a rating system that’s explicitly labeled something like “Bad - Okay - Good - Great - Amazing”, where the default selected option is “Good”. I think it’s really nice because then it’s clear that most of your rides should be in the “Good” zone and the higher ratings are really for special cases. On the other hand the ratings are really for Revel - as a rider you can’t see your driver’s rating.
alkonaut 3y ago
So the point of the author is that as a passenger, I should accept that the system is a weird binary system where 4 or less means "unsafe or should be fired"? Why can't 4 be "A to B without any issues" and 5 is "great conversation, spotlessly cleaned car, threw in an excellent restaurant recommendation when asked?" But really the whole idea of rating every ride on a single measurement is crap. Flagging someone as dangerous or unfit as a driver shouldn't be part of a mandatory rating process it should just be flagging just like flagging a message on HN. Apart from the obvious safety flagging if the car lacks a seatbelt or the driver keeps looking on TV series on his phone the whole ride (Something I experienced), in terms of finding good/bad drivers, why not just ask some more specific questions. Did you find the driver likable? too quiet? too talkative? Was the car dirty? clean? comfortable? And even more importantly, look at tips. I rarely tip drivers (I'm not in the US so I rarely tip anywhere) but who gets tips should be a better tell of a good experience than any grade. But perhaps in the US where people mechanically tip 20% at restaurants and it's more an expected part of waiter pay than a perk for excellent service, that wouldn't work for Uber?
- jghn 3y ago
  I've noticed the same thing is happening with rider ratings. In forums like r/uberdrivers what the posters there perceive as a red flag rider rating has steadily gone up over the years. Several years ago they'd laugh at people below 4 stars. Now I wonder how many people see my 4.92 and think I'm a cretin.
- jerf 3y ago
  I don't believe the author is asking for "acceptance". I think they're just notifying you that that is how the system works now. You may act as you see fit. I think there's a touch of satire to the whole thing in the tone that you're picking up on. This article wasn't a celebration of this fact by any means, merely an observation of it.
eis 3y ago
I fear the suggestion at the end of the article to protest the system by giving only 5 star reviews does nothing apart from increasing the rating inflation that it talked about earlier. You will never get 100% of people to join in this 5-star-or-bust activity so instead of 4.8 being the minimum acceptable "actually good" rating it'll be 4.85 or 4.9 or whatever. It just moves the threshold a bit but it doesn't change the fact that it's not a linear 1 to 5 rating system.
branon 3y ago
Black Mirror episode "Nosedive" is relevant here. Professionally, I feel I'm fighting against the corporate oligarchy when I rate all workers (telecom customer service reps, Microsoft support personnel) as five stars irrespective of how I actually felt about the service. I get paid the same at my job regardless, so it seems a waste to not be collaborative. Recreationally, maybe it's an American thing. Our culture is one of generosity in spite of (not necessarily because of) the experience. I'll tip decent at a restaurant even if the food wasn't great or the service was slow. Granted, I might never go back, but if I'm there, I'm there to have a good experience and to be a good patron. Something would have to be VERY wrong for me to change course. I don't use gig apps like Doordash or Uber often. I Uber'd once in an emergency and rating the driver was the last thing on my mind. He got 5 stars of course, but he always would have, unless I somehow never made it to my destination. When interacting with large (or even small) businesses, gratuity items are one of the few things I as a customer have complete power over. For meals, I've already factored the tip into the cost so it's no sweat. For apps, the decision is even easier. One tap on the 5-star button and I can increase the level at which Uber values this non-employee? Easy. Maybe it comes from the bad old days of raiding Internet polls and intentionally trying to disrupt corporate properties online, but I approach it from the mindset of "how much fun can I have with this?" and always using the highest rating