2y ago

Tipping 'nudges' are now popping up on DoorDash. If you don't leave a gratuity, you'll hear about it.

www.businessinsider.com Tipping 'nudges' are now popping up on DoorDash. If you don't leave a gratuity, you'll hear about it.

DoorDash is the latest delivery service to nudge customers who don't tip. It shows how intrusive tip requests are, and how important tips are to gig workers.

Tipping 'nudges' are now popping up on DoorDash. If you don't leave a gratuity, you'll hear about it.::DoorDash is the latest delivery service to nudge customers who don't tip. It shows how intrusive tip requests are, and how important tips are to gig workers.

103 comments

I'm far from a cheap tipper, but the way tipping culture has evolved in North America is ridiculous.
- I have traditionally been a good tipper. Often others will mention it.
  But the recent changes have me turned into a mister pink in a lot of cases.
  Anything take out or not full service I just hit no now. Also the round up for some random cause, I found companies only have to donate like 10% of those to stay in the clear.
  Also in the few instances I’m getting take out type shit like pizza and hit “no” and they made a comment. I no longer go there.
  
  I stick with the tipping habits I grew up with.
  If I'm getting table service at a restaurant, I tip the waitstaff.
  If I'm getting food delivered, I tip the delivery person.
  I tip taxi drivers.
  I tip bartenders. I'm honestly not sure how to tip bartenders these days though, because it used to be "$1 per drink", which seemed quite generous when drinks were less than $5. Now a single drink might be $12. Am I really supposed to tip 20% on that?
  If I'm walking up to a counter and getting takeout or fast food, I'm not tipping. That's nutty. Nobody would even consider that if they didn't use these customer-facing tablets everywhere nowadays.
  Sometimes I'll toss a buck in the tip jar at my favorite coffee shop or pizzeria, but it's not a percentage thing.
  I've always known old people to be shitty tippers. Maybe I'm on my way to becoming one of them now, failing to keep up with social norms. But I really don't think this is the norm, and I don't want it to become the norm.
- I wasn't a cheap tipper before, but I'm rapidly moving in that direction as tip culture spirals out of control.
  My guilt-o-meter is getting desensitized out of necessity and soon I'll be a cheap or non-tipper and feel no remorse.
  
  This is happening to me right now, too. And it feels shitty because I know the servers aren't asking for this.
  But you hit it on the head. My guilt levels are rapidly diminishing over time because I am just bombarded with requests for tips in every scenario no matter how ridiculous. My internal threshold for when a tip is merited has been steadily going up as I'm forced to sit and think about it during what feels like over half of transactions I make.
  
  I'm in this same boat. I used to tip 30% or more depending on multiple factors. Now some restaurants add a forced tip, of 10-20%, and all they'll get from me because they just set their own tip instead of just increasing their prices. Apps who cannot get their service employees (which they really are) to follow the most basic of instructions then have the gall to demand tips up front, instead of paying people enough to give a fuck, have me tipping zero as often as not if not most of the time.
- I tip less and less the more they complain about it. I don't even tip at those register prompts at all anymore. Conservatives keep talking about how raising wages will increase prices but they have no answer about why prices are going up anyway even without raising wages.
  
  Conservatives keep talking about how raising wages will increase prices but they have no answer about why prices are going up anyway even without raising wages.
  Wages are only one of the drivers of cost.

pay your workers a fair wage! end tipping culture!
- The workers would rather work for tips. You can hide a lot of income if your wage is primarily cash.
  
  I'm pretty sure tipping them in the app does not get them a cash payout. Either way, supporting tax evasion doesn't seem like the best way to get people fair wages.
  
  You are right, and it frustrates me.
  I could never be in a job where I didn’t know I was going to have a consistent check. I work the same hours, let’s say, and because I didn’t get enough tips one week, I’m now behind on something or another. I truly think people are crazy to not want steady income.

Ban tipping as a substitute for min wage.
Ban tipping companies,
Allow tipping people.
Until then, tip people with cash.
- Good luck with the logistics of that. Just ban tipping. It's bad for business, bad for individuals (in the long run), and a highly discriminatory practice.
- Generally agree, but if you use an app that only exists because of tipping being expected like food devliery apps, then if you don't put down a tip then no one is going to pick up your order. All they will see is a terrible pay for an order.
  
