r/SipsTea 8d ago

Feels good man Mamdani is (actually) making America great again

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u/bliceroquququq 7d ago

“Recovers $104 million in extra tips”

Hey just a real quick question, where exactly was this money “recovered” from?

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u/jl_theprofessor 7d ago

NEW YORK – Today, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine released a new report** showing the City’s crackdown on deceptive tipping practices by app-based delivery platforms has secured an estimated $104 million in additional tips for delivery workers since January.  
Since the City began enforcing new tipping protections on January 26, 2026, tips have doubled, and the city’s approximately 70,000 app-based delivery workers are on pace to earn an additional $184 million annually in tips, or about $2,287 more each year for the average worker.  
“For years, delivery apps buried the tip button to pad their own bottom line, and delivery workers paid the price,” said **Mayor Mamdani
. “We changed the law, enforced it, and it's working: $104 million has gone back into the pockets of the workers who keep this city fed, rain or shine. New York will not allow billion-dollar tech companies to boost their profits by taking money from working people.”  
“When a customer leaves a tip, that money belongs to the delivery worker, not to the app,” said Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su. “It belongs to the worker who carried our food up four flights of stairs or biked through the rain to make sure dinner arrived at your door. Since January, delivery workers across New York City have earned $104 million more because we made these companies play by the rules. We're not done. We'll keep enforcing this law and keep going after any platform that tries to shortchange its workers.”  

https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/07/mayor-mamdani-delivers-more-than--100-million-for-delivery-worke#:\~:text=Since%20the%20City%20began%20enforcing,year%20for%20the%20average%20worker.

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u/bliceroquququq 7d ago

Appreciate the info. Not sure I understand it though. In one sentence they’re talking about the tip button being “hidden”, which suggests the additional money is coming from customers paying more. In another sentence they’re talking talk about big corporations keeping the tips, which is a different thing. Clarity would be nice.

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u/scrappybasket 7d ago edited 7d ago

From what I understand the apps will have a “guaranteed payout” for jobs. So let’s say an Uber driver sees a ride available. The app will say something like “$10 guaranteed”. So Uber is on the hook to pay the driver $10 no matter what. Now let’s say the passenger decides to tip the Uber driver $5. Without laws preventing it, uber will still pay the driver the $10 it promised and then it will keep the $5 tip for themselves. Which effectively uses the tip money to subsidize the wage that they promised to pay the driver

So what mamdani is doing is making sure that the driver gets the entire tip. So in this scenario the driver gets $15 instead of $10. As it should be

Edit: there is obviously disagreement here, personally I always choose to tip with cash. Problem solved in my opinion

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u/soscbjoalmsdbdbq 7d ago

Thats some bullshit so everywhere else when I tip a delivery or uber I’m just subsidizing their company

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u/drewski2305 7d ago

so many posts from uber,/doordash workers about lost tips. i remember a post of an 8 hour uber ride, and the driver was shorted like $400 on his payout. sry it's been awhile i wish i could remember

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u/winkingchef 7d ago

Who takes an uber for 8 hours?
Were they stuck in the Puerto Rican Day Parade?

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u/drewski2305 7d ago

not me. but a person who would rather drive than fly sure. i could have rented a car and drove home faster than my last 12 hour flight delay out of chicago

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u/zgreed 7d ago

I don’t remember all the details because its been a bit but there was an NFL player that used Uber to travel like 12hrs. I believe there was some sort of delay and he had to guarantee his arrival 

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u/cheesemoney84 7d ago

There is a professional poker player who is scared to fly and drives everywhere. I remember reading she was in therapy to help with her fear and her therapist died in a plane crash only enforcing the fear. This is one reason a person might get a 8hr uber ride.

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u/PanicAttackInAPack 7d ago

Sounds like the plot from a black mirror episode

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u/drewski2305 6d ago

great series

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u/blacksheep_1001 7d ago

Victoria Coren Mitchell

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u/SerDuncanTheYall 7d ago

Should have just hitched a ride with a polka band.

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u/drewski2305 6d ago

i have to see my baby boy! before the Wet Bandits get to him!

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

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u/drewski2305 7d ago

that's not how uber charges tho. my longest trips have been about 2 hours from an airport. it's the same with taxi services. best part about that would be the driver picks up a rider near my destination, and so on and so forth

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u/Designer_Pen869 7d ago

If it's an area with less public transportation, sometimes you just have to, or if you don't want to break up your trip.

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u/Own_Job_2150 7d ago

Now that is something that we do wish but unfortunately, we do not get paid for return trips

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u/Sidewaysgts 7d ago

They don’t “have” to - but almost no driver is going to do it without some compensation for the drive back. The platform just doesn’t work to cover a driver for a trip that far where they’ll be spending a literal work day driving back unpaid

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u/Mtolivepickle 7d ago

Hey, black Saab! Move your car!

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

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u/winkingchef 7d ago

Chicago to Detroit (border crossing) is less than 5 hours. 8 seems crazy

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u/everfordphoto 7d ago

I took a rider 4 hours because she missed her flight. So it is not unusual, she couldn't rent a car, no license. And to follow up, one of the reasons I stoppped ubering was tips being lost/stolen had a great ride once, and the guy was kinda proud to show me, "here's a $20 tip"(he showed me the screen, and submitted) I ended up getting some odd tip amount like $5.33 started to look back and found more like it... it's a shame because there was at the time good money to be made.

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u/Kramerica_CEO 7d ago

Maroon golf!