seems the most amusing to me. Sometimes it's legitimate, other times it's more rueful, but it is always good-faith patronage in my opinion. Somebody mentioned an Uber driver who crashed his car (hopefully not at-fault). I assume they didn't crash on purpose, so we know that guy was having a supremely shitty day. Yeah, I'd probably rate them 5 stars just for the hell of it. It had to have been the most memorable Uber ride ever. Maybe that's not worth much, but it's also not incentive to actively work against your fellow man on behalf of a corporation. If corps want to farm out KPI work to the customer, I'll gladly oblige, but I'm going to mess with your stats for my trouble ;)
Georgelemental 3y ago
Some things merit < 5 star ratings, for example highly unsafe/illegal driving, or extreme lateness not caused by traffic conditions.
mitchdoogle 3y ago
Obviously the title is very wrong. The author says so themselves - if you fear for your safety, then a rating below 5 is completely reasonable. Which for me, has happened more than I am comfortable with. I haven't even taken Uber that often - maybe 30 times in the last 10 years - but at least 3 of those times I can recall actually feeling unsafe by the driver's speeding, weaving in and out of traffic, or near misses with other vehicles. I do agree with the idea that it is a binary, though. Uber and other platforms should get rid of star rating systems altogether because it just breeds confusion. Some people (perhaps most) do indeed view it as a binary. But then there are people or situations where you find yourself wanting to rate a 3 or a 4 because the situation wasn't the worst experience of your life, but it was rather unpleasant for some reason. Just ask people if they were satisfied or not, or if looking for something more, ask specific questions. Was the car clean? Did the driver follow the route they were given? Did the driver obey traffic laws? Was the radio too loud? Was the driver talking on the phone? These questions are easy to answer and give more information than a star rating.
pointlessone 3y ago
Uber made it a problem for themselves. If they used any sort of linear scale it could've been useful. I've never seen a driver with rating lower than 4. TBH, I'm not sure if I ever saw one lower than 4.7. What's the point of this rating scale? It's compressed to the point of being meaningless. Likewise, there are no way to get a rating better than the default 5. So there's no incentive for drivers to be better than average.
JohnFen 3y ago
This is one of the larger reasons why I will never again use Uber, and more generally is the main reason why I no longer give ratings or pay attention to ratings for anything. They're no longer just worthless, they're actively harmful.
nunez 3y ago
> You didn’t like their attitude? They seemed unfriendly, reserved, disinterested? Five stars. I'm not going to give a driver that went on a tirade over me telling them to wear a seat belt five stars. It goes both ways, though. If I'm being a subpar rider, then I should get dinged.
DueDilligence 3y ago
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applebutter 3y ago
Clearly written by someone who isn't a driver. The real problem with Uber's ratings is that drivers don't get one at all if the rider doesn't submit one. The overall rating is for the last 500 ratings - not rides. Only about 50-60% of riders rate drivers. This means that if you leave a driver less than five stars, it could take six to nine months (depending on how often they driver) for that rating to "fall off". Unlike Uber, Lyft's rating is based on the last 100 rides. This means the Lyft driver gets five stars if you forget to rate them. If you rate a Lyft driver less than five stars, the rating will fall off in a few weeks compared to many months for Uber. Also, Lyft drops the lowest score. Uber doesn't. AND, the rating button on the Uber app is at the BOTTOM of the screen where everyone's palm hits when selecting a tip at the top. Accidental one-star ratings happen and those suckers don't come off for a LONG time. In conclusion, Uber is too strict and Lyft is too lenient.
sacnoradhq 3y ago
An Uber driver who drives like an LA TV police chase through traffic, then threatens my personal safety, kicks me out of their car while it's still moving, and slams the door by accelerating is probably not getting 5 stars from me. I'm probably calling Uber and the cops.

