I've drawn a line in the sand. I'll tip (and tip well!) for traditionally tipped jobs, like waiter, bellhop, barber, barrista, bartender, etc. The hundred new things that corporations are begging for? Hell no. Absolutely not.

I will not tip at a drive-through oil change service.

I will not tip at a fast food counter.

I certainly will not tip at a convenience store.

Every single new tipping situation is a company begging me to subsidize their employees' wages instead of increasing them. Screw that. I'm not participating, and they can't make me. Those existing jobs were grandfathered in: waiters make below minimum wage on the expectation they'll make it up in tips, and that's f'ed up, but I can't change that by myself and I'm not going to stiff someone making sub-minimum to prove a point. All the others? Those cheapskate bosses can get bent. Pay more if you want to keep good help. Don't literally beg me to donate money to your employees as a charity.

I moved from US to Australia a couple years back, some notes on tipping.

- Not only is there no tipping here, things cost what they say they cost. Taxes are always added in. Worst case you pay 2% for a credit card fee. - There is basically no tipping. I see jars occasionally but it's not a thing. - Service is often not as good but fine. If you want a second drink, go up the bar, mate. - However you NEVER self-bus your table here. I've seen almost no restaurants with bussing stations, which were very common in Seattle.

The wages are higher, healthcare is covered, taxes are higher. When I went back to US earlier this year the tipping culture shocked me - POS 22 / 25 / 28% -- wth?

Agree there is no way to change this as an individual consumer. But I sure don't miss it.

Because Maria works so damn hard cleaning those hotel rooms, and if I take a stand on principle and don't leave her a tip when I check out, the only ones who will suffer for it are her and her kids. Should I instead write her a note about how we're helping society improve?

Last time I visited Miami Beach, I found out they have a forced 20% gratuity at restaurants. And still ask for a tip on top that. My friends and I were likely tipping >40% for subpar service and overpriced drinks for a few days until someone noticed it on their receipt.

Because the minimum wage under US law for a tipped job is $2.13/hour and most find it socially and morally problematic to deny that person their primary source of income.

To break the cycle, we need to force all employers to pay their employees a living wage.

Maybe where you’re at, people working a job can afford to live. Imagine if you lived in a society where a waitress relies on tips to pay for their children’s doctors appointments.

I've drastically reduced my tips. I'm done with this system in the USA where they are allowed to advertise price X, but you're expected to pay X+Y, where Y might be a fee or a % of X.

And the way the system is trying to sneak it in everywhere more and more makes me revolt even more.

Last time I was in a restaurant and I tried to pay with the QR code thing it suggested I paid 20% tip on top of the total + tax. Tip is supposed to go on the part before tax. Sneaking it in makes it so that the people working there think they get paid better, without the employers paying their fair share.

It should be on the employer to ensure that (s)he is properly remunerated for the work (s)he does, not the customer who has no insight in that contract.

When restaurant food was cheap, tipping wasn't a big deal, especially before the trend of paying for your food first at the counter. A $10 meal and a $2 tip for a waiter/waitress that took care of you - not really bad.

Today, that same meal is $35 - $40 and wages haven't kept up for most, so not only does the tip have to increase, but people are also just eating out less. Lately it seems restaurants are closing left and right. So I think restuarant tipping as a percentage of all tipping is probably really on the decline

What's sort of come up in its place over the past few decades is the payment system asking you for a tip before you even get your food. I think there is a backlash against that, as well as tipping in non-food places. I'm seeing more and more Instagram posts about it.

It’s a Lose for the employees of the current system. You’re cheekily superiorly saving a few bucks on a cause that isn’t going to be helped by snubbing a servicing worker.

There are a few tip free restaurants around, it’s sort of rare. Tipping at basically every random shop is out of control nowadays tho.

In the US, restaurants are comparatively cheaper than say Europe who then pay their employees more.

Americans would riot if restaurants raised the prices to offset the loss of tipping.

I'm American. I think the net effect for me is that I eat out less often since tipping frustrates me. I also leave five star reviews solely for places that don't ask for a tip at the counter when I do eat out.

To formalize what other comments are saying, the current state is a Nash (dis-)equilibrium: no consumer can gain more by changing their own strategy if we hold all other consumer's strategies fixed.

Basically if you individually don't tip you're just hurting someone who's underpaid by the tipping culture system. I agree if _everyone_ stopped tipping simultaneously the system would become untenable and have to change, but it would be pretty painful for the workers involved in the interim.

Perhaps the only individual in the game who does have a positive incentive is the business owner, where going tip-free can gain a good rep among customers and get more business if viewed as ethical and stably priced. I've seen this grow a bit more common in California restaurants but it's certainly still rare. Most business owners would rather just participate in the dis-equilibrium and coast off the shadow subsidy.

The comments are talking about two different things. There's traditional tipping, like at restaurants, barber, etc, where you supposedly tip for good service, and there's the newish POS (point of sale) tipping screens that are showing up everywhere and are a dark pattern for extracting extra money for doing nothing.

I think many Americans feel a moral obligation to tip when asked, and when presented with the opportunity it suddenly becomes a decision between spending a few bucks or wondering if you won't be welcome to come back next time.

It can be insulting to be considered "cheap" and that's the label you might gain if you stop tipping.

We've heard from waitstaff and restaurants for decades that this is part of their income.

I think the only way this changes is through regulation or a seismic shift in this mentality causing people to stop tipping, resulting in waitstaff retention issues, resulting in restaurant owners paying better.

