Obligation for tip?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Heh, it’s even worse than I thought… DoorDash: What fees do I pay?

  • Service Fee: This fee goes to DoorDash […]
  • Delivery Fee: This fee is charged on delivery orders and goes to DoorDash […]
  • Small Order Fee: In some cases, this fee is charged to enable us to make small transactions worthwhile to fulfill. […] This fee goes to DoorDash.
  • Long Distance Fee: In some areas, DoorDash may charge this fee to help ensure consumers continue to have the option of ordering from merchants who are further away. […] This fee goes to DoorDash.
  • Express Fee: In some areas, you may choose to have your delivery prioritized for an additional fee. This fee goes to DoorDash.
  • Regulatory Response Fee: DoorDash may charge this fee when a local or state regulation leads to increased operating costs for DoorDash. […] This fee goes to DoorDash.
  • Other Mandatory Fees: In some cases, government authorities require DoorDash to charge certain fees. […] Some of these fees may be retained by DoorDash when allowed, or required by law.

Really, all their fees are just nonsense surcharges that are pure profit for them.

Then, waaaaay down on the bottom:

Optional Dasher Tip: Every dollar you tip is an extra dollar in your Dasher’s pocket. You can tip either at checkout or immediately after the delivery. Dashers always receive 100% of customer tips, and tipping is completely optional.

It’s a mere afterthought…

And I should stop :cry: But I’m just so lazy sometimes, and such a bad cook… and I rationalize it to myself as “at least I tip, and some money in their pockets is better than nothing, right?” I did cut back dramatically, though, using it maybe like 5-10% as often I used to, after the tipping scandal.

What I really wish is for there to be a community-driven non-profit model, or a co-op of delivery drivers, that can provide the underlying online infrastructure without the sketchy business model. Apparently this has been tried in some areas (like a ridehailing co-op in New York?), but I don’t know if any actually became sustainable.

22

Can you tip DoorDash drivers in person? Meet them at the car, hand them a $20 or a $50 and simply cut out their greedy corporate overlords?

23

You could, but your order might never get accepted then. When you place a DoorDash order, dashers in the area see it pop up on their screen (including the route and tip amount) and can choose to accept or reject it. Orders without tips take much longer, or may never be picked up at all.

Of course there is no option to explicitly say “I will tip you in cash”. What you could do is leave a reasonable tip in the app AND add more in cash. Of course they’d be very happy about that.

24

Back when delivery was an employee of your local pizza joint at least they had only one pickup location. however, If I used GrubbyUberDash & the driver was making multiple pickups & multiple deliveries on his way to me than my food would take longer, be colder & less tasty (who wants soggy fries that have been in a clamshell container?). I would be inclined to tip less for inferior service.

However, the last time I ordered delivery smartphones didn’t yet exist. It was horrible, was about 1½ hours (when pickup was 20 mins), was cold, & I got so hungry waiting that I had something else to eat so I didn’t even eat the food when it finally did come. Never again!

I hate tipping but that’s the system & I’m not going to screw over the little guy so I do tip, but why has it gone up from 15% to 18% to 20%; as prices have risen over the years, which means the dollar amount of my tip has gone up but why has the standard percentage gone up as well?

It looks like Oregon doesn’t give credit for tips; the employee still gets minimum wage so they’re doing much better than other retail workers.

25

I have throughout my life been on the generous side of tipping. Over the last… 10(?) years, as screen-based POS systems with tip prompts have taken over at almost all ‘service based’ establishments, I have sometimes rolled my eyes at the forward way some establishments manipulate customers to leave large, above average tips, but continued to tip in the 18-22% tip range.

However, in the last few years, as prices have increased at a rapid pace, I find myself at a limit to what feels reasonable. Comparing the menu of a favorite mid-range restaurant in 2020 to their menu today, similar/identical entrées have increased from $7-$12, representing a 30-40% increase. I assume that most of that represents cost of goods. It starts to not feel so great that I’m being asked to also give servers a 30-40% raise in their salary. I still do, because it’s the system we have, but for the first time in my adult life since I was literally counting out change to pay for things I am… rounding down instead of rounding up.

Or, at local coffee, I have sometimes stopped clicking "18%” and reverted to a $1-2 at most per beverage system.

Anyway, the system has always been odd but maybe sorta kinda worked for a while. Like a lot of other things, the modern economy in general, and more specifically dramatic fluctuations in the value of specific goods or services over a short period of time, is kind of showing the limits of the effectiveness and perceived fairness of tipping. And, changes in cultural tipping practices almost always come at the expense of both those who pay and those who earn a living on tips.

26

Huh, I can see what you mean. You have a point there. The food that gets to me through DoorDash does tend to be lukewarm & soggy.

Personally, that doesn’t bother me much. The environmentalist in me prefers more efficient multi-delivery routes rather than steaming-hot fresh food, I guess :sweat_smile: But I could see how that would bother normal, er, saner people. For sure the final quality is (much) inferior than when I go pick it up on my own, on time and exclusively for myself.