Without thinking too deeply about the incentives and unintended consequences, it seems a better rating system would be "thumbs up" and "thumbs down", with the latter requiring some rationale (the text can be checked with AI to make sure it isn't just gibberish).

integrale 3y ago
Back when Foursquare was more popular, I always felt their ratings were much more accurate than Yelp’s. They use(d?) a ternary neutral/thumbs up/thumbs down. Not sure of their algorithm to generate a score of 1-10 – it’s possible it used more information than just the ternary rating — but their ratings could vary dramatically from sites like Yelp that used the usual 1-5 stars, and seemed to track much more closely to the actual quality of restaurants.
parpfish 3y ago
it would be even better if they stopped proactively pushing a rating prompt and defaulted to 'no rating' which means 'everything is fine'. provide the thumbs up/down in the app that people can use for the situations where it was noteworthy enough to go out of your way to register a vote. and it might be better to drop the thumbs-up option as well. the rating ecosystems have evolved to a point where the stars aren't a bipolar rating scale from bad->acceptable->great but rather a unipolar scale from bad->acceptable. there's a good chance that the same would happen with thumbs up/down, so why not just jump to the inveitable endpoint of "ratings are only used to report adverse events"?
pointlessone 3y ago
One of Uber's competitors have a 5 star system where 4 and 5 stars show you a few options below with the title "What did you like?". Those are optional. for 3 and 2 they will show "What was the issue?" and you have to write a shot message describing the issue. And for 1 they show no options but will call you and ask what was so terrible about your ride.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > And for 1 they show no options but will call you and ask what was so terrible about your ride. That sounds like a very effective way of getting riders to never leave a 1 under any circumstance.
vinner_roy 3y ago
I agree with this, although I wouldn't bother with the rationale. It's either you had an overall good experience or an overall bad experience. I'd add a third option called "favorite" or "star" which you could you only give out to 10 drivers/restaurants/places at a time to highlight really exceptional experiences.

turtleyacht 3y ago

The idea of a belief spectrum quantified from (0 or) 1 to 5, but because of perception around binary consequences (employed or unemployed), the ratings follow suit.

deleted 3y ago

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jrochkind1 3y ago

I don't use these services a lot, but I mostly just refuse to rate at all, don't want to participate. I don't know if there are any consequences to me of refusing to rate? I think all of the apps let you skip it if you insist.

shubhamkrm 3y ago
I don’t know about Uber specifically, but in my country, some food and grocery delivery apps pay their delivery agents more if they get a five star rating.
marssaxman 3y ago
I have been ignoring all invitations to offer a rating for many years now, and it does not seem to have had any ill effect.

misnome 3y ago

Good to know that I should have left the driver who crashed their car mid-trip and then charged us for the full trip a five-star rating.

qlm 3y ago
Your experience is obviously an insane outlier, not what the article is talking about, and more a matter for Uber support and/or the legal system.
- rhaway84773 3y ago
  Yeah that doesn’t even fall into the ratings system at that point.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  There are lots of uber experiences that are less than 5-star but do not rise to this level. I had a driver in LA who was both a terrible driver and terrified of freeways. With 3 near-misses and the bad route, it took 50 min to go somewhere that would otherwise take 15, making me late for a meeting (the LA area has some communities that are physically near each other, but separated by hills/mountains that are otherwise basically impossible to get around). 1 star seems merited for someone who literally can't do the job.
  - jdmichal 3y ago
    > *****: This person deserves to have access to this platform and the ability to earn a living through it > *, **, ***, ****: This person is a danger to me, themself, and others and should be removed from the service Sure sounds like your exact experience falls under that second group!
- drowsspa 3y ago
  Hacker News commentators (or the Internet in general) love to point out a 0.001% exception when it's obvious it's not the case being discussed.
3y ago

willcipriano 3y ago

I went into a store this weekend, find my item walk up to the counter, the guy scans my item and I go to use my card, it prompts me to rate him out of 5 stars. What does a 1 star item scanning look like?

toast0 3y ago
Guy refuses to scan barcode, and manually keys the item; incorrectly, and refuses to fix it?
- gabereiser 3y ago
  And all you wanted was a pepsi and the guy hands you a coffee. Charges you for the pepsi twice. No refunds.
- 4ggr0 3y ago
  ...and still charges you, but puts the money in their own wallet. Doesn't give you change.
RobotToaster 3y ago
He gestures vaguely to the scanner for you to do it yourself, while playing a hentai game on his phone with the audio on max?
- gabereiser 3y ago
  Sounds like my kind of Walmart? Seriously? Or was it just Kawaii sounds of War?
deleted 3y ago
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Eisenstein 3y ago
> What does a 1 star item scanning look like? A self-checkout machine.

mg 3y ago

I often think that marketplace rating should work like this: Every 3 rides, you get asked "Which one of the last 3 rides did you like the best?". Then the driver you select gets 1 star. So an average driver would get 0.3 stars per ride. For display purposes, this can be normalized to whatever scale is most comfortable for users. This should completely get rid of the problems with the popular "rate every seller right after the transaction" approach.

