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Note that the various platforms have changed their UI to discourage tips, and my impression is that they are doing their best to communicate the reason for the

Note that the various platforms have changed their UI to discourage tips, and my impression is that they are doing their best to communicate the reason for the price increase, and it's not possible to determine whether the increased fees are actually in proportion to the increased cost (if any). I can't speak to how any of these companies think about this ordinance, but I do think they have an incentive to ensure that this ordinance fails, and a great deal of influence on its success.

NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
In NYC, the UI for GrubHub used to default to (I think?) something like a 20% tip; now it defaults to 0% and there's some kind of explanatory text about this. I think you missed the reasoning though - they don't want customers to feel obliged to tip 20% on top of the increased prices, which they'll do less often or stop doing entirely. It's more like "you don't need to tip because a living wage is baked into the price now".
- marssaxman 3y ago
  > you don't need to tip because a living wage is baked into the price now That sounds like a really good change! Tipping is such an archaic mess.
  - reaperducer 3y ago
    That sounds like a really good change! Tipping is such an archaic mess. It took a hundred years, but all those people in America who griped about tipping when it spread here from Europe turned out to be right.
  - NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
    >That sounds like a really good change! Tipping is such an archaic mess. The elephant in the room is that the reason we still have tipping for servers in restaurants and bar staff is that it's actually overwhelmingly their preference. There's a lot of complaining about bad pay and the tipped-wage discount on the minimum wage etc. but not actually a lot of support for doing away with tipping. Part of that is the opportunities that tips give for tax evasion. The IRS reckons that something like 10% of all individual income tax underreporting is due to incorrect reporting of tips: employees are supposed to tell their employers how much they got tipped, and there's really no effective enforcement.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      Tipping via apps is almost impossible to not report to the IRS. Also any tipping via credit cards.
      - NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
        Do you know this from actual personal experience, or just because it seems obvious that the data is there and that it would be trivial to automate? The employer doesn't really have any incentive, as it's the employee's responsibility to report their tips. There are lots of places that will tip out servers in cash for card receipts and rely on reporting - of course, yes, the servers have to report it but all the incentives to do the right thing are missing on both sides.
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        My sister worked as a waitress. Credit card tips were delivered to her on her paycheck minus credit card processing fees. I've never heard of a restaurant that would tip out cash for credit card transactions the same day. Now if they did do that, they might have to report those tips that it cashes out on the worker’s W2 along with the employees reported tips I think it is even more obvious for gig workers whose income are reported via 1099s and their tips are collected by a third party. I'm pretty sure Uber must report tips as general income. Now, it is possible for the rider to give a tip to their Uber driver directly as cash, and that wouldn't be necessarily reported (or to tip their delivery person directly rather than via app).

NovemberWhiskey 3y ago

In NYC, the UI for GrubHub used to default to (I think?) something like a 20% tip; now it defaults to 0% and there's some kind of explanatory text about this. I think you missed the reasoning though - they don't want customers to feel obliged to tip 20% on top of the increased prices, which they'll do less often or stop doing entirely. It's more like "you don't need to tip because a living wage is baked into the price now".

marssaxman 3y ago
> you don't need to tip because a living wage is baked into the price now That sounds like a really good change! Tipping is such an archaic mess.
- reaperducer 3y ago
  That sounds like a really good change! Tipping is such an archaic mess. It took a hundred years, but all those people in America who griped about tipping when it spread here from Europe turned out to be right.
- NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
  >That sounds like a really good change! Tipping is such an archaic mess. The elephant in the room is that the reason we still have tipping for servers in restaurants and bar staff is that it's actually overwhelmingly their preference. There's a lot of complaining about bad pay and the tipped-wage discount on the minimum wage etc. but not actually a lot of support for doing away with tipping. Part of that is the opportunities that tips give for tax evasion. The IRS reckons that something like 10% of all individual income tax underreporting is due to incorrect reporting of tips: employees are supposed to tell their employers how much they got tipped, and there's really no effective enforcement.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Tipping via apps is almost impossible to not report to the IRS. Also any tipping via credit cards.
    - NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
      Do you know this from actual personal experience, or just because it seems obvious that the data is there and that it would be trivial to automate? The employer doesn't really have any incentive, as it's the employee's responsibility to report their tips. There are lots of places that will tip out servers in cash for card receipts and rely on reporting - of course, yes, the servers have to report it but all the incentives to do the right thing are missing on both sides.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        My sister worked as a waitress. Credit card tips were delivered to her on her paycheck minus credit card processing fees. I've never heard of a restaurant that would tip out cash for credit card transactions the same day. Now if they did do that, they might have to report those tips that it cashes out on the worker’s W2 along with the employees reported tips I think it is even more obvious for gig workers whose income are reported via 1099s and their tips are collected by a third party. I'm pretty sure Uber must report tips as general income. Now, it is possible for the rider to give a tip to their Uber driver directly as cash, and that wouldn't be necessarily reported (or to tip their delivery person directly rather than via app).