Wages have generally not kept pace with the costs of living, especially at the lower end, but you’re right that we’re getting double-fucked both in terms of the absolute dollar amount and the percentage on top of that.

Yet still, in many areas, even with 20%+ tips, food workers still can’t afford to live in the same areas they work. My town is one of those places, where almost everybody who works downtown has to live like an hour away and commute in through the snow. Not their fault (or mine), just part of the overall suckiness of our system.

Yeah, I’ve seen places where they now show 30%, 25% and, and 20% — with the 30% first, where the lowest amount would normally have been. Tipflation is getting crazy.

I’m also concerned that there’s not necessarily a system in place for ensuring that restaurant workers actually get those tips, especially if you pay with a credit card. There’s been more than one horror story of owners illegally keeping tips for themselves.

27

And that’s why I refuse to partake of such services. Tips are conditional to receiving good service, thus they’re given AFTER services are rendered, not before. Paying up front is not a tip, it’s a mandatory service fee.

The way I look at it, tips are supposed to be for PERSONAL service. Hence servers, bartenders, taxi drivers, valets, tour guides, and hairdressers. In restaurants it’s for table service specifically. If you order at the front desk or a kiosk, pick up your own food, get your own drink, bus your own table, or get carry-out, no tips. If it’s a buffet then the tip can be reduced but not eliminated.

The gray area in restaurants is if you order at a kiosk but your food is brought out to you. There shouldn’t be an expectation of a tip because you already paid up front. You could preemptively (retroactively?) tip the next time if it’s the same people and they’re deserving. Tips for housekeeping at hotels shouldn’t be expected either, since often you never even see them. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, but it feels backwards.

28

I wonder if there’s a generational gap here? I know that mentality was common in my parents’ era, but in my generation (millennial) or at least social circles, almost nobody thinks that way anymore. It’s just thought of a cost of living subsidy for the working class now, not actually tied to the performance of a service rendered.

Was there actually a time in the past where workers in those industries were actually paid well enough on their own such that tips were actually optional and a bonus for good service, not just their baseline for making rent?

Anecdotally, in my own experience, the mandatory-ness of tipping has kept pace with the tightness of our overall economic nooses. In boom times nobody really cared much, and it wasn’t much talked about in the 90s and 2000s. Then as the economy got worse for the working classes, the idea of “tipping=livelihoods” became more and more commonplace and seen in more memes and such. And by 2026, the traditional way of thinking about it as a bonus for service quality seems almost old-fashioned and antiquated… even the worst tippers I know wouldn’t tip less than 10-15% for bad service, unless maybe they were outright slapped by a server or something. It feels more like a social obligation than any sort of reward for good service now.

29

I’ve very recently had to to begin tipping Walmart delivery.

I signed up for Walmart+ three and half years ago. There was no option to Tip. I even remember using the help feature and it said tipping was available only for some accounts.

Roughly six months ago the tipping option began appearing on my Cart Checkout.

Sigh… yup I tip now because I can.

I think most older people Tip more generously. Most of us have worked a difficult job and felt under-appreciated and under-paid.

Maybe my $8 tip helps the delivery driver buy diapers and formula for their baby :baby:.

30

It certainly delivers some dignity and respect.

31

I’ve never used a delivery service and now I see that it can cost $30 to use one. Tips aren’t the only thing that is keeping me from using them. Very expensive to get potentially lukewarm food delivered.

I hate tip culture. It was so enjoyable not leaving tips when we visited Japan.

32

Hell, there are communities where first responders can’t live in the community due to cost of living & they make much more than minimum wage

Naw, that’s just part of the enshitification of service. Charge the customer for everything, make them do the work (supermarket checkouts), bait & switch & almost-necessary addons (budget airlines), default signing you up for annual renewals unless you uncheck a box or sneakily signing you up for a service unless you cxl it (Amazon Prime, if you place an order as a non-prime member). Shell gaming the order so people absent-mindedly choose the higher amount is just another part of that. Buyer beware has never held as much truth as it does today, for seemingly routine things.

33

Heh, good point. Bring me a soggy burger? Here’s $5.

Saved me from a heart attack? Never hear a peep of thanks.

34

When I lived in Taiwan, Domino’s would deliver for free and in under 30 min (from the time you placed the order), guaranteed. Not only did they not accept tips, they would refund you some money if they were even a minute late. A large pizza at the time cost like $3-$5 US.

I see prices have skyrocketed in recent years. A large pizza with two sides now costs $12. Still no tips.

35

I will say that I wouldn’t even think of giving a tip any other way. In no small part because my assumption would be that if I don’t personally hand them the money, those corporate overlords will simply steal it themselves.