  At that point, that's not a tip, that's a bid in a market. Maybe they should just rename the terms like a trading app.
  
  In my country it is not expected to tip. Not in restaurants and not in delivery. Just pay your fucking employees. It's not that hard.
  
  At that point it's not a tip it's a delivery charge.. just call it what it is.
  But they won't because then they'd have to pay tax.. Although the taxman is going to notice sooner or later anyway..
  
  Exactly

America’s whole tipping thing is a nightmare. Just make companies pay employees properly and if they can’t, maybe they shouldn’t be a business.
- I swear to God, yesterday I was checking out at an online pharmacy and they asked if I wanted to tip. People are tipping for prescription medication now?!

Fuck Tipping Culture
- Fuck the service industry as a whole

The fact I'm getting asked to leave a tip before the service is rendered is what drives me really nuts. I've tipped on things and got terrible service and there is no way to adjust your tip down (and it can even be hard to increase it if they really do go above and beyond in some way).
- It’s very easy to increase the tip.
  Tip in cash. Never use the app to tip. When the item gets to you have a cash tip ready, if you want to tip. Nice thing about cash, if they don’t want to report the tip, there’s really no way to prove the tip was given.
  
  I don't keep an ATM in my bedroom, unfortunately.
  Only time I have cash for tipping is when I get tipped.
  
  The best thing about gig deliveries is dropoff service imo. I never see the driver so cash isn't an option. Uber eats at least makes it easy to adjust tips and I often do adjust if surprisingly early or if they forget a drink.

It bothers you even when you do tip. I always just tip 20% when I pay, before any service has happened, but I still get like 6 texts after my order has arrived asking me to "rate and tip!" "Don't forget to tip your driver!!" "HEY FUCKER!! GIVE US ALL YOUR MONEY!!" Then at some point "Your driver says: Thanks for the tip! Don't forget to rate your order from Jack in the Box!" I'm not going to fucking rate my food from Jack in the Box. It's deep fried shame, it's delicious and I don't want to talk about it. Leave me alone please, it's the middle of the night and I'm full of jalapeno poppers and onion rings and shame.
- I don't understand tipping delivery drivers percentage of the goods. If they aren't involved in the restaurant making the food, why should I tip percentage of the tab. Should really be based on distance and amount of stuff delivered. I've started just opting to punch in dollar amounts that feel right to me.
  
  I think it comes from the thinking that ordering more expensive food means you must have higher income to afford that, so you can also afford a higher tip.
  
  That's what I do with my drivers. Whether it's 20 bucks or 11 or 15 I just do $5 if they're cool with me and that's usually the case

I killed all delivery nonsense a while ago. It was like 4 fees plus a demand for a tip on top of inflated prices; go to the restaurant and pay $15 or pay DoorDash $35 for the same shit? Fuck that, I'll drive and pick my own damn food up.
And bonus, if half of it gets eaten in the car - I mean "wasn't given to me by the restaurant", sorry - at least I'm the one who ate the damn thing.
- I work from home and am very happy to get out of the house to pick up food.
- Except now you're supposed to tip on pickup orders. I am feeling so much tripping fatigue.
- I used one of those shit delivery services twice. First time they completed fucked my order and I had to drive to the restaurant to get it fixed. Second time the food literally never arrived and I called the restaurant who said it was picked up. Took me an hour of playing phone tag with a bunch of super unhelpful morons and then I still had to go over from a completely different restaurant to get food.
  Never again.

Tips help the company a lot more than the worker. If everyone decides to just be an asshole for a while and stop tipping, the workers being exploited will quit, and companies will be forced to pay actual living wages to attract/retain workers.
But that’s not going to happen because the social pressure of tipping is just too strong… and I say that as someone who is part of the problem by always leaving a tip :/

Don't want to pay your employees a decent wage? No need to worry, that's for the customers to sort out!
American tipping culture is off the rails, and business owners are rejoicing, I bet.

