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Comment by fizwhiz | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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.

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.

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

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