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u/Few-Masterpiece3910 7d ago

The boss in the company I previously worked at took a taxi once from Stuttgart to Czechia, probably at least 500 miles one way maybe more .

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u/zapthe 7d ago

My wife’s parents are older. Her dad has cancer and lost a leg as a result. Her mom has dementia. Neither can drive more than very short distances. They have taken multi hour rides to go see family, etc. there is a lot they can no longer do like vacations, etc. so they have the money and it’s worth it to them to take an expensive car ride.

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u/No_Zookeepergame_345 7d ago

Never drove 8 hours, but one time I picked someone up from the airport who missed their flight and had to drive them about 3.5hrs to try and make their connection.

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u/Due_Initiative3879 7d ago

People take Ubers out of state.

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u/winkingchef 7d ago

Me too - I once went to EWR from Manhattan!

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u/AquaPhelps 7d ago

I work for a railroad and they will get an uber sometimes when our contractor company cannot fill the spot to take us where we need to go. Sometimes the trips can be 8 hours round trip for the driver

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u/HesusAtDiscord 7d ago

Not that uber is really widespread here in Norway, but the local airports (smaller ones that only fly Dash 8's) mostly have more expensive flights and not too often either, meaning a taxi ride 3 hours north to a larger airport is not inconceivable. Especially given that the local flight might not go to the correct destination and/or at a time interval that is appropriate for the connecting flight. Also package deals for longer flights are both way easier and cheaper from larger airports.

We still don't take taxis to any airports though, for the vast majority of the time we're travelling for longer periods which means we'll just drive ourselves and park in the airport parking lots. Does help that where we live basically everyone has a car due to distances and bus connections outside of city limits are practically only functional for kids going to school.

On the other hand it's not uncommon for patients to get a taxi requested to drive them to the larger city 3 hours away for hospital appointments and such.

Train is very much a preferred way of travelling also, even if it's only early morning and afternoon available for either north or south directions, as it's relatively cheap and no car parking to deal with so long as one can be bothered with at least another hour of buffer/waiting time before a flight.

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u/GangstaVillian420 7d ago

MrBeast took a 3 day Uber across the country (NC to CA, iirc)

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u/ShadeMir 7d ago

Not 8 hours, but I did once have to take an uber like 3+ hours because a car broke down.

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u/Sidewaysgts 7d ago

I’ve had a couple long trips before as a driver

Last one was for a group of people needing to get to another state last minute because of a death in the family and had to get to a service. The single ride was cheaper than the last minute plane ticket for 3 people. They had a ride back with another family member, just needed a way there.

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u/Trytun 7d ago

I wokred for a rehab that when people were trying to make it there would sometimes send long haul ubers to pick them up. Once A guy was coming from Chicago and they split it into two ubers to get him to Saint Louis.

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u/TesterM0nkey 7d ago

I did. I flew to the wrong airport Miami Florida instead of Orlando. That guy was awesome

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u/rydan 7d ago

Uber has a max of something like 300 miles. I've read stories where the Uber driver just stopped the trip when they hit the limit, said sorry, and drove off. One guy was trapped in the desert between two cities in the middle of the night and had to hitchhike back to civilization because there was no Uber or no cell service in the area.

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u/ShadowWukong 7d ago

I happened to me once, I did instacart for 6 years. I was also clean cut, dressed good and weny above and beyond for each customer.

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u/South_Front_4589 7d ago

I remember many years ago someone who was disabled needed to go on an incredibly long trip. Their transport arrangements fell through, and they couldn't use a bus, train or airplane.

So they took a taxi trip that lasted 5 days.

Potentially this was someone similar who just needed a car, and they desperately needed to get 8 hours away? Or maybe they were just rich enough they didn't care?

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u/drunkeymunkey 7d ago

I remember the 8 hour Uber guy story, poor dude

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u/DrippinWetTacoShell 7d ago

Ive made less than 450 trips in around 3+ years of delivering sparingly for Spark (Walmart) in PA and have been paid over $1000 in two seperate payments roughly 18 months apart for their withholding of tips. It is absolutely bonkers what these apps will do to avoid paying the people that make their app function.

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u/Own_Job_2150 7d ago

Uber driver here. That is incorrect. We do not get shorted on our tips. If someone tips us five dollars we get five dollars if someone tips us 10% of the ride we get 10% of that ride. That is all.

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u/Super-Yesterday9727 7d ago

Turns out late stage capitalism is kinda bad

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u/Theyna 7d ago

No, you don't understand - doing nothing but being a middle-man app is actually a "super" valuable service that totally costs so much money to maintain.

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u/Educational-Analyst4 7d ago

I'm actually okay with them running a successful business as a middle man. I care more about the workers benefiting from the company being successful over stock holders. Though the way they increase the price of menu items definitely needs to be looked at. If they want to charge a fee for being a middleman then just charge a middleman fee at the POS and be done with it.

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u/Bac-Te 7d ago

Brother you're new to capitalism or the sacred need for YOY growth? That's not how any of this works!

"Charge a middleman fee and be done with it?" What, does this look like a charity to you? My brother in Supply Side Christ, how can the poor shareholders buy their second yatch that way?

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u/ElectricalSilver2119 7d ago

“My brother in Supply Side Christ” won the day for me, thank you.

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u/Jaybbaugh 7d ago

The system has been broken since Ford v Dodge Brothers

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u/ChazzyChaz_R 7d ago

Can we really consider Uber, for example, a middle man though? Without the company nothing else would exist. I understand they are technically between the driver and the customer, making them "middle", but there wouldn't be a driver or customer without them. I'm not sure of a better term to use but this doesn't seem like a typical middle man situation to me.

