Didn't know that; thank you for pointing it out. If you have to have tips, that’s a good way to handle it.

Nonetheless I prefer doing away with tips for other reasons:

* It’s just one more thing I have to decide, and I’m tired of doing it. I don’t even do a good job. I often tip people based on completely irrelevant things.

* Tips don’t lead to better/friendlier service. Taxi drivers regularly get well over 20% tips but I’ve had very few good experiences in a taxi. Rather, they just expect a tip and get quite made if you leave a small one.

* Tipping is gamed by service workers who learn what to do to get bigger tips and then focus on those things. Other aspects of service are often neglected.

* In Japan service is far superior to America in all the ways I care about, but tipping is virtually nonexistent. Having spent time there, I just can’t get behind tipping.

I think Gett (a Black Cab app I use in London) improves upon tipping somewhat as well - your choices are 0%, 5%, 10%, or 12%. That's it. No giving a 20% tip (or a 100% tip because you were drunk-typing or whatever).

I've always just set it to the maximum tip amount, because I figured (a) It's not that much, and (b) it would result in me getting better ratings, though after what GP said, maybe they have no idea how much I tipped :-/