I Lyft drive on weekends for extra money. I am friendly but can read immediately if a rider is a talker or wants to chat and let them dictate the ride. I am sure there are some that pander for tips, but that's not specific to this industry in any way. If you don't know what you're getting into as a driver in terms of putting tons of mileage on your car, tire changes more regularly, etc then that's your fault.
I do, however, feel that drivers for both Lyft and Uber are getting royally ****** by the companies. I only drive for Lyft so can't say what it's like for Uber. But when I started driving, when there was a high need for a driver (after a sporting event, concert, bar close, bad weather), we as drivers would see surge pricing. Any rider we picked up could be anywhere from 50% to 600% more. That means a ride that typically netted me $10 could be $50 or more. Weekends you could make bank...I could make $500 in a few hours due to surge pricing.
Then they went public and they are somehow not profitable and they got rid of surge pricing. But only for the drivers. Riders still show they could be paying an arm and a leg...but we as drivers don't see that. We get the bare minimum. So Lyft is reaping all the price increase while the driver sees ****. Now I could drive 5 hours on a Friday night and maybe make $100. Maybe.
It's a massive % decrease for drivers. And if you relied on that surge pricing you're in a world of hurt. That's basically what the Uber/Lyft strike was about last week.
Lyft does have a new 'personal hot spots' and random areas where you can pick up a couple extra bucks a ride. But since that was implemented a couple of months ago I have yet to see any of those.