I wish the "morality gun" would point back at those who ask to be tipped, the same way a beggar who asks if you have some spare some change is castigated (in most places)

They dont care about bombing schools, and babies in hospitals - what makes you think they care about others receiving poor work conditions.

Tip is for service. I rarely tip at a place that is counter service only. If I have to bus my own table, I'm not paying for that privilege

A slightly more sensible minimum wage of $18/hr in Ontario has made it comfortable for me to avoid the most ridiculous tipping like fast food workers at Starbucks or when I pick up my own pizza. But I’m still happy to tip servers, cleaners, mohels, hairdressers, or anyone who could make me look ridiculous, really.

I’m visiting Austin tx and was in a restaurant last night. On the menu it said party of 4 means automatic 20% tip added plus a 4% “administrative fee”. So 24% tip automatically added to the bill. Fortunately only had two people with me. They got zero from me.

You don't tip because you are stingy as long as the minimum wage has not increased to the point where these people could live of it. (Hint: they currently can't.)

Because then you’re just being a dick. It would have to happen some other way, like regulation, or enough establishments explicitly banning tips and then demonstrating increased profit as a result.

Won’t ever succeed one person at a time.

The only reasonable stand is to advocate for living wages but we’ll never do that in numbers strong enough for it to happen. Tipping has gotten out of hand but so has the cost of living.

It’s hard to stop because it means denying a dollar or two to a human in front of you who wants it and tried to earn it during your transaction. It’s not immoral, just less than ideal, so it’s endured.

We live in the real world so individual principles don't make as much of a difference to your community as leaving a decent tip.

Covid workers really made many Americans feel guilty about tipping more and it never reset.

> If you don't tip you both help society improve and you save money

How would it help society?

Personally I’d prefer to just have the gratuity automatically added to the bill because it gets rid of the awkwardness of compulsory charity.

But refusing to tip just hurts people at the bottom of the ladder and doesn’t do anything about the billionaires stealing from all of us.

Why is this on HN?

We may be reaching a tipping point.

I just hate corner stores and take out places expecting tips. I flat out refuse to do that. Please tip only for real service and sit down restaurants, thank you.

You do not ethically have the option of not tipping in an American restaurant. If it's table service and they don't specifically say not to tip, you either tip or don't dine there. Tipping is part of the compensation structure for the front of the house. Refusing to tip is ethically comparable to wage theft.

Tip, don't tip, do what you like. Not everything needs to be regulated by social standards. Feel like tipping? Do it. Don't? Then don't. Pretty simple.

It's a tradition, it's how the system works, why would you change that.

That said, I feel like sometimes this is pushed with those tablets with tipping options that present 20% 30% and 35%. Especially in situations where you self serve by going up to the clerk, as a non american it feels like I'm being scammed by a tourist trap, I might press 30% out of feeling that it's customary, but then an American might know the actual rules and either tip 15%, or not tip at all since it isn't customary to tip for self service.

it doesn't look good

Mainly because it makes you look like a tremendous douchebag and does immediate harm to real employees for an intangible cause that looks like grandstanding. I say this as a person who hates tipping but mechanically leaves 20%.

"It's going to ask you a question"

Because the economy is so busted that the least we can do is treat our servers a little better than their employers do.

> I've read lots of articles about how Americans hate their tipping culture.

You misunderstand.

There is tipping in restaurants, and then tipping in other places where it's much more traditional to not tip.

While some people don't like restaurant tipping, it's generally the other type of tipping the ruffles feathers. But in those cases, you don't have to tip.

> But tipping is optional

Again, you don't understand. No, tipping is not always optional. It's known and part of the bill in certain circumstances and this is known ahead of time.

> If you don't tip you both help society improve

I don't know, having been to European and American restaurants, I find the American restaurants to be far better at service. Couple that with free refills and other amenities (like again... actually good service), I wouldn't see it as better.

Tips in America are not gratuities. Tips in America are wages. If you do not understand or accept that tips are wages, then you will not cooperate with tipping culture here.

Our federal administration recently decreed no tax on overtime, no tax on tips. This is a judicious move; although it unfortunately enshrines tipping even more firmly, it gives relief to the rank-and-file worker.

Generally, employees raking in cash tips always faced a tax-time dilemma: record and report all my tips from my job, and be taxed on them? Or just let it all slide under the table. Surely, nearly everyone does it. So, "no tax on tips" simply encourages you to report them without being docked for it.

Tipping culture is business-friendly. It gives business the opportunity to hire more workers for more hours, and simply offload the wages onto the customers. End-stage capitalism's finest hour.

As I mentioned earlier, tips in advance for services like food delivery? Those are bribes, not tips. They're also wages, but they're also bribes. It's fairly disgusting. I hate tipping. But I hate stiffing workers, and I personally enjoy a reputation as someone who cares about tipping people for services provided.

That being said, I encounter rampant “tip cheating” in my everyday life. In my state, there are businesses authorized to solicit tips, and the rest are not authorized to do so. However, a common sight on the countertop is a clear glass jar with cutesy decorations on it. They are not allowed to write “TIPS” on this jar, so you will see many creative turns of phrase. But, they are illicitly soliciting tips from you in the silence.

Ethical employees of ethical companies generally are discouraged from allowing customers to slip cash into their pockets. They do not want to get this kind of custom started when they are not authorized to accept gratuities. But it seems perfectly normalized to silently and passively solicit gifts from fake tip jars. The ubiquitous “take/leave a penny” tray is exactly the same low-grade tip cheating in convenience stores. So beware of this practice. If it is incorporated into their P.O.S. flow, I would expect it’s legitimate.

Because it’s only marginally more expensive