Drivers have no way of knowing if someone will tip/review before they are prompted for a rating. Drivers rate riders immediately after the ride finishes.

> Whether a cash tip or given through an app, 85 percent of drivers agreed that not tipping was a factor in passengers’ ratings.

https://driving-tests.org/confessions-of-an-uber-driver/

> Uber drivers have long been known to give passengers low ratings if they suspect a passenger is going to give them a low rating.

https://www.ridester.com/uber-passengers-ratings-sting/

So, yes, they don't base it off the actual review (that may be a service other than Uber that I'm recalling), but they'll often base your review off the review they expect you to give them.

Seems legit. /s

Successful, long-time drivers do not waste there time with this pettiness. Nor do they waste time talking to reporters about insignificant issues like this when that time could be better spent actually making money. I've been driving on and off for 5 years now and all us veterans on the Facebook groups laugh at how silly all the constant nitpicking is.

As with any rating system, there will be outlying bad raters. That's why it is normal for absolutely no one to have a perfect 5 star. It's really not a bid deal.

You’re creating a bit of a “No true Scotsman” fallacy. “No ‘veteran’ driver would rate someone based on tips or their expected rating.”

Yet people are being rated on their tips. People are being rated based on their expected ratings of the driver, regardless of their “success” as a driver.

It’s a big deal because it locks someone out of a system that has forced out its competition (illegally in some cases; such as in London).

But the drivers (and some customers) are who wanted the tipping system.