DoorDash makes tipping an afterthought to protest New York City’s wage raise
DoorDash makes tipping an afterthought to protest New York City’s wage raise
The change is to keep things “affordable for all New Yorkers.”
"For most markets where DoorDash operates, customers are prompted to tip on the checkout screen, with a middle option already selected by default. If they want to, they can adjust the tip later from the status screen while awaiting their food, or even after it’s delivered. That’s changing today; while blaming New York City’s minimum wage increase for delivery workers, DoorDash announced that for “select markets, including New York City,” tipping is now exclusively a post-checkout option"
It seems so ridiculous given tipping fatigue, that DoorDash is making what should be a given sound like a negative.
This is the way it should be everywhere. I'm sorry but tipping before the order is even delivered creates a fucked up incentive with the drivers and the people getting food. Especially when apps like DoorDash make it very apparent. Who tipped well before they even pick up food. The tip should always be rendered after service.
The tip should be rendered never, people should be paid a living wage.
I'm fine with a tip for over and above service, but otherwise yes I agree.
Worth noting that this will absolutely destroy the gig economy (which I'm kinda also fine with, tbh) and things like food delivery we see today. There is a reason very few businesses delivered prior to the delivery apps.
This has always annoyed me about food delivery services. Tips are supposed to be reflective of the service delivered. How can I know if that service is going to be good before a driver is even assigned to my order? Prompt after the delivery to add a tip.
Secondary note, if a company cannot pay their employees a living wage without tips than said company shouldn't exist. Nobody should have to rely on tips to...you know...exist.
So, I deliver for DoorDash from time to time, and it’s made me change how I view tipping in these apps.
I’m not tipping for quality of service (it’s hard to be ‘good’ vs ‘great’ on pick up, drive, drop off as a service, and if the driver manages to do that badly, DoorDash will make it right for you and ding the driver). Instead I’m tipping based on quantity of work, e.g., the distance I’m asking the driver to cover or the size/weight of the order if it’s something like groceries. While this is something that DoorDash should be doing, it’s not and is left to the customer to close the gap voluntarily.
DoorDash likes to act like they’re just connecting customers to people that want to make a delivery, but they’ve set up the system to feel like DoorDash is the service provider rather than the drivers. In reality, drivers should be setting their fees as independent contractors and DoorDash should only be providing the interface.
Tips are definitely not the answer, but...
if a company cannot pay their employees a living wage without tips
Actually, where I live, we don't have a tip, but companies won't even if they can. The sad truth is that businesses won't without pressure. They just call it a social problem, weakness of their country, whatever.
It's a false assumption.
Again, I believe tips are not the answer.
I agree. Pre tipping is not a good idea.
I also tip in cash whenever I can. Less chance of middlemen stealing it and "server" can decide to declare it as income or not.
Never offer cash tips on delivery platforms. People occasionally claim in their delivery instructions that they will pay an additional cash tip; nobody actually does. Talk to any driver and they will tell you the same: cash tippers are non-tippers.
Drivers can't even see your offer of a cash tip until after they have accepted the offer. If you don't offer a tip at checkout, your cash-tip offer is completely indistinguishable from a no-tip offer.
It should be: Let's pay people proper wages instead of tipping.
yes but the way it stands right now, tips are still important right? until you get to a decent baseline minimum wage, workers will need tips to sustain themselves. is the new wage enough for sustenance in NY?
Probably not lol, at least not in NYC
I'd be more satisfied if they just stopped calling them tips. They aren't a tip. Door Dash gives drivers about a $2.50 incentive to even bother looking at the orders that pop up, but it's up to them to decide whether to take the orders. So you're quietly negotiating with a complete stranger to go pick up some taco bell and bring it to your house at 3 a.m. it's a bid. Not a tip.
Calling it a tip is disingenuous and why a hell of a lot of people never "tip" at all.
Edit to add: The real abuse of their workers is that they talk out both sides of their mouth about how independent drivers are, but then they weight the system to punish drivers who don't take bad jobs. If that mess ended the service would improve for everyone on both sides of the order.
