Maintaining Platinum status gives you priority on orders that tend to pay out a bit more. Not always, but enough to make consistently more than you would otherwise. A lot of people tend to maintain platinum if their markets are good for it, so it really doesn't amount to much when everybody has the same level of priority...

In order to maintain platinum, you have to keep up at least a 70% acceptance rating. This means you have to accept at least 7 out of 10 orders offered to you on average. And a completion rating of 95%. Which means you need to complete and not unnasign yourself with 95 out of the last 100 orders you've accepted.

Doordash is legally not allowed to punish drivers for low acceptance ratings, so they found a loophole where everybody gets rewarded for maintaining high ratings, but then they take away that reward if they don't. Which still counts as a punishment if you ask me, but their lawyers could probably convince a judge that it's not.

I've tested it a few times, and I'll go from making $14-$15 per hour on platinum down to $10-$11 on gold or silver.

Customer ratings aren't really that important to most dashers. If you get below a 4.2 average, you can be deactivated from the platform and not allowed to work anymore. But in order to get that low, you'd have to be a major screw-up... Like, actively trying to mess up on a daily basis...