Their fees and tipping finally got me to stop using the service at all. So many times a $10 tip would be left only for my food to show up an hour later and cold. It just stopped being worth it. Half the “drivers” are on foot or e-scooters at this point and the food is destroyed by the time it gets there.
I’m sure I’m not the only one coming to this conclusion too. The prices keep going up and the quality goes down
- Absolutely! I finally took DoorDash off my phone when I realized how they were slowly increasing the price of each part of the service over time. What started as a reasonable service for a reasonable price has turned into a game of boiling the frog without him noticing the heat is rising. I noped out hard.
  
  My coworkers are doing a doordash lunch once a week and I was ok-ish with until my fav sandwich cost me twice as much as the restaurant price. Later that week I got an email from said coworkers informing us that we were having DISCOUNTED food because they bought a doordash pass which has since expired and we need a new one to keep the prices low. This was the end of it for me.

I view tipping as a form of hostage payment, I'll tip you today so you don't mess with my food tomorrow. My highschool time showed me how vulnerable people's food was to the whims of teenagers.
When a app nudges for tipping I just think they haven't set the right price for the service.
Luckily I live in a place without a tip culture now, so relaxing to know how much things actually cost.

I think wages should be increased and tip if the service is good, not force those employees to live off of only tips.

I always tip, but I'm pretty fucking over it from a company perspective. Doordash, Uber, and Grubhub are raking in INSANE profits while they stiff their workers.
These companies shouldn't be taking more than 1% or less of every transaction. Instead, they take a WAY larger cut. They do it in the worst possible way, too. There are layers of hidden fees - everything from menu items being secretly increased in price, to fees you don't see until the final second that they discretely lump (hide) under the sales tax column.
Fuck these companies.
- So, all the food delivery companies operate at a loss still. They have bloated costs, spend to much to acquire customers, have to overpay/lose money on deliveries. It's a shit business model. I really don't get it. The fact is no one wants to pay what it should cost to pay for food delivery. Paying people a wage that makes it worth doing + supporting the corporate info structure just makes food delivery more expensive than people are willing to pay.
  If you're going to point at the amount of money flowing through these companies, say revenue at least. Door dash had a -7.97% profit margin on their most recent figures. Somehow with billions in revenue they lose money. Maybe they'll turn it around and be profitable, but I don't see it happening. It's a shit market. No one has brand loyalty, low barriers to entry, people only care who delivers the cheapest. No an industry I'd want to invest heavily in. Modern capitalism is all about establishing a brand loyalty and using it to force your competition out of business. Then screwing your customers.

We get asked for tips here in Australia where we have a minimum wage and no tipping culture - it’s rubbish because we don’t need to subsidise people’s income at all, but the app doesn’t differentiate countries customs it seems. Uber’s apps are the same always asking for tips despite minimum wage….
- You're tipping the driver and not the restaurant. The driver is making gig pay and not minimum wage.
  
  The expectation though in Australia is that the employer (Uber etc) is paying fair compensation for the services provided so a tip is not necessary.
  
  They are actually paid $25 an hour here in Australia- how is that only “gig money”?
  Again, tipping is not a thing in Australia and should never be expected by drivers who actually choose to do this sort of work….

I've never used GrubHub, DoorDash, or any of those meal delivery services. I know I'm in the minority here, but I just don't trust people to not mess with my food in between the store and my house.
- I've never once even considered it. I absolutely do not get this concept.
  
  It's born from the same idea that people will pass out Halloween candy with blades in it. Which is a thing that is everyone "knows" about but has never actually been reported to happen.
  
  I used it during the pandemic. I also had the Chase card that gave you free DashPass for a year and it was fantastic. I made a couple orders once that promo was done and quickly determined that it was no longer worth it.
  Shame that it doesn't look like the financials involved could ever really work except in niche situations. It was nice having food delivered to my doorstep.

well that's the end of dardashian GrubHub for me I'm tired of that shit
- Imagine not wanting to tip your door dasher
  
  Imagine wanting a tip for doing the bare minimum at your job. I tip mine because I always leave instructions (no doorbell kinda thing). But guess what, you don't follow simple instructions, you don't get a tip. Door dash is already paying you to deliver the food, you want me to also pay? If door dash wants people to continue delivering food, it's got to be worth it for those people. If other Americans are stupid enough to keep perpetuating this well then I guess we deserve whatever's coming.
  