They’ve recently lowered the base pay to $2. I’ve had ‘offers’ pop up for $2 on a 10 mile delivery. If I were to accept that I’d be losing money on the delivery.
You say "losing money", but I want to quantify that for those reading along:
IRS allows us to claim $0.655 per mile in expenses. DoorDash's $2 base fee covers only the expenses on a 3 mile trip.
A 10 mile trip costs $6.55. DD pays $2.
But that's not the end of it. That 10-mile trip took me at least 4 miles outside of my zone. I need to get back to it before I can reasonably expect to receive offers again. I need about $9.17 before I earn one red cent. All that driving and waiting for your food took me about an hour. Just to make minimum wage, I need to gross $16.42. DD pays $2. I need about a $15 tip from you to make minimum wage.
I would actually be interested in using an app like this where it's truly a bid... Sounds interesting.
I would argue that that's what we already were supposed to have. Or at least that's how it's marketed to prospective drivers. And then they find out that Door Dash can make you hurt if you don't want to drive 12 miles into a dangerous neighborhood for two dollars.
I'm 100% for not tipping in USA. But the bastards that own the restaurants and company's won't pay these people what they deserve. Time for nationwide strike in the restaurant/food delivery industry imo.
Time for nationwide strike in the restaurant/food delivery industry imo.
That will never happen, because the truth is that these folks do make more from tips than they would from any sort of overall wage increase. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, tip-receiving workers tend to favor the tipping system in my experience.
That will never happen, because the truth is that these folks do make more from tips than they would from any sort of overall wage increase. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, tip-receiving workers tend to favor the tipping system in my experience.
This is a major reason why I, personally, don't tip. Those who like working for tips need to understand that they are not entitled to tips.
Yeah, really tipping should be replaced by being partially paid on comission, not just a flat wage increase.
Is the job shortage this bad where people can't just go work elsewhere?
It can be exceedingly difficult to find a job for a lot of people, yes
Yes "Nobody wants to work"
More like nobody wants to hire
I never tip and hope that voting with my wallet will cause more people to realize that they should be fighting owners, not customers or employees.
Hey, good principled stance... I guarantee literally every server, and I mean absolutely every one, thinks you're the asshole and they are 1000000% not thinking about the realities of the tipped industries when they see the bill with a zero percent tip.
Also, I kinda think you're the asshole if you're dumb enough to believe that you, the one you, is somehow going to change tipping culture in America by not tipping.
I've been to restaurants with mandatory 20% tip included in the bill and let me tell you, I don't even know if I got service worthy of 10%. It seems to be more of a cultural problem though. Even when their salaries are covered, American restaurant service is pretty lackluster. Without the carrot on the stick, it doesn't seem like they're even willing to try.
Working in a restaurant is probably one of the most consistently hard jobs in the US. It takes like 3 times the amount of energy that the average office job does. I don't think you are getting bad service because the people that are serving you are just lazy, they certainly wouldn't be working in the food service industry if they were lazy.
I find it interesting that there's been this vocal movement to "100%" eliminate tipping across the board. It's worked very well for us for generations until now. I don't think tipping is the problem.
The problems include services that inflate prices and want fees on top of tipping (DoorDash), customer-facing point-of-sale systems making it easier to prompt for tips (Square. Toast), and the general drive towards and acceptance of consumerism allowing for all these things to take place (plastic and mobile over cash). Not to mention inflated costs of living and stagnant wages.
Tipping in and of itself is fine. It's a win-win-win for the consumer, the worker, and the business. But it's insulting and a hinderance on the consumer in the context of all that's going on in the world today. In this regard, I share in the frustration.
If you were to make a stand and choose not to tip at a restaurant, your immediate impact is going to be on the worker who relies on that tip to support themselves and their family. Collectively, this movement is going to hurt the lives of individuals and potentially impact the local economies.
