I mean, I can tell you from experience as a cab driver that the customers with shitty attitudes will pass their baggage on to the driver in whatever form it takes. It may be complaining about the fare, it may be failing to tip, it may be trying to weasel their way out of paying some of the fare, or it may be doing their best to make up the difference in emotional labor.

There are some people who won’t tip me or will tip me poorly, but will also spend the entire ride making me assuage their guilt about not tipping enough. People with that particular outlook will try to recruit me to feel bad for them when they’re putting me out in some way, and will even try to recruit me to feel bad for them about them doing things that literally don’t bother me at all. Like literally just driving around or making a stop.

The folks who don’t tip aren’t going to magically become more cooperative and less dickish if the price is included. Some of them won’t take a cab, some of them will take a cab and threaten to take an uber, literally anything to reclaim the power they lose from shorting me.

I’d love it if I got a bigger percentage of my fares or a bigger guaranteed minimum, but the reality is that our market can’t really support yet another price increase at the moment. You might say ‘well that means your business model isn’t profitable and shouldn’t exist’, but we’re literally a vital service in the area. We have deals with hospitals and senior centers and stuff. If we didn’t exist, people would be regularly stranded. In some cases us being able to go help someone is literally the reason their lives don’t fall apart. My boss has driven four states away to bring a regular home in the middle of a blizzard. Our existence is justified by more than profit.

People need cabs, they’re literally essential. But not everyone wants to pay the cost of them. Tipping means I can still give a ride to people who can’t or won’t tip, while also getting a more reasonable wage from people who do. There are some folks whose regular tips literally keep me afloat.

Hell, when I was younger I waited tables at a local diner for four hours on sundays and I’d walk out of there with $200 in tips easy every time. There’s no way that would have been a decent job without tipping.

Tipping for everything is kind of stupid, but tipping culture in general can work really well if people actually participate. Especially in places that need services that they can’t always fully support.