If you hate tipping delivery people, drivers for Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash want you to consider these 4 main arguments why you should anyway

Some commenters in the Times article argued that delivery drivers shouldn't expect to be tipped at the same rate as restaurant staff.

"It's not as if the driver cooked the food," wrote Len from Pennsylvania. "He didn't provide table service. He just delivered the package."

While Avedian conceded that drivers might not be deserving of the 15 to 20% tip many wait staff receive — in part because there isn't the same level of face-to-face interaction — he said there's not as big a difference as some people might think. In fact, he considers drivers to be "waiters on wheels."

"At a restaurant, the waiter shows up, takes your order, right? What is that waiter doing? Is he or she cooking the food? No, that waiter actually is picking up the food and bringing it to you and their job is pretty much done. So what are we doing as a delivery driver, we're pretty much doing the same thing."

And driving, Avedian said, is a valuable service waitstaff don't provide.

"It's risky to drive, much riskier than walking the food from the kitchen to the table," he said, and he thinks the value of this service applies even more to Uber and Lyft rideshares.

"I have your life in my hand if I'm driving you," he said. "I could kill us both, basically, if I mess up."

In-app tipping wasn't an option for Uber riders until 2017. The company's former CEO Travis Kalanick was reportedly resistant to adding a tipping feature because he thought it would add friction to the in-app user experience and didn't want riders to feel guilty for not tipping.

Ultimately, Avedian said he thinks the tipping habits of today's Uber riders — and many gig work customers more broadly — can be traced back to the company's decisions several years ago, and by the time Uber rolled out tipping in 2017, it may have been too late.

"Consumers have been trained, basically, not to tip when it comes to ride-share," he said.

But according to Avedian, customers should recognize the value of gig workers' service and tip them anyway. Millions of Americans order food every year, but without drivers, it wouldn't be possible, he said.

"You can push a button. Your stuff is going to show up, but what happens in between?" he said. "Somebody has to bring the food to you until these robots take over, or drones, or whatever they're dreaming about. Without drivers there is no gig economy."

"When was the last time you were in a cab, you got out without a tip? he added. "So to me, rideshare drivers are getting stiffed on this deal."

Other commenters said that customers' tipping habits shouldn't be blamed for gig workers' financial struggles — it's the corporations that aren't paying them enough.

Avedian generally agrees with this. He said he's seen platforms take a larger share of the customer's total ride or delivery cost over the years, which has made drivers more and more reliant on tips.

On a recent weekday, for example, Ben, a full-time Dallas Uber driver, drove just over three hours for UberEats and made five deliveries, according to documents viewed by Insider. He earned roughly $20 in total — $12 from the base fare and over $8 in tips. 40% of his roughly $7 per hour earnings that day came from tips, and only three of the five customers tipped.

Avedian said that unfortunately, these conditions are unlikely to change to benefit drivers. That's because the supply of drivers is at an all-time high, which he attributes to people trying to do whatever they can to earn some extra cash and survive financially. And this massive supply, he said, is also making it easier for the companies to pay drivers less.

"They don't have to put out any incentives for the driver like it was in 2020 or 2021 to get drivers out there to do the work, because now the economy's hurting them and they're out there doing it anyway. So they go like, 'Hey. Either take it or leave it, two bucks for this trip.'"

While Marcelo, a 61-year-old Uber Eats and DoorDash driver based in Corpus Christi, Texas, understands the customer's perspective, he said that if the companies aren't going to foot the bill, the customers should ultimately have to.

"The problem here is, "Who's going to pay the driver's wage?" he said. "The apps aren't. "The client is the one who puts this chain into motion, so taking into consideration that the apps are looking another way, the client should pay. It is not fair, but somebody should pay for the driver's costs."

Marcello said it's important that customers tip because tips aren't just "supplements" to a driver's income: they account for a big portion of their income.

"If people think that tips are supplements, they can certainly conclude that they can eliminate them, but unfortunately, tips are not supplements," he said. For DoorDash, he estimated that two-thirds of his income comes from tips.

Said one Uber and Lyft driver who preferred to remain anonymous: "The impact of every ride giving 10% to 20% has so little economic impact for the rider yet many times the impact for the driver."

But while drivers may be very reliant on tips, Avedian acknowledged that it's getting harder for customers to find the same cash for tips that they used to. He said that ride-hailing companies have raised prices over the past few years to increase profitability and help drivers offset elevated gas prices, and that as a result, customers have become less willing to tip than they used to be.

The median passenger fare for a New York City Uber or Lyft rose 50% from February 2019 to April 2022, according to a UCLA Labor Center report released in February, which used data from 50 million trips. When reached for comment, Uber said that in April of 2022, government imposed fees accounted for over 18% of riders' payments, and that this was among the key factors driving rate increases in New York City.

"I feel like the consumer goes, 'Okay gosh, I just took a five-mile trip, cost me $25 on Uber or Lyft. I really don't have room to tip this poor guy,'" he told Insider. "In the old days, we used to get tipped more because the trips were so cheap and people would throw $5 or whatever."

"There's no room left for tipping," he added. "So, unfortunately the driver, is, this is not a joke, literally working for tips because base rates on DoorDash and UberEats are down to $2.50 per delivery."

Jack, a 22-year-old DoorDash and Uber Eats driver in Philadelphia, told Insider his average base payment is between $2.00 and $2.50, but it can be at least as high as $4.50, delivery records provided to Insider showed. Base payments generally vary based on the distance of a delivery.

The Times interviewed an Uber Eats driver who recalled delivering a $388 order of sushi and hoping for a tip between $50 and $70 — but only receiving $20, a roughly 5% tip.

Some readers said that the size of an order shouldn't have an impact on how much a customer tips.

Tom Boyer, a Philadelphia resident, said: "It's just one food delivery regardless of the value. $388 in sushi takes no more effort to deliver than two pizzas, for which the tip would be maybe $10. Why should sushi delivery drivers earn 10 times as much as pizza delivery?"

Avedian said he agrees with this argument.

Regardless of the size of the order, he said, "You still did the same thing. Pick it up at the restaurant, drop it off in front of the door and take a picture and get out of it. So the expectation on the driver end I think is too high that, oh yeah, this is a $400 order. I'm going to get 15%, 60 bucks, it's going to make my night."

Marcelo agreed.

"Tips should be established based on the delivery difficulty, not the size," he said. "Size could become difficult if you have to deliver to a 3rd or 4th-floor apartment without a lift, or where the parking is far from the apartment, but otherwise, size shouldn't be a problem."