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Maybe the net effect of default tip screens on POS terminals is positive from the vendor’s perspective; but for me it’s negative. I tip less now than ever becau
by kashunstva 3y ago
Maybe the net effect of default tip screens on POS terminals is positive from the vendor’s perspective; but for me it’s negative. I tip less now than ever because the whole system is opaque to me. I have no idea who’s getting how much. I don’t know how the cost of the goods and services I’m purchasing relate to actual cost of provision. Why am I voluntarily putting in more than the asking price when I have no idea who is operating behind the scenes to extract value from the transaction. I’m sympathetic toward worker’s rights but the solution is in collective and political action, not in hiding it behind these one-off transactions.
- monnok 3y agoI lived about 40 years under a sort of social truce with tipping culture. Tipping is inherently too transactional and too patronizing for my comfort. But the social construct, including laws, around server wages and tips was so well established I was able to establish a sort of loose personal policy. This truce allowed me to tip consistently and generously transaction after transaction. Yet, it allowed me to still somewhat abstract each tip from its transactional and patronizing character. Not only is that social truce now violated, it is violated specifically within our new global environment of every-transaction-of-any-kind-is-a-novel-attempt-at-customer-exploitation. Every supposed price is already a mystery, and every voluntary tip screen is a mystery with an ethical puzzle and a face to face confrontation. I’ve drastically scaled back my use of services because it is emotionally taxing for me to confront the utter pettiness of trying to guess how much I should be paying for hot noodles from day to day.