back to article Rideshare companies in India are asking for tips before the trip

India’s consumer affairs minister has criticized Uber for adding a feature that allows users to tip their driver before a trip as an incentive to take a job. The tip-first, ride-later scheme reportedly landed in Uber’s Indian app this week, but it’s not a new idea. A local Uber-like service called Namma Yatri appears to have …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tip:

    Tip: To Insure [sic] Promptness.

    1. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Tip:

      Tipping before services rendered is called bribing. On the other hand, corruption is endemic to India, now coming to the highest levels of the US government.

    2. DS999 Silver badge

      If you need to tip to get a driver's "attention"

      Maybe the stated rates are too low?

      Heck why not take it all the way and model it after mobile apps. All rides are "free", and instead of the non-free part coming in the form of "in app purchases" it comes in the form of "pre ride tips".

      This would be a preferred model in the US since tips will soon no longer be taxed. I'm looking forward to all the loopholes in that and the "no taxes on overtime" that will be widely abused.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: If you need to tip to get a driver's "attention"

        Perhaps … or they will be following coffee subscriptions with Ride subscriptions next to grub the last cent off the floor.

        Want no ad’s, plus $1.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Tip:

      "Tip" is not originally "to insure promptness," despite it maybe having been taken to mean and used as such from a couple hundred years ago.

      At the site www . todayifoundout.com, at the subpath index.php/2012/09/what-is-the-origin-of-the-word-tip-as-in-leaving-a-tip/ ,

      > One such slang word in this Thieves’ Cant was “tip”, meaning “to give or to share”. The first documented usage of “tip” this way dates back to 1610.

      This is the most interesting and complete source that I've found on the etymology of the term.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another Taxi Scam

    In Thailand Bolt introduced a 3min waiting period grace time, after this you get charged for keeping the driver waiting. Fair enough.

    But now drivers say they have arrived before they have to start the waiting time clock. I've been charged waiting time well before the driver has arrived.

    But its all GPSed, so screenshot map evidence that driver was nowhere.

    Maybe if the drivers got a better cut they would not resort to these tactics?

  3. Winkypop Silver badge
    Meh

    India runs on baksheesh

    Small bribes here and there.

    I’ve watched baggage handlers at a regional airport ask every passenger for US$10 to “make sure” their bag was loaded on the aircraft. It’s how things work.

    No, I didn’t pay. But I did wait to watch my bag get loaded.

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      The US may soon be the same

      With tips untaxed they will become how everyone wants to be compensated instead of wages. I almost wonder if this is step one in a two step republican plan to repeal the minimum age - they will say "employees want to be paid entirely in tips so they should be allowed to work for free if they want!" and in order to insure enough tips to make a living wage they'll have to resort to stuff like this.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The US may soon be the same

        Untaxed tips and Overtime is seriously pushing this the wrong way.

        Pretty much everyone hates the US (and Canadian) Tip economy.

        If you are on a Zero Hour contract … surely all of your wages are overtime ??

        Keep it simple - no Income Tax due on *all* wages below $40K, tips are for great service only stop the harassment and charity, tapered tax rates up the income scale,,abolish deductibles.a separate UK like National Insurance charge to help fund Social Security and Universal Healthcare people can see cost and value, and tax pension contributions over $250K salary/remuneration package..

    2. Winkypop Silver badge

      Re: India runs on baksheesh

      A thumb down I see.

      Who knew Indian baggage handlers read the Reg?

  4. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    WTF?

    Tips before service

    Sure.

    And I'm going to start sending my invoices before doing the work.

    I'm sure my customers will appreciate . . .

    What a crazy world we live in.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    These guys are amateurs

    In Birmingham UK we pay for the full service in advance with fuck all to show for it.

  6. PCScreenOnly

    Bribe and ride

    Thought tips were for good service

  7. rgjnk Silver badge

    Food delivery tipping

    Wasn't/isn't there a related problem in the US with Doordash(?), pre delivery tipping, and the effect this had on the (non)service people were getting?

    All these businesses with the same core model have a similar level of ethical/quality management, attract a similar level of workforce, and all descend into a similar level of mess in the end.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Food delivery tipping

      You've nailed it. I came basically to say the same thing.

      The fish rots from the head.

  8. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    It's about time tipping was done away with completely

    and pay people a decent wage instead of having them beg for extras.

    1. disgruntled yank

      Re: It's about time tipping was done away with completely

      I certainly find that I don't miss tipping on European vacations. But the US has a hard time adjusting to the notion. There have been hullabaloos in New York City and in Washington, DC, over lows doing away with the "minimum tipped wage". In Washington one reads of restaurants going out of business and blaming it on the higher base wage. One also reads about restaurants tacking on service or other extra charges without a clear indication whether it will all go to the staff.

      1. abend0c4 Silver badge

        Re: It's about time tipping was done away with completely

        I believe it is not uncommon in the US for table-service staff to pay the management for the privilege of working: their remuneration (and the gig fee) coming entirely from the tips they make.

        But it's a weird concept. You don't tip your plumber or your doctor. What is it about driving or carrying a tray that changes the economic model?

        1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

          Re: It's about time tipping was done away with completely

          Your doctor or your plumber is liable to be self-employed and they set their own fee which presumably satisfies them. Takeout food and taxi rides come at a price fixed by someone other than the person who provides it to you.

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: It's about time tipping was done away with completely

      A wonderful sentiment. Here's you're answer:

      Assata Shakur once said, “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”

      Until the peons DEMAND the improvements, and have the force to demand it, don't hold your breath.

      Thus endeth the entire known history lesson of humanity. There will be a test. Everyone will fail it.

      1. disgruntled yank

        Re: It's about time tipping was done away with completely

        Not one for extensive research, was AS? It is very true that economics play a big part, and that yesterday's unprofitable slave may be tomorrow's break-even sharecropper. But in the larger emancipations beginning in the late 18th Century--the abolition of serfdom in various German states for example--on through the 19th, it was not in general the oppressed bringing the force.

        1. ecofeco Silver badge

          Re: It's about time tipping was done away with completely

          Missed all those protest and riots and wars, did you?

          What you cite are the exceptions, not the rule. 5 thousand years of recorded history show oppression is the general rule and eventfully every society reverts back to it. Great thinkers have warned that without diligence, this is what will happen every time. This is not some opinion I pulled out of my arse.

          But what do the great thinkers know, right?

  9. Sitaram Chamarty

    my guess...

    > Which gets The Register wondering why the Minister wasn’t angry when Namma Yatri introduced this scheme last year.

    It may simply not have gained enough attention. I have never even heard of this app (and from the name it sounds like it is specific to Bangalore/Karnataka, so no surprise). I just checked with a couple of my most "savvy" nephews/nieces and they have not heard of it either.

    Uber is nationwide so more eyes on the app to notice things.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A tip is a reward for good service.

    "Tip is given as a token of appreciation not as a matter of right, after the service.”

    This. Which is why I don't tip for me picking up takeout (what service? you handed me a bag), or add a tip to an order in advance (no service has yet been provided).

    (I'm westpondian. Tipping has gotten out of hand here.)

  11. sketharaman

    TIPS

    Decades ago, I remember reading that TIPS = Tip to Insure Prompt Service. Tip before the ride is not that repugnant to that acronym. One more rideshare company which follows this "tip before ride" practice is Rapido.

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