Majromax 3y ago
> Every 3 rides, you get asked "Which one of the last 3 rides did you like the best?". Note that this is a variation of stack ranking, which has incentives for the usual sorts of manipulation like avoiding "difficult" times like rush hour.
- mg 3y ago
  One could say that a "rush hour ride" is a different service than a ride at a less crowded time. Hotels in a small town might have better reviews than hotels in New York. But if you want to stay in NY, you compare between the hotels there. So the hotels in the small town do not have a benefit of their "manipulation" to offer rooms in a less crowded city.
  - gabereiser 3y ago
    But in this case, they are comparing the same trip at a different time and traffic congestion level. Make this the “difficulty multiplier”.
rjmunro 3y ago
Or just "was this ride experience better or worse than your previous ride" for every ride apart from the first one you ever take. You could then use the Elo rating system to track driver scores.
- mg 3y ago
  When every transaction is rated, the buyer will still get nagged by the seller to give them the star. My thought behind giving one star to one of the last 3 rides is that the seller does not know when the buyer will give out that star. It might be 3 months in the future. So it seems futile to nag the buyer about what they will do then. Calculating an ELO value should also be possible for more than two players.

mydriasis 3y ago

Reading the article, I'm recalling the "Social Credit" episode of Black Mirror. My my, it seems to be coming true -- > Five stars is good. Everything else is bad. For riders, a couple bad ratings don’t mean that much, but for drivers they could be the difference between maintaining access to the app and being deactivated—gig-speak for being suspended or fired. I'm only being a _little_ dramatic. I swear.

JustBreath 3y ago
The parallels are eerie. > Sometimes, she gets worried about picking up passengers rated less than 4.8. Like a 4.79 is really low. I wonder, ‘Do I have to fear for my life with this person?’
- Finnucane 3y ago
  I used to buy vintage cameras on ebay (not so much lately--no more room) and one of the things you quickly realize is that a 'seller rating' of less than say 95% means 'avoid'. The way the ratings are calculated mean that if they're getting enough dings to bring the score down even a few points, they're doing something wrong.
  - plorkyeran 3y ago
    I remember in the early days of ebay before they had the official rating system it became accepted that you had to leave a review containing A+++++++++++ if the shipper did an acceptable job because a grade of merely A+ meant that you got the thing you bought but something wasn't great about the experience and anything worse than that meant the seller was a scammer.
    - JustBreath 3y ago
      I used to really enjoy writing and reading those ridiculous reviews. "Shipping came so fast I had to duck!!!" "If I were locked in prison this seller could be my bunk mate!"

ChildOfChaos 3y ago

A rating for Uber is silly. It's just a ride to get you to A to B, having a five star rating system is what creates a situation where leaving a 5 star review i the 'only acceptable rating' I think maybe it should just be a few simple questions that are yes or no, based on did the driver follow procedures, get you to your location, provide a suitable vehicle etc. Maybe these questions are randomised so you only get asked one or two, to make the survey quick with riders that get a low yes rate on a certain question, having that question asked to more future riders to rank if it really is an issue or not, the app could even let you filter out riders based on certain feedback criteria if something is important to you.

