Because of political restrictions of the number of taxi medallions to only 13,000 for a city of 8.5 million, taxi rates in NYC were extremely high compared with the rest of the nation. Taxi medallions were worth $1.2 million benefiting owners of medallions and credit unions that offered mortgages on them.

For example, Uber is 90 cents per mile in Chicago, but twice that at $1.75 mile in New York.

When Uber/Lyft came along to relieve the politically induced shortage while easily able to improve customer value by offering more vehicles and at lower prices, the value of medallions went to $700,000 or less and drivers stopped driving Yellow Cabs choosing Uber/Lyft instead.

Apparently, people are not required to tip, nor can they receive a bad score if they don't.

But Uber sold customers a bill of goods which said that tips were automatically included in the fare, not that there are no tips.