Personally, as a consumer I like tipping. But only because it gives me a chance to pay a higher price than I normally would, and to preferentially support small

Personally, as a consumer I like tipping. But only because it gives me a chance to pay a higher price than I normally would, and to preferentially support small businesses that I like. I could do that by buying more stuff, but tipping is somewhat easier and more direct. However, overall I think I'd prefer to see the end of tipping culture in America. There are too many downsides to it to justify the upside (which is effectively a kind of market segmentation / consumer surplus capture). For one, a lot of places allow different minimum wages for tipped positions, which is a very bad practice in my opinion and defeats the purpose of tipping. For another, tipping makes harassment (especially sexual harassment) of waitstaff by patrons a lot harder to combat. It also skews the income distribution between the waitstaff and the back of house staff. All of these things are bad verging on extremely bad. And they could be substantially improved by eliminating tipping. So even though I'll miss being able to be generous with a tip when I feel like it, I think it's time for the practice to be put out to pasture.