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Comment by hoten | Hacker News Reader

They should be forced to be honest and call it a bid, not a tip.

I think it should be illegal to ask for a variable tip before a service is substantially completed. Go ahead and charge a fixed gratuity, but prepaying tips is silly.

It definitely shouldn't be unlawful for the service provider to ask prior to completing the service but I really wish more people would see it as distasteful, as seemingly most forms of drip pricing are considered. Obviously the tip is for exceptionally good service; if it's baked into the sale price then it's just another form of drip pricing.

I wouldn't burden the service provider, I would burden the payment processor and card network. If there’s a license involved, even better. Some merchant codes can’t have tips, merchant onboarding can’t have tip upselling by the sales team

Regulate behavior by regulating the intermediary

Think about anything this way and you can push the same changes through any form of government

Tipping in the US has become an obligation or entitlement and is rarely associated with the actual service anymore.

I would add: especially when using apps or food delivery of any kind.

The chances of a server spitting in my food for me leaving a bad tip after a meal in a restaurant are 0%. The chances of someone mucking with my food because I tipped $1 on a $40 order are absolutely >0%.

> The chances of someone mucking with my food because I tipped $1 on a $40 order are absolutely >0%.

More realistically, you'd just never get your food.

Drivers have the option to reject low-paying deliveries, and they absolutely will. I've heard of restaurants having a "wall of shame" of food that's been ordered and prepared, but is consistently getting rejected by drivers.

Eventually it'll land on a driver that is truly desperate or is just starting for DoorDash and wants to get some good reviews. Unfortunately, they'll deliver cold food that's been sitting on the Wall of Shame for half an hour and the customer will blame the driver for it.

It works as a bid but only up to a certain amount, above which Dasher just shows the offer with e.g. "$6+ tip", hiding the full tip amount until after the order is delivered.

Oh wow, this is actually interesting.

Out of curiosity, do you happen to know whether the threshold for hiding the full tip amount is based on a percentage of the total order cost or if it is just a flat number? I.e., “anything over $6 gets truncated to $6+” vs. “anything over 20% of the order gets truncated to ${total_order_cost*0.2}+”.

Or could it be based off the 3 pre-selected options for the tip that are displayed at the checkout page, and if it is more than the largest option, then it just shows `${largest_predefined_tip_option}+ `?

My personal guess is that it is the last one, but that’s just pure speculation on my part here, hence the question.

It seems to be one of several fixed, round numbers depending on the market (city). But there may be other factors. It's an interesting policy choice and I'm curious why they do it. Needless to say, drivers very much want to know the whole tip amount and are annoyed that the displayed value is capped.

obviously drivers would want to know it, but is that good for everyone involved? It would make more of an auction but should it even be an auction?

So, it has changed over the years, but it used to be {roof(basePay + $5, floor(mileage) * 2)} so with the $3.50 base pay of the day, anything under 5 miles had a max showing of $8.50, and then anything over would be like, $10+. It still roughly works that way, but the constants change

Keep in mind that in NYC tips are exempt from sales tax, but bids for services are not. So customers would pay 8.875% more if DoorDash stopped pretending the payments are tips.

(there is a sales tax exemption for mandatory gratuities, but that only applies where the ultimate recipient is an employee whereas DoorDash deliverypeople are independent contractors - https://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_and_bulls/tg_bulletins/st/gratui...)

I know they want to control pricing, obfuscate things, take advantage, extract surpluses etc., etc., but the 'two-sided market' thing would be way more convincing with real legible price discovery. Let people that want their food _now_ throw in an extra $20 for the privilege. If someone in Long Beach wants something from SGV, let them pay whatever it takes to get someone to get someone to drive two hours. Give Dashers tools to build auto-bidding strategies that align with their preferences. Show people ordering what similar trips cost recently. This doesn't have to be an awful dystopic extractive system...

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