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Given that even retail stores have added tipping prompts to their checkouts, I'd say yes. Plus many restaurants with placeholder tip icons that start at 25%+

Given that even retail stores have added tipping prompts to their checkouts, I'd say yes. Plus many restaurants with placeholder tip icons that start at 25%+ You also don't know what the tip is really going towards in many cases. In the classic restaurant/waitstaff case you can reasonably expect it to go to the workers, in the random knick knack or general goods stores ??? Tipping in general is a system to transfer wealth from the charitable to the uncharitable (high tippers pay more and subsidize the business, low tippers pay less). I believe in the spirit of tipping rewarding better service, but by and large it doesn't actually function that way. Most tip ~20% on everything outside of extreme circumstances. Much better for everything to be baked into the price of whatever good or service it is.

notch656c 4y ago
I noticed the expected tipping percentage go up after most customers started tipping in credit. Tipped workers had to up their game because they can no longer do tax evasion with everything on the record. Back in the days where most paid their restaurant with cash, tips were more like 15%. The move from 15 to more like 20 to 25% almost perfectly corresponds with the amount needed to make the same earnings after tax.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  Do workers usually get a say in what those tip levels should be? I can't imagine that being the case.
  - notch656c 4y ago
    I don't know all the mechanisms behind how it happened. I expect indirectly yes, as employees choose to work where they are paid highest (if possible) and employers putting the pre-calculated percentages on the receipt / point of sale that match those desires influence tips. You have to keep up with employee expectation to keep and retain employees and setting those expectation at the point of sale as a voluntary option is an easy win.
- giardia 4y ago
  I've always done 20% because it's easy to do in my head. Nowadays it's a low tip for those tip prompts and I punch it in manually if I tip at all. When I delivered food my tip spread was funny. Many people wouldn't tip at all, many would just let you keep the change or give you a token amount (~5-10%), and a few people would give you over 50% tips. Not many gave me 15-25%.
  - notch656c 4y ago
    Yeah I did food delivery and a sizeable amount didn't tip at all. It also created huge problems picking up food because many of the places people ordered from were full service restaurants, and the workers would purposefully go slow as fuck because they knew they would get no tip as most the food delivery companies don't provision for a tip to the restaraunt people preparing the food for the food delivery guy. A few times I had to take a loss on orders to tip the restaurant I was picking the food up from just to get them to release the food. The food delivery guy is basically seen like the UPS worker. All around I decided it was a fucked business model and quit pretty quickly.
    - ipaddr 4y ago
      Get a delivery job for the restaurant and none of this happens.
  - bscphil 4y ago
    > When I delivered food A "token amount" is pretty reasonable if you take tipping at face value, no? It's supposed to be a reward for good service. Waitstaff engage with you many times over the course of about an hour, and every person at a table receives service. It's fairly reasonable in this case to tip in proportion to the total bill. On the contrary, it's roughly the same amount of work for a delivery driver to deliver $100 of food as it is $10. Tipping the driver a few dollars (at most) seems not unreasonable in this case. The tip cannot possibly be reflective of any service rendered and it's essentially random what driver you will get, so you're not being biased or harming a particular person. This is, of course, wholly separate from whether the tipping system is a good idea on the whole.
- wrp 4y ago
  When I was a kid, Emily Post said always tip 10%. In college, the buzz around campus was that 15% was what the proletariat deserved. The past decade or so, I keep hearing you need to give 20% if you don't want to make enemies of the servers. Now, are you telling me it's become 25%?
- maerF0x0 4y ago
  I had this debate with a server once. She exclaimed ! You have to increase the tip, don't you know about inflation. I held my tongue about exponential functions, and just said "ok", I'll choose my battles... I guess that's why I'm an engineer and she's a server.
tptacek 4y ago
No, tipping is in general a system that shifts some of the employer's costs to customers explicitly, rather than hiding them in prices and wages. It's an idiosyncratic system, but not an irrational one: wages and prices are stickier than tip levels.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  Not explicit at all if it's optional though is it?
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I don't see what optionality has to do with anything.