fantod 3y ago
Agreed. Or have a function to report unacceptable behavior, but besides that no feedback is needed. I pretend this is the case. Never leave ratings anymore.
- ChildOfChaos 3y ago
  Even a "Where you happy with your ride" Yes / No. If yes, then do nothing else, if No, then allow an option to provide feedback that can be monitored in a data driven way so you can see any potential drivers that have issues, else ignore.
wkdneidbwf 3y ago
exactly, starred ratings are weird for both the passenger and driver ..but they’re also fast to leave and well understood which i’m sure is why they’re used. if you started asking questions instead folks will stop providing feedback. maybe they could incentivize the behaviors through small credits for future rides or something.
- jghn 3y ago
  > and well understood Are they? There's not a universal definition of what any of the discrete star ratings mean.
- deleted 3y ago

jmclnx 3y ago

I have to disagree with this. In most cases I will say it is true. But as people here should know, people have had issues with Uber Drivers and I am sure there are scales of acceptable behavior. Not being a woman, I can see were some divers could somewhat hit (even unconsciously) upon some women. In many cases it is not be worthy of reporting, but I believe when that happens I would say a less than 5 should be selected.

tiahura 3y ago
Flirting is normal and healthy. If you've been convinced otherwise, you've been misled.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  But maybe you shouldn't flirt with your customers. Also maybe you should stop if you get a less-than-warm response when you say "hello."
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Properly done, flirting with customers can be fine. But most men don't know how to properly flirt. First, they confuse flirting with "hitting on". Those are two different things. But the main thing about flirting is that you sneak up on it. You start with interactions that are friendly and 99% innocent. The sort that will not offend or threaten anybody. If you get responses in kind, you gradually escalate. If you don't, or if they stop, then you stop as well. In a way, flirting is more like a dance. If your partner isn't dancing with you, you need to stop doing it with them.
- 4ggr0 3y ago
  it's a pretty toxic thing to flirt with someone while they're "trapped" in your car. Especially if the passenger thinks they have to be polite because of certain power dynamics. of course people should be allowed to flirt with each other but from what I've heard from female friends - do it in a bar or public, leisurely places. Not inside of an Uber etc.' And especially if the passenger also doesn't show any special interest. YMMV I guess. And it's a touchy topic anyways, I know more guys than I expected who just don't think that cat-calling and "no is not an answer"-flirting is pretty messed up, most of the times. And proceed to call me a white-knight snowflake when I explain my viewpoint.

hakuseki 3y ago

I think a median rating of 5 stars makes sense for a taxi service. You want the rating system to be able to express varying levels of bad. There are many levels of bad outcomes for a car ride. There are not many ways to improve on the median experience.

thoughtpalette 3y ago

TIL you can view your own passenger score in the Uber app.

JohnFen 3y ago
That there is a passenger score at all is another major reason that I stopped using Uber entirely.

deleted 3y ago

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carlossouza 3y ago

I'm not a psychologist, but I'm sure one can explain this insight: Whenever I'm rating an Uber (or any service), the number of stars I leave is often more correlated with how I feel at that particular moment (regardless of the service) and less with the service itself If I'm having a good day or in a particularly good mood, everything is 5 stars, regardless of the service... and vice-versa

carlosjobim 3y ago
That's why people give horrible reviews for their hotel on Booking.com if it rained when they were holidaying, and vice versa.

wonderwonder 3y ago

Its similar to the option to tip being on everything now. Guy scans your soda at checkout, how much would you like to to tip? 20, 25 or 30%. Oh tipped on the first order but forgot to add a cookie for your kid? Thats a second tip. Everything requires some sort of rating or payment now. I have a guy that calls me once a week to update me on an order thats 2 months late. He asks me to rate him after every call. I hang up each time though, its like a 10 question survey, its crazy, takes longer than the update call.

Jamie9912 3y ago

I just checked my rating and i'm a 4.62. I have never had a problematic ride, i'm always waiting exactly where I summon the Uber to. Not once have I made an Uber wait for me. I sit in the back and don't say a word unless spoken to.. is that what i'm doing wrong?