I share the belief that businesses should pay their workers a fair wage. However, in the restaurant industry, the businesses who've tried this have largely failed. Paying a fast-casual dinning or fine dinning worker the same as a McDonald's worker isn't going to bode well for customers expecting a higher level of customer service. Of course, this opens the conversation to the minimum wage laws and what's proper in this regard.
I agree somewhat that we should "strike" on restaurants and food delivery. But I say so in favor of us being more self reliant on ourselves rather than constantly being consumers of other's goods and services. Eating out / ordering in should not be something that we're doing so often that it's impacting our personal finances. It should be done in moderation (at most) and afford us the opportunity to pay those doing the work for us a fair compensation for their efforts. Our money should going towards people, not companies - certainly not DD.
What I'd like to see a measure on is consumerism and compensation in the US compared to countries that don't have tipping. I wonder if non-tipping countries eat out / order in less and if they have different regulations about fees. I'd also like to see a measure on the average wage and income compared to living costs. So, is someone working at Applebees (for example) in the US making relatively the same in the UK when accounting for their cost of living? How much do Americans spend on leisure, what do we define as leisure, compared to other countries? How do government support systems compare? What does the tax structure look like? I'm just not so sure it's a fair 1:1 comparison if you want to do what other countries are doing (not to say I oppose those systems).
I like tipping. I refuse to be nickel and dimed. I have a bigger problem with streaming services constantly raising their prices and inflated DD and Ticketmaster fees than I do tipping. Canceling all my streaming services, my Prime account, my DD account (and eating out less) affords me a bit more money to be a good tipper. Paying in cash sometimes gets me a discount and allows me to have a more positive impact on wait staff.
I see the non-tangible appification of payment as a bigger problem - and I see rampant consumerism as the primary issue. And I believe the government knows this. They're pushing towards a cashless society because they know how easy it is to thoughtlessly click a button to transfer money from one entity to another.
the businesses who've tried this have largely failed.
See most nations outside the US
Paying a fast-casual dinning or fine dinning worker the same as a McDonald's worker isn't going to bode well for customers expecting a higher level of customer service
Then wages can be set to match the establishment and expected level of customer service.
I've eaten at restaurants outside the US and prices are not ridiculous. However, US businesses assert they'd need to be. If it's truly going to set prices outside the affordable range for US customers I'd like to compare restaurant balance sheets inside vs. outside the US. What is costing US restaurants so much money that they have to pay their employees so poorly?
Tips are an excuse for employers not to pay their employees a livable wage. If you rely on tips to get by, your employer doesn't deserve to be in business.
I hate all these gig apps. Use them as little as possible.
I'm about it. They pay more wages and people should be tipping cash anyway. You don't know if doordash properly pays out tips
They do pay out tips, because they got sued over not
So they didn't and now pinky swear that they do now.
How is it not a thing everywhere? Great new feature. Very innovative. Now introduce it everywhere.
Well, that's a positive development, though probably for the wrong reasons.
Tipping should be optional, a bonus for a good job. Not a subsidy for billionaires who can afford to pay their damn workers triple what they're making.
But for food delivery services like doordash the tip is a bid to have someone deliver the food. Tbh I dont think the market for it is sustainable. But it's not really a tip anymore.
How is that a protest? That’s actually a good thing.
Pay your people so I don’t have to pay them.
You're still paying them, just less directly. It's not like a restaurant goes to a money tree to get wages for its employees; it's the same money you gave them for your food. You can price that cost directly into the menu items or have it be a separate tip, but the only effective difference is vibes.
That’s why I refuse to use self-checkout.
I prefer self checkout for several reasons. And I agree with you - let's pay workers a living wage. That being said, I don't put 100% of the financial reponsibility on employers. I feel we (the consumers) need to acknowledge that employers aren't the sole beneficiaries in this system. Translation; I want a living wage policy to be implemented but also I realize that this means an increase in the price I pay for (some) services. With this in mind, maybe I should receive a discount for using self checkout. Alternatively, how would you feel about being charged directly for the amount of time required for a "checker" to scan your items & ring you up? For example if you paid $0.33/minute this would cover a $20/hr wage.