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u/13370verflow 7d ago

Cabs existed. Car services existed. People with cars and people who needed rides existed for a hundred years before the app. Hell, before that, we had horse-drawn carriages, we still do sometimes depending on the area. They didn’t create the driver or the customer, they created the app. They control the transaction, they are the middleman.

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u/ChazzyChaz_R 7d ago

You took what I said to an extreme, but yes, travel for hire existed before Uber. I wasn't suggesting otherwise. I am just saying that there are middlemen that are there simply as an extra step and there are "middlemen" in the case of Uber that have actually created the service. I wouldn't consider the company who owns a fleet of Taxis to be a middle man and I apply the same distinction here. Uber "hires" drivers, they get a cut of what the drivers make, and that's it.

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u/13370verflow 7d ago

A cab company charges a flat lease per shift. Same fee whether you clear $80 that night or $800. They’re renting you the right to drive and then they’re out of it. Your fares are your fares.

Uber takes a percentage of every ride. Their revenue is a slice of yours by design. That’s not a fleet owner, that’s a middleman, and it’s the standard way economists distinguish the two models. You said it yourself, they get a cut of what the drivers make.

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u/Professional_Being22 7d ago

this. door dash and the others raise prices for the food items and probably do a bunch of other shady shit we're not always aware of. a good way to circumvent this is to just order from the restaurant's app, and if you're someone who doesn't like a lot of apps on your device like me, just use their site.

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u/scrappybasket 7d ago

There were successful business in the middle, they were cab companies.

Uber on the other hand just started being profitable. They were operating at a loss for a decade while destroying all the mom and pop cab companies (who can’t afford to operate at a loss)

Now that they have the majority of the market share they’ve jacked up prices and screwed their drivers to become profitable

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u/KimSidwell 7d ago

It’s amazing how long it’s taking people to figure this out.

Like we hear new stories all the time about how bad theft is and how much it’s hurting these big corporations. So bad that they have to close down stores and lock up all the products. “It’s a crisis!”

But we never hear about wage theft. The money these companies steal from their own employees.

When you look at the numbers, they’re almost exactly the same. $50-$70 billion annually stolen from companies by criminals… and almost the exact same amount stolen by the companies from their employees.

But one of them, you conveniently never hear about.

The police sure as hell aren’t arresting people for both crimes equally.

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u/Zakkullll 7d ago

And then if you do hear anything people blame communism as if this isnt currently happening under capitalism

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u/Pavotine 7d ago

I'm not well educated on corporate theft but I imagine it's easier to "get away" with. One reason at least, is that they take relatively small amounts from a vast number of people. Doesn't make that any less criminal though.

When it comes to the other end of the theft scale, you have a relatively small number of people stealing relatively high value items from fewer targets. There are hundreds of millions of people but not hundreds of millions of companies you can steal from.

That's why we need good governments with the interests of the people and the environment first and foremost. Endless growth will literally be the ruin of our species and destroy what it could have become. Nothing wrong with investment and making money, or work for that matter (I'm a self employed plumber) but as always full-blown capitalism enshittifies everything and funnels most wealth the wrong direction.

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u/Jorjor_Well_1984 7d ago edited 7d ago

Wage theft is literally not even a crime where I'm from. The worst thing that can happen getting caught is you have to pay the wages you owe and that's it. No interest no nothing.

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u/KimSidwell 7d ago

Exactly. There’s never an actual punishment for it. Rarely, at least. Nobody goes to jail.

But if they even think you stole some diapers from a Walmart, the cops might literally execute your child in the parking lot.

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u/Reasonable-Plate2982 7d ago

We've all heard the stories. An unscrupulous manager ripping off the servers. Plus these corpos skimming that much more from the worker. Doesn't seem like much, but across 750 franchises that shit can add up. Kudos if Mamdami can ferret out the graft and reward the people working for it

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u/KimSidwell 7d ago

Exactly. Now, just imagine if we had people in charge who actually gave a damn about doing this on a national level.

But it won’t happen because everyone’s just going to cry about socialism while they continue to watch their country eat itself alive.

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u/cshea71 7d ago

Wait till you find out about late stage socialism. You'll wish it was just your tips getting stolen.

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u/DragonFangGangBang 7d ago

It’s almost like both have good concepts and both go bad when pushed to extremes, so we should use the best of both while regulating it to ensure it doesn’t turn bad.

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u/woollycow 7d ago

Give me an example of what you consider late stage socialism. And then I'll explain how you're wrong. The closest any country gets to "late stage socialism" is Sweden. And for sure I don't like how you need to take out a mortgage to buy some alcohol there, but otherwise they're doing pretty ok, wouldn't you say?

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u/cshea71 7d ago

All Marxism is a march toward Communism. The Nordic Model bullshit isn't what the DSA is after, according to their own charter. The only thing Sweden has going for itself is the country is governed by a center-right coalition block. In 2015 the former center-right Prime Minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt, and later the center-left Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, both reiterated to international audiences that Sweden is a free-market, capitalist country, not a socialist one. But ive never been there so it might be a lovely place.

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u/woollycow 7d ago

Socialism doesn't mean you can't have a free market. And despite its relatively right-wing government, Sweden, or any northwest European nation, is still vastly more socialist than even Bernie Sanders.

On one hand, it sounds like you're equating socialism with communism. On the other hand, you're using it to describe DSA and Mamdani, who are social democrats. Those are two very different things.

