> It seems to incentivize a mentality of "the customer is always right", with workers putting an extra effort to always smile and be nice in the hope for a fair

> It seems to incentivize a mentality of "the customer is always right", with workers putting an extra effort to always smile and be nice in the hope for a fair tip. That's exactly the point. It's meant to be an incentive to put in extra effort, and in my experience it works. Everywhere I've been that doesn't have restaurant tipping, for instance, has had notably worse service on average. Where it becomes a problem is that the tips are now treated as the expected wage, rather than something extra. Working entirely for something that is intended as an incentive is a bit perverse and demeaning. In the end, I think for this reason tipping ought to be done away with, but it does have its upsides.