    - barbazoo 4y ago
      > tipping is in general a system that shifts some of the employer's costs to customers explicitly it's not explicit because no one knows what the total cost is that's being shifted to the consumer and how much of that is recouped by tipping.
      - tptacek 4y ago
        Sure they do. It's 15-25% of the cost.
        barbazoo 4y ago
        Are you just referring to the default options? Am I the only one who always just goes for custom, 0%? Anyway that's not the cost, that's post everything so including tax.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Yes, thus higher tippers subsidize lower tippers by reducing the list price of goods. If tipping didn’t exist and were instead embedded in wages, the employer would just raise the list prices commensurately. There’s a fair argument to be made that restaurant wages would decline in aggregate without tipping though. Certainly there would be both winners and losers
ninethirty 4y ago
Not only that, but then they want to donate to some charity. Roundup for charity? (sometimes they don't even bother to tell you what charity it is) Roundup, Red-Nose day, etc. etc.
godelski 4y ago
Tipping at best is a form of bribery and at worst a feudal practice of wealth transfer. I tip because it is the social norm (and bribery: don't want my food messed with), but I think we can also acknowledge that this practice is weird and has a shaky history.
- delta_p_delta_x 4y ago
  > don't want my food messed with If someone has the mentality that they are free to spoil your food because they won't get a (good) tip, then they don't deserve to be paid at all, let alone be tipped well. There's a lot of things the US has that are extremely strange, and the tipping culture is amongst them.
  - djur 4y ago
    You don't bribe someone because you think they deserve a bribe. That's not a bribe, it's a gift.
    - deathanatos 4y ago
      And a tip isn't a bribe. Thinking tipping someone so they don't sabotage the job they are already being paid to do is, to use the article's words "getting out of hand". It is not unreasonable for me to expect that you complete the job you are paid to do, for the price we already agreed upon. Period. Tips used to be for good service, circumstances where you know that due to circumstance you're asking a little more of the staff. Many of the "pickup" order sites I have request a tip. There is literally no service, and I'm not even sure how the quality of the order will be, as I've literally not gotten it.
      - watwut 4y ago
        What op described in this thread "I tip because it is the social norm (and bribery: don't want my food messed with)" is an unambiguous bribe.
    - delta_p_delta_x 4y ago
jjav 4y ago
> Plus many restaurants with placeholder tip icons that start at 25%+ This is the most egregious part of it. Who ever invented that a percentage should inflate? The price is already inflating so a percentage of it goes up. You don't get to inflate both. Tipping was always 10% to 15% if particularly exceptional. Although even that should be made illegal, just include all costs of doing business in the price like nearly every shop does.
- mahkeiro 4y ago
  Inflating restaurant price + inflating tip + tax are on the trend to make US restaurants the most expensive restaurants on earth. A simple Caesar salad is now starting at 16$ and more likely 20$ in a lot of "not that fancy" places. When you add tax and 30% tip, it almost 28$. This is almost or even more expensive than in Switzerland where you waiter earn at least 26$ per hour, and tipping is not expected. Tipping are just here to profit business owner and not the workers (that’s why it’s almost inexistant in socialist country), and don’t get me started on the business adding "don’t forget to pay your staff" on your check.
freetime2 4y ago
> Given that even retail stores have added tipping prompts to their checkouts Really?! Which retail stores?
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Any store can enable tipping on the POS devices. Many stores that used to not traditionally operate off of tips have added the option. Big employers don’t do it as far as I know. Have seen it many times in convenience stores or small grocery
- ssttoo 4y ago
  Few weeks ago facing the tip selection screen at a liquor store here in LA, it clicked for me that this tipping thing has gone too far.
  - twelve40 4y ago
    haha you have to tip us for the privilege of fetching your six pack out of our fridge : )
- smileysteve 4y ago
  Likely not what the op meant, but food trucks and artist markets (square's bread and butter) A food truck operator is providing no additional service than a McDonald's ignoring the choice of where to drive or park. They provide takeout with no delivery. And then this started at food halls. Similarly, for farmers markets, artists, and crafts; these are traditionally retail items, these items often retail on their website or at a gallery (there is an edge case of auction houses), but now there is at least a vendor option of having a tip screen.

