4 ms·

Menu: $5 burger Customer 1 (richy rich): $5 + $2 tip Customer 2 (workin man): $5 + $1 tip Customer 3 (poor man): $5 no tip Total: $18 Menu: $6 burger Cust

Menu: $5 burger Customer 1 (richy rich): $5 + $2 tip Customer 2 (workin man): $5 + $1 tip Customer 3 (poor man): $5 no tip Total: $18 Menu: $6 burger Customer 1 (richy rich): $6 + $1 tip Total: $7 You've reduced your customer based on true affordability and perceived affordability. This doesn't consider the margin on selling a single burger but generally you need to push product rather than sell master pieces.

AlexandrB 5y ago
Based on many of the other comments here it would look more like: Customer 1 (richy rich): $5 + no tip Customer 2 (workin man): $5 + $2 tip Customer 3 (poor man): $5 + $1 tip The tip amount seems to depend more on empathy/demographics than the amount of money one has to spend.
pjmorris 5y ago
Seems like you'd still have two customers (The burger is still in 'workin man''s budget), at 2/3 the food cost.
- peteradio 5y ago
  You are right, but I removed him to make the point that this is partly based on perception of the person doing the buying. Workin man this week is poor man next week and then some weeks he's richy rich. Do you want to capture all forms of this guy? None of this is rigorous of course but ya know we don't have a town full of 1 guy with a single budget. We have a town full of people with various and changing budgets, what kind of mechanism can be put into place to keep base finances workable in tight times while extracting more in good times?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    > what kind of mechanism can be put into place to keep base finances workable in tight times while extracting more in good times? Surely there must be a way because every other business seems to manage, and so do restaurants in 50%+ of the world.
bena 5y ago
Your contrived hypothetical scenario is not proof of your conjecture. Because there are plenty of places that don't work with tips that do fine. Hell, some of our least expensive options operate in a tip-free environment. And no restaurant where tipping is expected is selling for the same price as fast food places in the first place. So it's not the scenario where you're looking at two options that seem equally priced, but one has the hidden tip tax on it. No, you're looking at two options where one is just more expensive and you have to tip. And why are restaurants special in this regard? Why does no other sector have to operate on this model, where a customer has to directly pay a businesses employees? And why only in the U.S.? How did the rest of the world figure this one out but we can't seem to shake it? Tipping is stupid and is anti-ethical to actual customer service as it pits staff against the customer and creates resentment in both directions.
- peteradio 5y ago
  If you look into the financializations of any Restaurant you won't necessarily be able to generalize to all Restaurants. McDonald's empire is built on real estate not burgers anymore for instance. Anyway I was speaking specifically on my own regions circumstances, we don't have fastfood within a 1hr round-trip. That 1hr adds up to a few bucks gas and time I don't have. There is no 2 options.
  - bena 5y ago
    Extrapolating from singular circumstances is worse than generalizing from the most common.

AlexandrB 5y ago

Based on many of the other comments here it would look more like: Customer 1 (richy rich): $5 + no tip Customer 2 (workin man): $5 + $2 tip Customer 3 (poor man): $5 + $1 tip The tip amount seems to depend more on empathy/demographics than the amount of money one has to spend.

pjmorris 5y ago

Seems like you'd still have two customers (The burger is still in 'workin man''s budget), at 2/3 the food cost.

peteradio 5y ago
You are right, but I removed him to make the point that this is partly based on perception of the person doing the buying. Workin man this week is poor man next week and then some weeks he's richy rich. Do you want to capture all forms of this guy? None of this is rigorous of course but ya know we don't have a town full of 1 guy with a single budget. We have a town full of people with various and changing budgets, what kind of mechanism can be put into place to keep base finances workable in tight times while extracting more in good times?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > what kind of mechanism can be put into place to keep base finances workable in tight times while extracting more in good times? Surely there must be a way because every other business seems to manage, and so do restaurants in 50%+ of the world.

bena 5y ago

Your contrived hypothetical scenario is not proof of your conjecture. Because there are plenty of places that don't work with tips that do fine. Hell, some of our least expensive options operate in a tip-free environment. And no restaurant where tipping is expected is selling for the same price as fast food places in the first place. So it's not the scenario where you're looking at two options that seem equally priced, but one has the hidden tip tax on it. No, you're looking at two options where one is just more expensive and you have to tip. And why are restaurants special in this regard? Why does no other sector have to operate on this model, where a customer has to directly pay a businesses employees? And why only in the U.S.? How did the rest of the world figure this one out but we can't seem to shake it? Tipping is stupid and is anti-ethical to actual customer service as it pits staff against the customer and creates resentment in both directions.

peteradio 5y ago
If you look into the financializations of any Restaurant you won't necessarily be able to generalize to all Restaurants. McDonald's empire is built on real estate not burgers anymore for instance. Anyway I was speaking specifically on my own regions circumstances, we don't have fastfood within a 1hr round-trip. That 1hr adds up to a few bucks gas and time I don't have. There is no 2 options.
- bena 5y ago
  Extrapolating from singular circumstances is worse than generalizing from the most common.