AnotherGoodName 3y ago
Have you always lived in the USA? My country rates differently and I've heard stories from my countrymen of difficulty getting an Uber when visiting the USA since not everyone in Australia gives 5 stars.
jghn 3y ago
If you don't have many rides a single 1 star review can knock you down a lot. Also, I lurk in r/uberdrivers and one thing I've found is that a) some drivers are just jerks and 1 star at the drop of a hat, and b) some of it seems regional as well in that some countries/areas are more likely to use the 2-4 star options for minor things. IIRC Lyft only looks back over the last 100 rides, which allows old ratings to cycle out. I know I've only been dinged once on Uber in the last several years but the rating is still held down by some old dings in the early teens.
vxNsr 3y ago
You don’t tip. I have a similar rating for the same reason. Tipping is obnoxious, especially when it’s asked for at the start of the transaction.
- alkonaut 3y ago
  The Uber app should ask the driver to rate the passenger before knowing whether they tipped. Otherwise it's just a rate of tipping which together with local expectations is a recipe for just making it useless. Do drivers really see tips before rating riders?
  - jghn 3y ago
    There are drivers out there who'll ding you for not tipping *in cash*

irrational 3y ago

If this is true, maybe they should change to a binary system. I rarely give five stars. I reserve those for truly exceptional service. Everyone else gets 2 (poor), 3 (average), or 4 (above average).

donkeyd 3y ago

I have a single 4 star (passenger) rating. I don't know when I got it, but I think it happened when I was very drunk one time while abroad, so I probably earned it to. I personally always rate 5, unless there was something very wrong with the car or the driver.

hirundo 3y ago

I have opted out of all rating and feedback requests by default. I now just give them rarely, for things that are out of the ordinary. And by preference I use email and my own words, rather than a form. The constant pummeling of these requests has just gotten too much, a bit of a water torture. My eyes were opened by a company that actually offered to pay me for the feedback. I bought a scanner from Raven, and they contacted me and offered $20 for a short interview about my experience with it. How extraordinary, to actually offer to pay me for my time! I accepted their offer and tried to give good value for it. Now all of the others who request my time in return for nothing just seem like a poor deal. No, thanks, I don't feel that I owe you my time to review your product in return for a purchase, even 30 seconds of it.

teeray 3y ago

I feel like a rating system encourages lots of unintended dimensions of ratings to come into play. Some people want engaging conversation between them and the driver. Others want absolute silence. It can also vary for passengers and drivers day-to-day and trip-to-trip. This could also lead to neurodiverse passengers and drivers receiving low scores inappropriately because of mismatched expectations on the social dimension of the trip. All of this has nothing to do with what the ratings should focus on: did the driver do the job of getting from A to B well (and safely)? Was the passenger respective of the driver's time and space?

disruptiveink 3y ago

I favour taxis over Ubers these days because of the stupid "rider rating" system. There should be no "rider rating" system. Either I should be banned from the platform or not. I'm at the pickup location when the driver gets there. I don't ask for detours. I should have a perfect 5, yet I don't, why? Did I ask for routes that the drivers disliked? Did I not make conversation? Something else? Is it because in the US, everything is 5* but I took too many rides in Europe, where maybe people don't 5* by default? Between the possibility of paying for a service and not being able to relax with the "fear" of getting my rating lowered and then getting worse service in the future vs just getting into a cab, guess which one is easier and more relaxing for me?

wimagguc 3y ago

Freakonomics has a great episode on Uber and their dataset: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-uber-is-an-economists-dream/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-uber-is-an-economists-d... ...which makes me think that Uber ratings may have less to do with the driver and more to do with the person giving the rating. I, for one, struggle giving people a bad review knowing that their livelihood depends on it — it's either 5 stars or crickets.

brk 3y ago

For any rating system, I tend to reserve the top-tier ranking for something that exceeds normal or reasonable expectations. So the average Uber trip gets 4 stars when I rate it. 4 means it met my expectations, nothing went wrong, but also nothing was beyond expectations. 5 stars is basically perfection, and it is silly to expect perfection as the standard experience. It is also difficult to roll up the entire trip experience to a single rating. A seamless trip in a car that should have been vacuumed, and the driver is wearing enough cologne for an entire basketball team, is not a 5 star experience. But it's also not the end of the world. It's about what I expect from a gig worker. 4 stars. Would ride again.

