Originally Posted by
sedubby
My personal take again...tipping creates friction from a UX perspective - any dip in rider conversion due to adding one more step can slow growth. Even if that delta is small it can translate to $$$$ at Uber's scale.
When you say "rider conversion" I am assuming that this is a metric in where Uber measures the rate in which people come to Uber from other platforms? Or maybe perhaps even people who normally use taxis but are new to ridesharing?
Does this metric only measure new users? Or does it also measure retention? It's hard for them to retain riders when some drivers are pandering for tips at every available moment or maliciously giving riders bad ratings when they don't know whether they should tip.
Originally Posted by
sedubby
Also think about the fact Uber is in many countries. Tipping is not a universal custom. If Uber built it it would probably have to be a regional feature. How do you decide which regions should get it and which don't? Do you just end up pissing off more people if you offer it in one place and not another? It's tricky.
I don't think that's the case. Uber already has region specific features. UberBLACK isn't available everywhere, and neither is UberTAXI. The app uses the user's region to determine which services are available to offer. They can easily use this same data and mechanism to determine whether the tip screen pops up.