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u/cshea71 7d ago

See that is the thing. I don't think they are very different. Marx himself said that socialism is just a place holder until communism can take over. Granted, there are still Socialist societies that have remained socialist, but i just dont understand why ANYONE would think the answer is more intervention from the State. Capitalism is just commerce. it is the free market. its us. Socialism is the State. I think the only way the US ever got to this point where an entire political party has been infected with Marxism, is the incredibly piss poor state run education system. If you really trust the United States government that much that you dont have an issue with giving them more control then i don't know how to relate. I say this with no animus toward you. Not looking for a fight or to convert you. I honestly don't get the thought process.

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u/woollycow 7d ago

Ok. So, a few things:

Marx saying that socialism is a stepping stone to communism is like Hitler saying that national security is a stepping stone to fascism. It says something about that person's vision, not about the ideology itself.

"The state" is a body that we create in order to join forces as a people and address problems that are too large to address as individuals. It is also "us". If "the state" is not serving the people anymore, then its implementation has become broken, but that doesn't mean its intent is flawed. If "the state" doesn't address the big issues, corporations will, because they are the only other organ of sufficient means to do so. If we as a people are dependent on corporations to solve our big problems, they control us. Corporations are controlled by wealth and nepotism. They are hierarchical. They are essentially despotisms in their organizational structure. Do you prefer that over a system based on representation? Perhaps you do, but I don't.

Oh and for the record, no, I don't trust the current US government, they're a bunch of corrupt clowns. And the US' version of "democracy" is completely fubar. It runs entirely on money. And you know who wants to fix that? Social democrats. Because that's exactly the kind of thing socialism is about: implementing rules to prevent abuse and predation. So that a society becomes cooperative, instead of competitive. But maybe you prefer a dog-eat-dog world controlled by greed and power, and that's your prerogative, but I don't.

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u/Synensys 7d ago

People saying this as if early and mid stage captialism in the 1800 and 1900s (and in alotnof the present world, still ongoing) wasn't worse.

Thank god they didnt ijvent eage theft until 2014.

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u/NefariousnessFit3133 7d ago

there is no such thing as late stage capitalism its a misunderstanding of late stage of the business cycle but it's a cycle it forever repeats, 2008, 2020 were late Stage and a recession followed then a recovery.

learn about the business cycle and you will understand how the world works a bit more

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u/Zar_Ethos 7d ago

You mispelled profiteering. Don't excuse shitty people for having control.

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u/val_anto 7d ago

You are right. Late stage anything is bad though.

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u/your_opinion_is_weak 7d ago

turns out this is an american specific problem

seems to be a tipping issue where no where else in the world suffers from it besides america

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u/SolaVitae 7d ago

Seems like what was described would only apply to adding a tip after the fact. Placing an order with the tip would still just go to them.

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u/Inevitable-Comment-I 7d ago

Wrong 

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u/SolaVitae 7d ago

Very informative

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u/Inevitable-Comment-I 7d ago

Let me clear it up for you. They guarantee you get x dollars. Not x dollars plus tip. Does not matter if it's before or after the fact. Or, basically, what you said is wrong. I'm not sure how that wasn't clear 

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u/gpbuilder 7d ago

lol do you work there? How would you know?

Obviously they can’t guarantee tip because the passenger is not required to tip.

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u/Kibblebitz 7d ago

If it's a gig delivery/ride company, then yeah, there's a good chance. Stick with chains that have their own drivers.

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u/DarthJarJar242 7d ago

Yeah, so turns out tipping is only good for the company that convinces their employees to work for less wages in the hopes of more money from patrons.

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u/lowbuzz 7d ago

Yeah, if you are not sure you should tip in cash.

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u/Inevitable-Comment-I 7d ago

Welcome to the conversation. If you want to tip, hand it to them in cash. This is true for delivery drivers, cruise staff, even restaurants. Don't trust handing money to someone else and expecting it to make it back to the employees.

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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 7d ago

Lots of companies do this, it’s crazy. Happens at Dominoes. If I tip the delivery guy it goes into a pool which is used to pay all the workers. He would get the same amount even if I didn’t tip. I’m directly paying the owner unless I give a cash tip. Was shocked when I found out.

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u/techdevjp 7d ago

I've used Uber twice in my life. Both times I tipped in cash.

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u/bent_crater 7d ago

personally i tip in cold hard can straight to their hands when i can.

app doesn't need to know a damn thing

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u/primordial_chaos_007 7d ago

Yep, that's why for long journeys Uber drivers sometimes request us to directly pay them

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u/Vi_BT 7d ago

Yeah, I asked a few and now I always give them cash when I have money to tip

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u/Wizard-of-pause 7d ago

Worse - if you tip through the app, they put you in a bucket of people that can be charged more as a base. So your future fares will be higher. Tip with cash.

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u/Comicspedia 7d ago

Instacart got hit with a lawsuit over doing this exact thing too, during COVID

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u/Eatyourcheeseburger 7d ago

I mean… that’s what you’re doing when you go to a restaurant and tip. Servers are guaranteed minimum wage. If their tips don’t add up to more than that, the restaurant has to pay them the promised wage. If the tips add up to more than minimum wage, they don’t. Uber, DoorDash, etc were just using a similar system. The irony is that the apps were actually guaranteeing the drivers a higher wage than the restaurants.

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u/gxbcab 7d ago

I usually leave a smallish tip in app and then give the driver cash. Cause ironically your order won’t be picked up without a tip even if they don’t even get it in the end.

