“We just shifted how the money came in,” Neitzel said.

We know you greedy trashbags. Tipping isn’t necessary and a detriment to the experience.

Yet another thing that has been eye opening about living in Europe is how fucked and terrible tipping is in the states. Twenty percent AS A MINIMUM? When I’m picking up food at the counter??? AYFKM?

The problem with tipping culture is that it works.

I read an article the other day about airlines moving toward cheaper air fares, but charging more and more fees for basic things that should be part of the air fare. That trend is accelerating because customers reward it, period.

People only look at the base price of things, and shop around the best base price. Mentally, humans are mostly awful at factoring in extras and comparing one place’s apples to another place’s oranges. The company with the lower base price wins, and shifting prices over toward fees and extras doesn’t seem to hurt them as much as just including those costs in the base price does.

Same story with tipping. If a Moe’s burrito costs $10 but you’re asked to leave a $2 tip, while a Joe’s burrito simply costs $12, then I’m pretty sure the average consumer is only going to look at that $10 vs. $12 comparison and favor Moe’s. It’s dumb. It’s awful. We all say on social media and chat forums that we don’t think that way. But most of us kinda sorta DO, unfortunately.

The result is that generous people end up accommodating the increased tip culture, while less generous people just stop tipping altogether. So instead of employer paying their workers fairly, and spreading the costs among their customers fairly… we get an awful system where the employers still make the same profit, but the workers and customers are negatively impacted. For the employees, the dignity of honest work erodes, as they shift toward being part worker and part panhandler. For the customers, generosity is punished and a selfish mindset is rewarded. It’s an extremely toxic cultural trend, all around.

I don’t know what the solutions are. I fear that there really IS no solution other than changes to law and regulation, but our culture is too fragmented and government too broken for that.

It’s absolute BS that the “tipped” minimum wage is lower than for everyone else. Tipping is supposed to reward you for excellent service, not subsidize the fucking company

I’m fine with tipping in the places where it’s already expected. Wait staff and delivery and such. There those people live on the tips being given. Yeah the system is shit and we should pay them appropriately from the start, but refusing to tip doesn’t fight the system; it just stiffs a worker.

I don’t like it when a bakery or ice cream stand sale terminal prompts me to leave a tip. It makes me feel awkward for hitting no, even though not tipping for ice cream has been and still is standard.