I generally give 5 stars because giving a low rating (a) could cost me, by leading the driver to retaliate with a low rating for me, and (b) has negligible benefit to me.
Note that I only use Uber when traveling on business to large cities. So my policy described above always impacts me, but has never impacted any particular Uber driver more than once.
> I generally give 5 stars because giving a low rating (a) could cost me, by leading the driver to retaliate with a low rating for me, and (b) has negligible benefit to me.
Someone said elsewhere in this thread that the driver only sees your rating after they've rated you. Although I'm not sure if it's possible for them to go back and change their rating of you if they see you've rated them poorly.
The problem is that the rating is a bargaining chip and there is no way around that issue.
The rating is currency and is being treated as such.
In all honesty, there should be a "Flag bad ride" and nothing else. No positive ratings. If it was a good ride, you just do nothing. Your rating should be a rolling average of the number of flags you've gotten compared to the population with the more recent flags being weighted more.
That way if you're not flagged as often as most people, it won't matter. Your rating will take a temporary dip. If you're flagged more often than average, it means something.
And flagging a bad ride should be a fairly involved process to prevent people from just using it on a whim. In order to flag a ride, you should have to expend some effort for it.
Note that I only use Uber when traveling on business to large cities. So my policy described above always impacts me, but has never impacted any particular Uber driver more than once.