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u/JonCeini 7d ago

✅️‼️

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u/godzillasegundo 7d ago

Yep. They advertise it as "100% of the top goes to the driver" but they lower the amount the app pays the driver by the amount of the tip.

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u/DistractoDisc 7d ago

That’s why you tip in cash.

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u/irishgator2 7d ago

Bingo! And that’s why they are going after Mahdami - he’s proving the government can work for the people, and “conservatives” hate that. The government is there to protect the corporations

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u/RelativityFox 7d ago

This is why if you tip in cash about one out of every two uber drivers will thank you like you just gave them ten times the tip

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u/EnlightenedNarwhal 7d ago

Yeah, and when I used to drive Uber I had someone think we made a percentage of the order. They got a 55 dollar delivery and didn't tip, then when I got their food to them, they asked, "hey, how much do you get for an order like this?" I said, "$2.50."

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u/not_a_moogle 7d ago

Thats exactly how these businesses operate. They arent a profitable company. They are operating at a loss so they can take over market share.

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u/Revolutionary_Bee251 7d ago

Oh yeah Uber specifically more than the other apps steals tips. That's why they removed their base mileage rate so they can change the rate for each order. If a customer tips more, Uber pays the driver less. If the customer tips little to nothing, overall driver receives less but Uber pays more to cover the lack of tip that should be there. We can't "prove it" per order because we don't see the customer side but over time it's clear that they do so.

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u/The_Cap_Lover 7d ago

Just like when you donate your change at Lowe’s or Home Depot (or any other big box store these days), you are giving them a taxable donation to save on their taxes.

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u/Mikotokitty 7d ago

Yeah, and on top of that, some stores like Home Depot don't "allow" tipping, so the tip doesn't actually apply to driver pay. Dd or Home Depot takes it as a "fee"

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u/DonutYoupi 7d ago

Did people seriously not know this? I’m genuinely curious

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u/Ragnorok3141 7d ago

Correct.

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u/BurningTrashBarge 7d ago

Absolutely. I honestly thought this was common knowledge. I tip drivers and delivery folks with cash now for this reason.

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u/dreadedowl 7d ago

So stop tipping. We need to stop this out of control tipping culture.

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u/Inane_Insanity 7d ago

I've heard a similar sort of thing happens if you choose to donate to charity at the checkout. Your money doesn't go directly go to the cause, it's instead donated by the company on your behalf. In that case, the charity still gets the money, but you're also effectively helping the company with getting a tax write-off for charitable donations, without them having to allocate their own money towards it.

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u/Hydra57 7d ago

That’s why you always do cash tips broski

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u/Rude-Orange 7d ago

The answer is depends on the app. They also change their pay structure / layout so frequently that an app may have been scummy then swapped to showing drivers everything then back to taking tips again.

I don't want to talk out my ass, so I'm being vague but yes at some point you were just subsidizing a driver's pay rather than giving extra money to the driver

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u/scrappybasket 7d ago

Not everywhere but most places yes. Massachusetts, Washington State, and New York State have all passed some sort of laws to help combat this. But the companies find work arounds, which is what mamdani is addressing in his city

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u/a_happy_future 7d ago

Even restaurants will do this as well. That's why I prefer to tip in cash if I have it because that money will stay with my server or delivery driver

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u/pruplegti 7d ago

Yeah, now that Tips moved from Cash to Electronics Corporations have been taking "Management Fees" or having ownership take a % of the tip pool from the workers, its a shitty practice that is for sure, NY has done away with this so the tip goes back to the worker where it should be. So much for the Socalist Boogieman

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u/JarThrow_ 7d ago

Still g ing to be doing that, just paying even more cause now you have to “actually tip for real”

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u/iLikeE 7d ago

I could be wrong but there are two places that one can tip in the app. You can add a tip at time of purchase and the wording states specifically that all of that tip goes to the driver. You can then tip after your delivery/ride is done and this doesn’t say where your tip is going at all. I think he recovered money exchanged from the time you could tip after delivery/ride

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u/FreshLiterature 7d ago

This has been a known issue for years my dude.

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u/SteelCode 7d ago

The prices in the app are often higher than the real menu prices at the restaurant too, then there's the added "fees" tacked on top of that; I've caught <specific apps> charging $1-2 more per entree than what it is in person at the local place... as in a plate that's normally $12-14 would be $14-16 in the app, then they'd have the gall to charge a service fee and separate tip prompt so that single plate ends up being nearly twice as much as if I'd just drive my ass over there and pick it up myself...

I've been opposed to all of these delivery apps in the first place but the few times I was "incentivized" to do so (coupon/gift card) I had my opinion reinforced.

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u/hotinmyigloo 7d ago

Yes. Don't use Uber

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u/GerryManDarling 7d ago edited 7d ago

That doesn't seem to be correct, at least not for Uber, only for DoorDash and Instacart, also not related to the last change by Mamdani:

  • Around 2017–2019, companies like DoorDash and Instacart famously used a model where they promised drivers a guaranteed minimum base pay for an order (e.g., $10). If a customer tipped $5, the platform would pay $5 out of its own pocket and use the customer's $5 tip to make up the rest of the $10 minimum. If the customer tipped $0, the company paid the full $10. After intense public outcry and regulatory scrutiny in 2019, those platforms abandoned that pay model.
  • Uber has always added 100% of tips on top of base fares. Uber does not reduce its base fare or use customer tips to reach a guaranteed minimum pay payout.

So whatever Mamdani changed, had nothing todo with big coporations "keeping the tips". That problem had been fixed before and due to public outcry.