Georgelemental 3y ago
Your Uber rating habits are perhaps more "logical" than those of others, but they don't match the behavior of everyone else, so the actual effect of your rating is that you are punishing good drivers. An Uber driver will likely be banned from the platform if their rating drops below 4.6
- JohnFen 3y ago
  But isn't it unfair to riders to expect this behavior from them without telling them that's the expectation? The whole thing is just BS. Why even have a sliding scale rating system? This is one of the larger issues that got me to just stop using Uber entirely.

Simulacra 3y ago

The only acceptable rating to leave an Uber driver is the one the customer feels like leaving. Even if it's 1 star or three stars. The rating weeds out bad drivers and is there for drivers, and passengers.

msaltz 3y ago

The Revel app (which is rolling out rideshare in NYC where all drivers are actual employees) has a rating system that’s explicitly labeled something like “Bad - Okay - Good - Great - Amazing”, where the default selected option is “Good”. I think it’s really nice because then it’s clear that most of your rides should be in the “Good” zone and the higher ratings are really for special cases. On the other hand the ratings are really for Revel - as a rider you can’t see your driver’s rating.

alkonaut 3y ago

So the point of the author is that as a passenger, I should accept that the system is a weird binary system where 4 or less means "unsafe or should be fired"? Why can't 4 be "A to B without any issues" and 5 is "great conversation, spotlessly cleaned car, threw in an excellent restaurant recommendation when asked?" But really the whole idea of rating every ride on a single measurement is crap. Flagging someone as dangerous or unfit as a driver shouldn't be part of a mandatory rating process it should just be flagging just like flagging a message on HN. Apart from the obvious safety flagging if the car lacks a seatbelt or the driver keeps looking on TV series on his phone the whole ride (Something I experienced), in terms of finding good/bad drivers, why not just ask some more specific questions. Did you find the driver likable? too quiet? too talkative? Was the car dirty? clean? comfortable? And even more importantly, look at tips. I rarely tip drivers (I'm not in the US so I rarely tip anywhere) but who gets tips should be a better tell of a good experience than any grade. But perhaps in the US where people mechanically tip 20% at restaurants and it's more an expected part of waiter pay than a perk for excellent service, that wouldn't work for Uber?

jghn 3y ago
I've noticed the same thing is happening with rider ratings. In forums like r/uberdrivers what the posters there perceive as a red flag rider rating has steadily gone up over the years. Several years ago they'd laugh at people below 4 stars. Now I wonder how many people see my 4.92 and think I'm a cretin.
jerf 3y ago
I don't believe the author is asking for "acceptance". I think they're just notifying you that that is how the system works now. You may act as you see fit. I think there's a touch of satire to the whole thing in the tone that you're picking up on. This article wasn't a celebration of this fact by any means, merely an observation of it.

eis 3y ago

I fear the suggestion at the end of the article to protest the system by giving only 5 star reviews does nothing apart from increasing the rating inflation that it talked about earlier. You will never get 100% of people to join in this 5-star-or-bust activity so instead of 4.8 being the minimum acceptable "actually good" rating it'll be 4.85 or 4.9 or whatever. It just moves the threshold a bit but it doesn't change the fact that it's not a linear 1 to 5 rating system.

branon 3y ago

Black Mirror episode "Nosedive" is relevant here. Professionally, I feel I'm fighting against the corporate oligarchy when I rate all workers (telecom customer service reps, Microsoft support personnel) as five stars irrespective of how I actually felt about the service. I get paid the same at my job regardless, so it seems a waste to not be collaborative. Recreationally, maybe it's an American thing. Our culture is one of generosity in spite of (not necessarily because of) the experience. I'll tip decent at a restaurant even if the food wasn't great or the service was slow. Granted, I might never go back, but if I'm there, I'm there to have a good experience and to be a good patron. Something would have to be VERY wrong for me to change course. I don't use gig apps like Doordash or Uber often. I Uber'd once in an emergency and rating the driver was the last thing on my mind. He got 5 stars of course, but he always would have, unless I somehow never made it to my destination. When interacting with large (or even small) businesses, gratuity items are one of the few things I as a customer have complete power over. For meals, I've already factored the tip into the cost so it's no sweat. For apps, the decision is even easier. One tap on the 5-star button and I can increase the level at which Uber values this non-employee? Easy. Maybe it comes from the bad old days of raiding Internet polls and intentionally trying to disrupt corporate properties online, but I approach it from the mindset of "how much fun can I have with this?" and always using the highest rating seems the most amusing to me. Sometimes it's legitimate, other times it's more rueful, but it is always good-faith patronage in my opinion. Somebody mentioned an Uber driver who crashed his car (hopefully not at-fault). I assume they didn't crash on purpose, so we know that guy was having a supremely shitty day. Yeah, I'd probably rate them 5 stars just for the hell of it. It had to have been the most memorable Uber ride ever. Maybe that's not worth much, but it's also not incentive to actively work against your fellow man on behalf of a corporation. If corps want to farm out KPI work to the customer, I'll gladly oblige, but I'm going to mess with your stats for my trouble ;)