notch656c 4y ago

I noticed the expected tipping percentage go up after most customers started tipping in credit. Tipped workers had to up their game because they can no longer do tax evasion with everything on the record. Back in the days where most paid their restaurant with cash, tips were more like 15%. The move from 15 to more like 20 to 25% almost perfectly corresponds with the amount needed to make the same earnings after tax.

barbazoo 4y ago
Do workers usually get a say in what those tip levels should be? I can't imagine that being the case.
- notch656c 4y ago
  I don't know all the mechanisms behind how it happened. I expect indirectly yes, as employees choose to work where they are paid highest (if possible) and employers putting the pre-calculated percentages on the receipt / point of sale that match those desires influence tips. You have to keep up with employee expectation to keep and retain employees and setting those expectation at the point of sale as a voluntary option is an easy win.
giardia 4y ago
I've always done 20% because it's easy to do in my head. Nowadays it's a low tip for those tip prompts and I punch it in manually if I tip at all. When I delivered food my tip spread was funny. Many people wouldn't tip at all, many would just let you keep the change or give you a token amount (~5-10%), and a few people would give you over 50% tips. Not many gave me 15-25%.
- notch656c 4y ago
  Yeah I did food delivery and a sizeable amount didn't tip at all. It also created huge problems picking up food because many of the places people ordered from were full service restaurants, and the workers would purposefully go slow as fuck because they knew they would get no tip as most the food delivery companies don't provision for a tip to the restaraunt people preparing the food for the food delivery guy. A few times I had to take a loss on orders to tip the restaurant I was picking the food up from just to get them to release the food. The food delivery guy is basically seen like the UPS worker. All around I decided it was a fucked business model and quit pretty quickly.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    Get a delivery job for the restaurant and none of this happens.
- bscphil 4y ago
  > When I delivered food A "token amount" is pretty reasonable if you take tipping at face value, no? It's supposed to be a reward for good service. Waitstaff engage with you many times over the course of about an hour, and every person at a table receives service. It's fairly reasonable in this case to tip in proportion to the total bill. On the contrary, it's roughly the same amount of work for a delivery driver to deliver $100 of food as it is $10. Tipping the driver a few dollars (at most) seems not unreasonable in this case. The tip cannot possibly be reflective of any service rendered and it's essentially random what driver you will get, so you're not being biased or harming a particular person. This is, of course, wholly separate from whether the tipping system is a good idea on the whole.
wrp 4y ago
When I was a kid, Emily Post said always tip 10%. In college, the buzz around campus was that 15% was what the proletariat deserved. The past decade or so, I keep hearing you need to give 20% if you don't want to make enemies of the servers. Now, are you telling me it's become 25%?
maerF0x0 4y ago
I had this debate with a server once. She exclaimed ! You have to increase the tip, don't you know about inflation. I held my tongue about exponential functions, and just said "ok", I'll choose my battles... I guess that's why I'm an engineer and she's a server.

tptacek 4y ago

No, tipping is in general a system that shifts some of the employer's costs to customers explicitly, rather than hiding them in prices and wages. It's an idiosyncratic system, but not an irrational one: wages and prices are stickier than tip levels.