36

So first off, I’m against tipping culture. I think it’s evil from just about every angle. It started as a way for white customers and white businesses to pay less to black employees, the white customers would tip the white waitstaff well and then not tip (or give a token amount) to the black waitstaff as a way to continue to enforce economic hardship on them. In modern times, it’s still an awful way for business owners to exploit the customers and foist off paying them onto the customer on a social pressure basis. And to a lot of obnoxious customers who support tipping, it’s because they want to hold this little bit of power over someone “lower” than them and that they can withhold or reduce their tip based on not meeting their expectations.

I spent a couple of months in Europe and it was so liberating not to worry about tipping. I still tipped a couple of times for some sort of exceptional service, but not having it be the norm felt like I was bypassing an entire bullshit social practice and the whole thing was more honest and it felt liberating.

Tipping behaves particularly irrationally at the low and the high end. We tip based on percentage of cost as a general rule because it’s a simpler rule than trying to figure out what the appropriate amount to tip would be absent a percentage rule. We’d have to figrue out a different number for every kind of service, every type of product, etc. and it’s easier just to say, fine, whatever, just tip 20%

And that works well enough for moderately costed items and services but falls apart on the low end and the high end. So, for example, let’s say you have a steak dinner that’s $80 twice. The first time you order a $30 bottle of wine and the second time you order a $300 bottle of wine. It’s the same amount of effort to the waiter, and yet if you follow a 20% rule, they make 10x as much on the latter.

It’s similarly problematic at the low end. Imagine you ordered a toothbrush that cost a $1 and the delivery driver had to drive 15 minutes to your place. The 20% rule says giving him 20 cents is the right move, but we all know that can’t possibly be fair, right? He’s doing 99% the same effort as if he brought you a big meal - he’s using the same amount of time, gas, car wear, effort to pick up the product and find your address, etc.

Since the 20% norm is just a guideline of what to do in general in the absence of specific reason to do otherwise to make it simpler to engage with tipping culture, it seems perfectly fine to me to make up your own rules for when doing the expected tipping norm thing wouldn’t really make sense. So if someone who got the steak dinner and a bottle of wine tipped the same $15-20 that he would whether he got the $30 or $300 bottle of wine, that feels like a far more justifiable tweak on the standard tipping behavior than the absurdity of paying a far bigger tip for the expensive bottle of wine. And on the other end, adjusting for the fact that you bought something extremely cheap, but you still used a significant amount of time from the waiter/driver/etc seems like you should definitely increase your minimum tip far beyond what 20% suggests. Same if you get a $1.50 cup of coffee and sit at a diner for 2 hours. The waitress brought you 6 refills and you took up a table for all that time, are you going to tip her 30 cents?

So making up your own rules, like “20% or $5, whatever is more” makes sense. Or “I’m not paying a tipping premium on an extremely expensive bottle of wine” makes sense. In as much as the whole tipping culture makes sense at all.

37

Dunno, I’m a xennial so we’re probably pretty close. I agree that you should still tip even if the service wasn’t great (especially since it’s often not the fault of the server), and 15% is basically the minimum nowadays, but tipping up front on top of the higher purchase price, delivery charge, and additional service charge? Pardon my French but fuck that noise.

38

My brother lived in Taipei for over 20 years. He moved back to the US for a bit but will be retiring in Taiwan due to the low cost of everything. Plus, he owns some real estate there.

39

And the food there is just generally better in every way… better food, cheaper food, faster food, fresher food, and better service to boot. All without tips.

I wonder… have we (in the US) finally reached a tipping point where nobody really “supports” tipping as an institution anymore, we all just kinda go along with it because we’re trapped in the system and well, revolutions are hard?

EDIT:

tipping point

(No pun intended… I didn’t even realize, lol)

40

It’s true that pre-tipping doesn’t completely make sense. It’s sort of a hybrid bid-tip. The thing is that doordash/grubhub/whatever drivers are working for tips. The money they get from those companies is about $8 an hour which is basically just offsetting their vehicle operating costs. But those drivers do get the tip as part of the value of the offer before they choose to accept it. Or at least they did. I worked for some of them part time like 5 years ago and they were already hiding and manipulating drivers to keep us from making informed decisions about the work, I have to imagine by now they’re even more opaque and manipulative.

Without a tip, drivers can actually lose money (and time) on the order. It’s kind of necessary, if they’re going to use a tip system at all, that it comes ahead of time. A waiter or waitress has multiple tables and they’re not actually losing money if one table stiffs them, but a delivery driver is only working for one person for that 15-25 minute stretch and has running costs, so they can actually work for a half hour and lose money for it.

So on one hand it’s like a bid - you’re ensuring that your order won’t be rejected over and over before someone finally accepts it a half hour later. On the other hand, it’s like a tip in that someone is providing you a personal service and basically get paid nothing outside of what you give them. It kind of sucks from both angles.

The thing is - studies show that the vast majority of people tip the same amount regardless of the service, even for terrible service, so one of the primary justifications for tipping is false - that it ensures good service. And if you’re going to pay your 20% regardless of what happens, then it doesn’t make that much sense to say it’s ridiculous to pre-tip.