Disclaimer: This "shared responsibility" can't be universally applied across all goods & services; employers don't get carte blanche to pass 100% of these costs onto the consumer. A living wage policy might entail some sort of agreed upon "max profit" policy or "open books" / transparent finances approach.
Fuck tipping but this is just DoorDash being petty.
Ah man this company is being a real cunt and for that reason we should reduce wages.
... What? What is the goal?
Shifting all of the cost of their employees on to you like any buisiness that can get away with it.
This doesn't do that though. It makes it harder to tip.
Just pay people a living wage. You know, like in other developed countries.
I mean fuck tipping though tbh
Well, it's a pretty ingenious way to get all the DoorDash drivers in Ny to quit I guess.
Was that their goal?
I don't get how this even benefits doordash. It wasn't costing doordash anything to route the customer's tip to the driver, was it? That money came directly from the customer, it didn't come out of the fees doordash collects. So whether or not the customer tips is immaterial to DD's bottom line, and this only hurts the drivers.
Why are they punishing the drivers for something the state did? Honestly vile.
Companies like Uber, Doordash, etc. think they're more important than they actually are. They want their drivers to quit in a "Oh yeah, well if we have to pay our drivers a minimum wage now then we don't want to do business here," sense. As if delivery services actually help local economies and don't strangle small businesses and exploit vulnerable job-seeking people. Good riddance, I'd love to see more cities run these companies into the ground.
This was my take. A business bro is having an entitlement tantrum and is taking it out on the only people that they can get away with hurting.
Unless they weren’t averaging $17.96/hr before this happened, in which case they might stick around
They weren't.
Their "goal" was to get drivers to stop delivering in NYC so then drivers would complain and put pressure on politicians to reverse the min wage rule. They believe they're offering an essential service and it's disruption will make people rise up to their defense. What's really going to happen is that people won't give a shit and just move on to the next thing.
So better minimum wage laws also encourage businesses to make their user experience less hostile to users? Nice.
Remember DoorDash's decision to change their interface to stop asking users for more money, when they inevitably point to their riders and say minimum wage laws have reduced their income. They knew the riders in the areas affected by better minimum wage would benefit greatly if they left the experience as it is, and they don't want that used as evidence in other states for their own minimum wage laws. This us why they haven't changed the interface for other states, where their riders are still living on as little as DoorDash can legally get away with paying.
i mean i do hate tipping, it creates an uncomfortable power dynamic, having to sort of....'bribe' them like with these gig apps to get them to take your order sucks (versus like a proper pizza shop where you have 1st party guys who know the area and ups and downs of the job), menu prices and the shitty fees are already a joke, it's just miserable all around
but i'm sure the minimum wage increase is little esp in NYC - it probably just feels like it cancels out. overall there needs to be better reform on this. depending on tips sucks
It's crazy how they can't just be normal about it. Have tipping at the checkout screen, but don't have an option pre-selected/remember what the user chooses.
while blaming New York City’s minimum wage increase for delivery workers,
entirely agree it's a simple UI issue, but the objective is to punish users for wage increases in order to get those advancements rolled back. because their management are dickheads.
Tipping fatique... Wtf..
I DoorDash regularly. I frequently get offers so low that it's not worth it in gas+time to deliver them. There's a chance that a lowball offer will tip me after the fact, sure, but it rarely happens, probably only one time in ten.
If the initial offer doesn't tip, and not just tip but enough to make it worth it relative to the travel distance and time, then I don't accept it. No experienced driver would, and no driver should.
Yup same, my bare minimum was 9$ on the guaranteed screen so that worked out to about a 6.50$ tip from the customer (Assuming DDs totally reasonable 2.50$ base pay...)
Ofc I also maintained 1-2$/mile minimum (depending on my mood lol) so if you aren't within a couple miles that guaranteed order amount would need to increase accordingly.
DD should just call "tips" what they really are, a blind bid.