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The question is: why not build the cost of those activities into the price of the food itself, instead of leaving it to customers to figure out?

• anigbrowl 8y ago
  Because the employer wants to display a low price to attract you into the store, labor protections in the US tend to be weak, and employers tend not to like transparency about their labor costs - it's an uninteresting distraction to most consumers and a free gift to the competition. There's a first mover disadvantage and if the relationship between employer and staff is adversarial then employees generally lack leverage in corporate-decision-making.
  • monktastic1 8y ago
    I'm confused. If the point of your commenting is that tipping is the best way to achieve the desired outcome (of employees being paid for unseen labor), then I would have expected your original comment to explain that, instead of just vaguely hinting that they do indeed deserve to be paid more. I didn't think anyone was disputing the latter. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding you.
    • anigbrowl 8y ago
      Tipping is the best way to achieve the desire outcome of hospitality workers being adequately paid until there's a plan to address the first-mover issue I raised. I also want a frictionless consumer experience but I recognize that there are competing incentives between corporate actors which obstruct optimization.