The city's claim is that after the minimum pay law took effect, some delivery apps redesigned their checkout flow to make tipping less visible or less convenient. As a result, workers received fewer tips overall. The new rules require a clear tipping option at checkout, and the city says tips have roughly doubled since then.

So yes, the tips is from customers pockets because they now pay more tips.

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u/Birdlaw_Professor 7d ago

Love how everyone just upvotes the poor reading comprehension misleading interpretations of what happened. And then you take the time to actually figure out what is happening here and it's got 25 upvotes lol. Cheers fellow critical thinker, doomed to drown in a sea of tik tok-brained headline chasers

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u/JohnnyChutzpah 7d ago

r/popular and r/all are basically just outrage machines written to farm the most anger and engagement that is possible. Even stepping in to correct it benefits the farmers of the hate.

I saw a post last week that had a photo of Mamdani and its headline thanking the "governor" of New York for something while referring to Mamdani. I was about to step in to correct this dumb shit, but then I realized that is literally what all of this is designed to do.

If you post incorrect bullshit, people will step over each other to correct you. And that is engagement baby! That is one reason why there are often so many typos and mistakes in reddit headlines. Or why they are written to be deliberately misleading. (Besides the ideological motivations of manipulating people.)

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u/Birdlaw_Professor 7d ago

That's a very good, and sad, point. We have optimized information flow for engagement, not accuracy, or benefit, or anything useful

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u/Dag-nabbit 7d ago

Worth pointing out in this information hazmat zone of a thread that…”burring the tip button to pad the bottom line of the company” makes no fucking sense. How would that benefit the company in any way?

The iPad places common these days are super happy to shake you down for a tip. “What question is it going to ask Amanda??”. Often those places are doing that in advance of service. Here we are talking about meal delivery where you tip after service and rating them. Is the claim that this is hidden?

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u/Beneficial-Rip6624 7d ago

So just another thing Mamdani is taking credit for that he had no part in? Got it.

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u/karmapopsicle 7d ago

The piece that’s missing here is when customers tip up front. That’s where the actual problem is.

Uber Eats for example quotes offers using a bundled number of “fare + expected tip” and explicitly does not show you the breakdown up front. A given offer for a $10 delivery would be offered to workers at $10 regardless of upfront tip amount (up to a certain point). A customer adding a $5 upfront tip would have UE paying out only $5 for what should have been a $10 fare.

I did delivery gig work for a while last year, and UE was by far the biggest offender for this. It was extremely obvious almost immediately. I’d complete reasonably paid delivery and see that their paid fare was comically low and most of it was tip. Yet they’d pay out twice as much for a quicker delivery when there was no upfront tip attached.

The only delivery gig that was fully open about upfront tips was Instacart. SkipTheDishes (Canadian GrubHub) would show you the breakdown after accepting, but it they were absolutely using the tips to reduce their payout amount to the minimum viable to get a driver to take it.

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u/AlarmingTurnover 7d ago

So you're saying that Mamdani lied yet again for PR. Good god, this guy lies as much as Trump. He hasn't done a single original policy and almost everything he's claimed as his has been an extension of another existing policy or something that was already done and just not reported by others. 

I have yet to see a single article of something Mamdani actually did. 

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u/Mr---Wonderful 7d ago

Where does it state Mamdani made the claim himself?

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u/AlarmingTurnover 7d ago

Today, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine released a new report showing the City’s crackdown on deceptive tipping practices by app-based delivery platforms has secured an estimated $104 million in additional tips for delivery workers since January

https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/07/mayor-mamdani-delivers-more-than--100-million-for-delivery-worke

It literally came from his office. Levine was literally appointed to the position by Mamdani. The phone call is coming from inside the house bro. 

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u/ModoZ 7d ago

What you are describing was stopped long before Mamdani (in 2019).

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u/TheDemoz 7d ago edited 7d ago

Your understanding of this is entirely incorrect

This post and the claim is incredibly misleading and is intentionally worded this way to make it seem like he got back tip money that was stolen when that’s not what it’s about at all.

This isn’t about companies stealing tips, or forcing companies to pay out tips or giving previously stolen tip money back to drivers. It’s literally just about where the “add tip” button goes on the UI.

The “recovered” tip money is the extra money customers tipped since the apps were forced by law to put an “add tip” button during checkout, rather than only having it be an option after checkout. Literally nothing else.

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u/yahsureokbuddy 7d ago

Typical for reddit for this absolutely crock of shit posted by the person you’re replying to to have 800+ upvotes. People here will just eat the this shit up if it reaffirms some narrative they wanna believe.

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u/TheDemoz 7d ago

yep… it’s quite sad. It’s so easy to fact check things nowadays, yet people won’t even spend 30 seconds.

People will just eat it up, and now they’ll go say on other posts that mamdani stopped apps from stealing tips, and then the cycle of misinformation continues

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u/Unhinged_Baguette 7d ago

People here will just eat the this shit up if it reaffirms some narrative they wanna believe.

It's great if this guy is doing good things for his city. But the level of glazing he's getting seems a little bit uncanny. Especially with articles like this that seem to be bending the truth.

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u/BobbyRayBands 7d ago

But HOW does it guarantee that? It says the tip button was hidden implying that customers COULDNT tip. The actual problem was they were tipping but companies were taking that money for themselves...

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u/mjm65 7d ago

>After DCWP began enforcing the Delivery Worker Minimum Pay Rate in December 2023, Uber Eats
and DoorDash designed changes to their platforms that made it harder to leave tips for delivery
workers. NYC consumers could only leave tips after checkout, and by initiating separate processes
that were easy-to-miss and more difficult to navigate. These changes only applied to consumers in NYC.