Georgelemental 3y ago

Some things merit < 5 star ratings, for example highly unsafe/illegal driving, or extreme lateness not caused by traffic conditions.

mitchdoogle 3y ago

Obviously the title is very wrong. The author says so themselves - if you fear for your safety, then a rating below 5 is completely reasonable. Which for me, has happened more than I am comfortable with. I haven't even taken Uber that often - maybe 30 times in the last 10 years - but at least 3 of those times I can recall actually feeling unsafe by the driver's speeding, weaving in and out of traffic, or near misses with other vehicles. I do agree with the idea that it is a binary, though. Uber and other platforms should get rid of star rating systems altogether because it just breeds confusion. Some people (perhaps most) do indeed view it as a binary. But then there are people or situations where you find yourself wanting to rate a 3 or a 4 because the situation wasn't the worst experience of your life, but it was rather unpleasant for some reason. Just ask people if they were satisfied or not, or if looking for something more, ask specific questions. Was the car clean? Did the driver follow the route they were given? Did the driver obey traffic laws? Was the radio too loud? Was the driver talking on the phone? These questions are easy to answer and give more information than a star rating.

pointlessone 3y ago

Uber made it a problem for themselves. If they used any sort of linear scale it could've been useful. I've never seen a driver with rating lower than 4. TBH, I'm not sure if I ever saw one lower than 4.7. What's the point of this rating scale? It's compressed to the point of being meaningless. Likewise, there are no way to get a rating better than the default 5. So there's no incentive for drivers to be better than average.

JohnFen 3y ago

This is one of the larger reasons why I will never again use Uber, and more generally is the main reason why I no longer give ratings or pay attention to ratings for anything. They're no longer just worthless, they're actively harmful.

nunez 3y ago

> You didn’t like their attitude? They seemed unfriendly, reserved, disinterested? Five stars. I'm not going to give a driver that went on a tirade over me telling them to wear a seat belt five stars. It goes both ways, though. If I'm being a subpar rider, then I should get dinged.

DueDilligence 3y ago

[dead]

applebutter 3y ago

Clearly written by someone who isn't a driver. The real problem with Uber's ratings is that drivers don't get one at all if the rider doesn't submit one. The overall rating is for the last 500 ratings - not rides. Only about 50-60% of riders rate drivers. This means that if you leave a driver less than five stars, it could take six to nine months (depending on how often they driver) for that rating to "fall off". Unlike Uber, Lyft's rating is based on the last 100 rides. This means the Lyft driver gets five stars if you forget to rate them. If you rate a Lyft driver less than five stars, the rating will fall off in a few weeks compared to many months for Uber. Also, Lyft drops the lowest score. Uber doesn't. AND, the rating button on the Uber app is at the BOTTOM of the screen where everyone's palm hits when selecting a tip at the top. Accidental one-star ratings happen and those suckers don't come off for a LONG time. In conclusion, Uber is too strict and Lyft is too lenient.

sacnoradhq 3y ago

An Uber driver who drives like an LA TV police chase through traffic, then threatens my personal safety, kicks me out of their car while it's still moving, and slams the door by accelerating is probably not getting 5 stars from me. I'm probably calling Uber and the cops.