barbazoo 4y ago
Not explicit at all if it's optional though is it?
- tptacek 4y ago
  I don't see what optionality has to do with anything.
  - barbazoo 4y ago
    > tipping is in general a system that shifts some of the employer's costs to customers explicitly it's not explicit because no one knows what the total cost is that's being shifted to the consumer and how much of that is recouped by tipping.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      Sure they do. It's 15-25% of the cost.
      - barbazoo 4y ago
        Are you just referring to the default options? Am I the only one who always just goes for custom, 0%? Anyway that's not the cost, that's post everything so including tax.
adam_arthur 4y ago
Yes, thus higher tippers subsidize lower tippers by reducing the list price of goods. If tipping didn’t exist and were instead embedded in wages, the employer would just raise the list prices commensurately. There’s a fair argument to be made that restaurant wages would decline in aggregate without tipping though. Certainly there would be both winners and losers

ninethirty 4y ago

Not only that, but then they want to donate to some charity. Roundup for charity? (sometimes they don't even bother to tell you what charity it is) Roundup, Red-Nose day, etc. etc.

godelski 4y ago

Tipping at best is a form of bribery and at worst a feudal practice of wealth transfer. I tip because it is the social norm (and bribery: don't want my food messed with), but I think we can also acknowledge that this practice is weird and has a shaky history.

delta_p_delta_x 4y ago
> don't want my food messed with If someone has the mentality that they are free to spoil your food because they won't get a (good) tip, then they don't deserve to be paid at all, let alone be tipped well. There's a lot of things the US has that are extremely strange, and the tipping culture is amongst them.
- djur 4y ago
  You don't bribe someone because you think they deserve a bribe. That's not a bribe, it's a gift.
  - deathanatos 4y ago
    And a tip isn't a bribe. Thinking tipping someone so they don't sabotage the job they are already being paid to do is, to use the article's words "getting out of hand". It is not unreasonable for me to expect that you complete the job you are paid to do, for the price we already agreed upon. Period. Tips used to be for good service, circumstances where you know that due to circumstance you're asking a little more of the staff. Many of the "pickup" order sites I have request a tip. There is literally no service, and I'm not even sure how the quality of the order will be, as I've literally not gotten it.
    - watwut 4y ago
      What op described in this thread "I tip because it is the social norm (and bribery: don't want my food messed with)" is an unambiguous bribe.
  - delta_p_delta_x 4y ago

jjav 4y ago

> Plus many restaurants with placeholder tip icons that start at 25%+ This is the most egregious part of it. Who ever invented that a percentage should inflate? The price is already inflating so a percentage of it goes up. You don't get to inflate both. Tipping was always 10% to 15% if particularly exceptional. Although even that should be made illegal, just include all costs of doing business in the price like nearly every shop does.

mahkeiro 4y ago
Inflating restaurant price + inflating tip + tax are on the trend to make US restaurants the most expensive restaurants on earth. A simple Caesar salad is now starting at 16$ and more likely 20$ in a lot of "not that fancy" places. When you add tax and 30% tip, it almost 28$. This is almost or even more expensive than in Switzerland where you waiter earn at least 26$ per hour, and tipping is not expected. Tipping are just here to profit business owner and not the workers (that’s why it’s almost inexistant in socialist country), and don’t get me started on the business adding "don’t forget to pay your staff" on your check.

freetime2 4y ago

> Given that even retail stores have added tipping prompts to their checkouts Really?! Which retail stores?

adam_arthur 4y ago
Any store can enable tipping on the POS devices. Many stores that used to not traditionally operate off of tips have added the option. Big employers don’t do it as far as I know. Have seen it many times in convenience stores or small grocery
ssttoo 4y ago
Few weeks ago facing the tip selection screen at a liquor store here in LA, it clicked for me that this tipping thing has gone too far.
- twelve40 4y ago
  haha you have to tip us for the privilege of fetching your six pack out of our fridge : )
smileysteve 4y ago
Likely not what the op meant, but food trucks and artist markets (square's bread and butter) A food truck operator is providing no additional service than a McDonald's ignoring the choice of where to drive or park. They provide takeout with no delivery. And then this started at food halls. Similarly, for farmers markets, artists, and crafts; these are traditionally retail items, these items often retail on their website or at a gallery (there is an edge case of auction houses), but now there is at least a vendor option of having a tip screen.