&gt; <i>If cab drivers expect a tip regardless of service quality, then the tip might as well be added to the cab rate.</i><p>Yeah, it should be, shouldn&#x27;t it? But it isn&#x27;t. The system is fucked, of course, but it&#x27;s fucked in a very deliberate way where &quot;protesting&quot; by not tipping hurts the cabbie significantly, and the people responsible for the system not at all.