Interestingly, I found tipping less will get you way better service and quicker food. I did some experiments after I found food always comes quicker when my wife orders - turns out she doesn’t overtip like I do. I tried a bunch more times and found this to be true, at least with Uber Eats.
What I’m guessing happens is that if you tip high, less scrupulous but tech savvy drivers will snag the delivery. These folks have multiple accounts and work for multiple services at once, so your order is way down on their list. It frequently comes with location spoofing, where the driver is supposedly waiting at the restaurant for nearly an hour, and once they’re actually on their way, they’ll teleport miles away (having unlocked their location).
When I tip less, I don’t see this behavior. It’s probably folks not gaming the system that will take whatever delivery pops up.
It's bonkers to me that the drivers can see the tip before they accept the delivery. Hell, weird that they can see it before the delivery is completed, even.
Tips are supposed to be for good service! I know they've been perverted into more than that by a combination of unscrupulous business owners and the US's broken tax code, but... c'mon. These services shouldn't even ask for a tip until the delivery is complete, let alone show the amount to the driver before they accept the job.
(I'm fine with them asking for the tip as a part of the initial checkout, though, since I imagine many people won't remember to revisit the app post-delivery within the tipping window, even if they did want to leave a tip, and that alone would unfairly take money out of drivers' pockets. But the tip should be adjustable for some amount of time after the delivery completes, and the driver shouldn't see it until that time expires. Amazon's grocery delivery has this right.)
If drivers can see the tip before accepting the job, then it's not a tip: it's a competitive bid that the customer makes for delivery drivers... though if your theory is correct, it's already gamed into uselessness.
Uber Eats drivers aren't shown any of the tip beforehand, in fact they will never know whether or not yoy tipped until one hour after delivery has been completed.
Doordash on the other hand will hide any tips over $4 and have also gone back to stealing them.
I used to drive for both and had to stop when UE no one was tipping meaning jobs paid only $2.50-3.50 for the whole job, meaning with Cali gas prices even before the pandemic you were losing money on 90% of jobs.
Went to DD only for a while after that until I caught them lying and underpaying on mileage and keeping tips again.
So, to reiterate, UE doesn't show drivers your tip until one hour after drop off. DD hides all tips over $4 until after drop off,but will keep tips over $4 probably 80% of the time.
I had to start texting customers at drop off to let them know what the job had paid and what the tip was and to please let me know if there were any discrepancies.
It got to the point where more often than not DD was keeping part or all of the tip over $4. Ie customer tipped 10, I received 5. Wal-Mart is known to keep 100% of tips through DD, as well as Mountain Mike's Pizza and a few others.
The subreddits will show customers things from the driver's point of view.
What I’m guessing happens is that if you tip high, less scrupulous but tech savvy drivers will snag the delivery. These folks have multiple accounts and work for multiple services at once, so your order is way down on their list. It frequently comes with location spoofing, where the driver is supposedly waiting at the restaurant for nearly an hour, and once they’re actually on their way, they’ll teleport miles away (having unlocked their location).
When I tip less, I don’t see this behavior. It’s probably folks not gaming the system that will take whatever delivery pops up.