Everybody likes buying fair trade coffee, chocolate and flowers when possible. Why not fair trade ride-sharing?

Wave hello to Gett:

Gett is an Israeli-based company with a ride-hailing app similar to Uber and Lyft that is currently available in Israel, Russia, the UK and NYC.

How does it differ from Uber/Lyft?

It gives drivers a fair percentage of the earnings from each ride.

Uber isn’t transparent with potential drivers about the percentage of each ride that they’ll actually take home, but here is the breakdown of what each company takes from drivers as a commission for each ride, for most markets:

Uber: 25%

Lyft: 20%

Gett: 10%

Income redistribution is a complicated topic, but this is a situation where I definitely don’t agree with companies taking home billions, while the drivers they depend on work hard for what often ends up being minimum wage.

When I first started driving for Uber, I didn’t find out until weeks in that I was making only 70% of each ride. Uber was testing out a scheme where they would take a 30% commission from new drivers.

I had a chance to try out the Gett app this week:

• Setting your pick-up location and destination is clunkier and slower than Uber and Lyft, but driver availability is not an issue in Manhattan.

• Like Lyft and unlike Uber, Gett allows you to tip your driver within the app. Here’s my post on why Uber is foolish for not allowing in-app tips.

• One of Gett’s big selling points is that they don’t ever have surge pricing. This may sound great, but it could also mean a ride won’t always be available. As an Uber/Lyft driver, I would often turn on my app and only drive if prices were surging in the area I was in. As frustrating as they are, surge prices get more drivers on the road. When it’s not surging, it can often mean drivers are earning minimum wage or less.
• Like most apps, Gett has a referral bonus for new users. I found a referral code online to get a $10 ride credit, then referred each of the three people I was traveling with. Each time they took their first ride, I would receive another $10 ride credit. The four of us ended up scoring about $70 in free rides from Gett, in addition to about $40 in credits from those of us who had yet to use Uber or Lyft. My code is GTYELUO if you’d like $10 in Gett credit (I’m not trying to sell you on this app, I promise…I won’t be in NYC again for a while to use any ride credit).

• A couple cool things about the free ride credit: Gett allows you to use your ride credit to tip your driver. Also, your ride credit isn’t only good for your first ride, as with Uber and Lyft. If your ride is only $5, you can use the rest of your credit to tip your driver $5, or use the rest of it toward a future ride.

• One thing to watch out for: Gett doesn’t include tolls in the ride quote. Uber does. If the quote for a Gett ride from Manhattan to Newark seems shockingly cheap, it’s probably because the $15 toll hasn’t been added on yet.

What are your thoughts? Is the potential for “fair trade” ride-sharing with Gett enough to make you try the app?