  Imagine every place you ever went, no one was paid by their "employer" and you had to just pay everyone yourself
  Fucking nightmare
  Pay your employees. Charge me enough so it works out. That's it. That's all I want
  
  Is it about helping out workers any more? Or is about companies - often big, profitable companies - not paying their employees a livable wage and pressuring customers to come to the rescue? At the very least, the situation is so confusing now that it's impossible to tell whether a tip is a legitimate thing to do, or whether it's giving in to corporate greed and cynicism.
  Just to clarify, I worked in food service as a tipped employee from age 15 into my late 20s. I totally get it, and I always tip waiters, taxi drivers, and other traditionally-tipped employees. But I don't know what to do when everybody expects a tip. And when corporate money-lords add their voices to pressure me, it just sounds too cynical.

I travel for work often so used to use them. It was nice since it worked with my receipt software. I used to use them
Costs are way too high
Food was spilled, messy, and cold
The tracker was a lie
This is going to make me never use them again

I've never used one of the delivery services, I doubt I ever will. I haven't been to a restaurant or a movie theater since the troubles, I don't see myself going back, neither have anything to offer me I can't have better at home.

Sounds like it is annoying even if you tipped well to start with. Glad I stopped using those apps a while ago. The only value they have to me now is to browse local restaurants when I can't think of a place to go. And a lot of times I just end up eating at home anyway.

Easily the app with the worst delivery service quality, in my experience, now also pushing hardest for gratuities... You're fired.

As soon as the pandemic was considered done, I’ve just deleted those awful apps. They overcharge you for the products, they stack on a bunch of bullshit fees, and they guilt you into tipping for the 50% chance that you get your order in a reasonable time and without things missing or wrong.

First I don’t use door dash.
Second I basically tip when I get excellent service. A tip is not given in the service isn’t great. If it’s average service then you might or might not get a tip depending on my mood.
The tip isn’t a replacement for a wage.
Edit to add . If I am having something delivered, the tip is in cash at time of delivery, NOT in advance. Why would I tip before I even get the item?

I use these as a central place to create an online order for pickup.
- Make sure you're comparing the price on DoorDash vs the price on the restaurant's website. There's a mark-up, even for pickup. It's usually cheaper to make your order directly with the restaurant.
  
  Yeah but then I have to call them

This makes no sense to me. When you submit the order, it gives you the option to add your tip. 0% is not an option. Though I did notice recently the option for an additional tip.

If you don't want to tip your driver then don't use door dash. Just because tipping sucks does not entitle you to using other people to who rely on tips to make a living. It's how the system works now so either write to Congress or stfu and stop using these services. It's not that hard. The constant whining on this topic is incredibly annoying and the people who rely on tips are never considered by redditor types.
There is no magical solution to this problem where you don't end up paying more money for your food, whether it's a living wage or something else. And even the "living wage" people propose would almost certainly be a pay cut for most servers/drivers. So don't try to pretend you're helping anyone other yourself with it.
- I'd rather have more expensive food and people get paid fairly.
- I agree with you on your first sentence. The rest is completely ignorant. This isn’t an issue that can’t be solved. It’s as simple as passing sweeping laws across the USA, states rights get fucked, that a person who works a job deserves to get paid the current wage to which they can both pay for a place to live, food, and are also able to put a little bit away for emergencies. You know, that stuff they always told us when we were growing up in the early 2000s? I know people love to sit here and say that these simple things can’t be fixed because… reasons.. but it is ignorant and quite childish to view the world like that. All of the world’s problems are manufactured by other humans just like you and I. So, when you boil it down to simple enough terms, if a human can manufacture misery, then surely you can do the exact opposite. Right? So, why is it easier to exploit humans than to lift them up? Start asking yourself these question. Have a good rest of your day.

103 comments