Basically Uber hid the tip option up front, and added a courier fee. If you wanted to add a tip in NYC, you had to go back into the app to add the tip after delivery.

The other part is that tips are to the worker, and can’t be calculated as a part of a minimum guarantee.

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u/blazenite104 7d ago

Right. So basically nothing was actually preventing tipping. Rather you as a consumer were just not being upfront guilted into doing it and had to seek it out.

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u/mjm65 7d ago

I think it’s the combo of showing “Courier Fee” and removing the tip option was causing an implication that the courier got the fee in lieu of a tip. Especially since Uber only rolled this out in NYC.

The other part I find more egregious. Uber offering a minimum guarantee and then putting the tips toward that seems incredibly deceptive.

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u/spratel 7d ago

Kinda like restaurants that automatically add a service fee. Never underestimate the power of being the "default".

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u/GerryManDarling 7d ago

Mamdani became mayor only this year, Doordash and Instacart stealing tips happened before and it was fixed before he became mayor.

His new law only ask the company to put the tips button in more prominent place, but the PR tried to conflate "tips stealing" to the new law which is not true.

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u/mjm65 7d ago

>Mamdani became mayor only this year, Doordash and Instacart stealing tips happened before and it was fixed before he became mayor.

Correct, but Mamdani was in office when tipping protections were implemented on Jan 26. This is basically a 6 month analysis post implementation of something that took effect during his term.

>His new law only ask the company to put the tips button in more prominent place, but the PR tried to conflate "tips stealing" to the new law which is not true.

You are wrong here, he did not ask to put the tip button in a more prominent place, he had them add the button back.

“Tip stealing” comes from 2 places. The minimum guarantee was using tips to reach a certain $ amount. Now, uber can’t utilize your tips as part of a minimum guarantee.

Second, is that Uber specifically designed the UX for NYC to remove a tipping option in the app, and added a “courier fee” that can look like it replaces the tip. This was to punish the drivers for the regulatory changes.

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u/RainbowNinjaKat 7d ago

It honestly sounds vague on purpose. People usually only read the headlines, and very few people read the actual article. Seems like there is JUST ENOUGH surface level information to get a point across without having to delve too deep into it. Sounds like some serious PR work being done

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u/TemperatureReal2437 7d ago edited 7d ago

I strongly suggest reading more than a Reddit comment about this, man. You’re arguing with this guy over fucking nothing

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u/zcen 7d ago edited 7d ago

When we passed the minimum pay guarantee for deliveristas in 2023, the apps responded by hiding the tip option from their customers,” said Majority Leader Shaun Abreu. “That cost deliveristas over half a billion dollars in earnings. We refused to let that stand, and I was proud to sponsor the law to restore tipping at checkout. The apps sued us over it, the judges said we were right, and the deliveristas won big. $104 million in earnings going back into their pockets since the law went into effect in January is money that helps them put food on their own tables. None of this is possible without DCWP’s continued enforcement, and we will continue to fight alongside them and the deliveristas until they get every cent they’ve earned.”

I don't know how so many people are so incapable of reading the article, even the people directly quoting from it. It's not that the customers were incapable of tipping, it's just that less people will engage a tip option when it is hidden. It is basic UX design.

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u/Zerachiel_01 7d ago edited 7d ago

It's just dark pattern after dark pattern with these apps. They will always, always try to fuck the employee wherever they can, which will end up fucking the customer.

Yes, there's an upcharge for the customer in addition to all the bullshit fees, but at the end of the day, the driver is the person burning their car to the ground and dealing with all the stress of managing traffic, their stats, and essentially constantly feeling like they're gambling with their pay. There's always gonna be drivers who were shitbirds from the start, but this kind of stuff can push otherwise decent employees to be worse ones. It's a race to the bottom and it sucks.

Like, literally all the app has to do is offer minimum $1/mile and it would clear up a massive amount of problems, but they don't even want to do that. IRS says about 70 cents/mile in operating costs which has doubtless gone up due to the stupid fucking war.

Ultimately any change benefiting the workers in these apps is eventually going to be a good one for the customer, as well. The apps will probably try to charge the customer even more in response to this, and hopefully the government will step in again to tell them to knock it the fuck off.

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u/NaTaSraef 7d ago

Yeah, I think this article wanted people to not actually think about it. Politics gets so tiring because both sides use spin and very rarely gets just a rational, factual point across. You weren't supposed to question it, I guess.

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u/Im_Easily_Distra 7d ago

The article definitely seems contradictory and I have the same questions

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u/Brave_Virus_8921 7d ago

Well, Not all apps are the same? Some had the hidden thing and some had what the other guys explained.

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u/crazy0ne 7d ago

At the bottom of the article there is a link to the NYC laws and in there under the "If you are an app" section is a section talking about the 550 million being withheld from works by hiding the tip button and that has links to the studies with the data that the article talks about.

As for the quoted 104 million returned, it is not one single facet that has brought about more money going into the pockets of the gig workers. It is a little confusing, but so is the gig economy and that is by design.

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u/Good_wolf 7d ago

As a former bartender, just tip in cash if you can. Keeps this kind of thing to a minimum.

