Now more than ever it is against your best interests to tip on any automated platform. The data collected will definitely be used against you in algorithmic pricing.
These days it pays to aggressively demonstrate that you are price sensitive and will delay or cancel transactions at the slightest whiff of additional expense.
I only ever tip off-platform or cash even if I pay with card. Also that helps to enable my gift to go only to the service provider. It fucks me on some platforms but I find that an acceptable cost to not get algorithmically spitroasted. Besides, it also helps to eliminate predatory platforms from my ecosystem.
Can an industry insider confirm this tracking? Interesting take, thank you. I hadn’t considered the privacy implications of tipping.
I’m no industry insider, but tipping would seem to me to be a key indicator for discretionary spending, so a very valuable data point. I have no doubt that a dataset of 1m clients and their tipping patterns would be worth >500k per client (dataset user). A list of consistent, large or skimpy tippers significantly more. (Skimpy so as to know to target them with “deals”, big tippers for the upsell and value added advertising.
E.g. Uber / UberEats offer lower fairs to drivers if the client is expected to tip higher. I'm not an insider, but it can be observed in the wild as discussed on Reddit.