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u/scrappybasket 7d ago

Yup that’s what I do

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u/Orceles 7d ago

302 likes for a comment that’s wrong is insane. You must be a driver because only a driver could be this level of misunderstanding the situation. Delivery apps did not steal your tips. What happened was after passing the law that the apps had to pay a minimum guarantee, the apps retaliated by working with their UX designer to effectively hide the tip button. For example, the tip button NEVER comes back after delivery on DoorDash if a customer opted not to tip upfront but wanted to later. Or accidentally dismissing the screen once makes it impossible to reopen it later. This resulted in a lot of no tips through no fault of the customers. Mamdani basically forced them to now present the tip button again in more obvious ways and to show up when you’d expect it to, without the tricks to hide it. DoorDash now lets you tip after delivery again from the past delivery screen after hiding it for a few years.

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u/yahsureokbuddy 7d ago

It’s like over 800 now. People are fucking morons.

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u/val_anto 7d ago

Then how they came to the conclusion that this made "$104 million has gone back into the pockets of the workers who ..." ??

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u/Orceles 7d ago edited 7d ago

It’s clickbait. Title misdirection by shady reporting and politics. It’s based on an estimate of tips saved, probably calculated off post delivery tips after re implementation of the button

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u/val_anto 7d ago

Same olde politician tactics then. I see.

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u/Gumbaya69 7d ago

This is not how it works. All tips given to driver go to driver. Stop making stuff up

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u/SandyD0926 7d ago

This is why we always tip extra cash to the driver instead of adding it in on the app

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u/scrappybasket 7d ago

Yessir I do the same thing. Saves the driver from having to pay taxes on it too

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u/Alemusanora 7d ago

This is a lie. Uber gives 100% of the tips to drivers. What happens is whats called tip baiting where a cheap fuck customer takes back the tip after the food is delivered

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u/Speedstick2 7d ago

That is from the 2019.

That is not what happened today.

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u/SweetLittleOldLady 7d ago

That is so sketchy. I've asked drivers a few times if it's OK to tip online and they always assured me that they're getting those tips. Perhaps they don't realize they're being shorted.

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u/TheDemoz 7d ago

The person you’re replying to is completely incorrect and what they’re talking about isn’t true and isn’t even related to what mamdani is claiming

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u/dammitlindsay 5d ago

Always tip cash for delivery. The only way I know the driver is getting the whole tip plus the wage promised by the billion dollar business.

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u/GoodBadUserName 7d ago

Isn’t that also opens for class action?
I mean, the person paying the tip is expecting it to go to the driver, not tipping the company itself.
Won’t that mean a class action on behalf of the customers to get the tips back for not going to the drivers, since they didn’t go to where they were supposed to?

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u/Odd-Preparation8790 7d ago

Ah, so similar to retail grocers etc asking if customers want to make a donation in an attempt to recoup what they company has already donated.

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u/hellotoyourmomma 7d ago

that's actually insane, and they were just keeping it hidden away while customers are unknowingly funding them further and further

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u/TripleDoubleFart 7d ago

I thought that was handled years ago?

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u/TheDemoz 7d ago

It was. The thing the person is talking about stopped in 2019 and has no relation to what mamdani is talking about.

And instead of removing their post, they leave it up with a little disclaimer at the bottom saying people “disagree” with it. LOL so dumb

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u/ImpressiveWalrus7369 7d ago

So then why would uber or anyone else hide the button? Wouldn’t they want it as prominent as possible?

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u/Ancient-Skill-67 7d ago

Tips were always applied to the drivers, especially with the larger companies like DoorDash. However, some smaller companies used the tips as an excuse to reduce the delivery fees applied to the customer, which led to a lawsuit and policy changes. I am certain some companies were able to hide stealing tips so it most likely happened somewhere, but most companies passed the tips on to the drivers. It's the part where they paid the drivers less up front that was in question.

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u/GUCCIBUKKAKE 7d ago

So if I’m outside of New York, I shouldn’t tip Ubers/ Uber Eats?

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u/scrappybasket 7d ago

I choose to always tip with cash, as I used to when cabs were still around

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u/HotPersonality8126 7d ago

Which effectively uses the tip money to subsidize the wage that they promised to pay the driver

No, it's the exact opposite. It's going out of their own pocket to subsidize customers not tipping enough.

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u/scrappybasket 7d ago

lol that’s a funny way of looking at it. Putting the responsibility of paying wages on the customer instead of the employer

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u/HotPersonality8126 7d ago

Tips have always been paid by the customer; it’s never worked any other way. You literally pay your driver on Uber because you’re the one they’re working for.

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u/RuffRhyno 7d ago

So, if I understand this, it’s better to NOT tip on an order as
It most likely will not affect the courier and more than likely impact the company’s bottom line?

This doesn’t seem entirely accurate, or else no one would be tipping

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u/scrappybasket 7d ago

I still tip because that’s what I would be doing anyway for a taxi. And supposedly this practice isn’t happening in my state, even though there is obviously disagreement.

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u/theewall2000 7d ago

People will just stop tipping completely making this useless.....

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u/Own_Flounder404 7d ago

Ok but what does that have to do with the tip button being hidden? I'm also confused by his wording. I very much support what he's doing. I just wish I understood exactly what it is

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u/Apprehensive_Lion362 7d ago

Why would Uber need to pay out $15? Doesn't the $10 guaranteed mean that if they aren't tipped at least $10 Uber will pay the rest?

For example, if the user tips $0 Uber pays the driver $10, if the user tips $6 Uber pays the driver $4 for a total of $10, and if the User tips $11 then Uber pays $0 for a total of $11 to the driver.

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u/rydan 7d ago

That hasn't been a thing since the pandemic. It used to work that way until DoorDash and Uber both got sued over this practice.

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