4 ms·

“Tipflation” may be causing backlash as more digital prompts ask for tips

47 points by carabiner 3y ago

garbagecoder 3y ago
My resentment is not directed at the retail worker. It's directed at at the system that enables this. If I don't tip, I'm being an asshole to the worker. If I do, I'm enabling the system that lets them get by with less on schedule wages. I hate it. I don't have a problem paying a service fee for table service, etc. (would much prefer it just be included, taxes too) but, yeah, I can't buy a pack of gum in the US without a screen asking me if I want to tip.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > If I don't tip, I'm being an asshole to the worker. No you're not. It's the employer being an asshole to the worker. Just because the asshole employer is begging you to volunteer to subsidize his labor expenses so that he can pay his workers less and less that doesn't make you obligated to and it ultimately hurts the workers anyway since what they really need are higher wages that aren't dependent on the whims (or wealth) of whoever happens to walk in, and the employer has no reason to provide that if customers agree to pay their employees for them. I'll start paying tips for basic/retail transactions when companies start tipping me for being a good customer. I'd even be tempted to start carrying around an ipad and demanding that employees enter a tip for me on it, except that the employees have no control over the POS system their employer users and I don't want to waste my own time. Hopefully pressing the "No Tip" button every single time gets the message across.
  - garbagecoder 3y ago
    The kid in the store just wants a bit and doesn't understand that 9 times out of 10 and it's just an awkward interaction. I get what you're saying, but what I mean but "I'm the asshole" is in the eyes of that (usually) kid.
Eisenstein 3y ago
I hate how 'tips' are used for things like Walmart to offer free local delivery when it actually costs 'price + 10%' unless you want to be a horrible person. It would (and should) cost that price anyway if that's what it takes for the driver to get paid even close to reasonably -- just bake it into the price of delivery and don't rely on people's guilt to have it get done. I would love to see a study on the difference in take-home wages between systems which are setup the same but have one with cheaper out-the-door offerings made through lower base wage and expected tip for the worker. I want to say I would expect the 'tip + lower pay' come out ahead of the 'set wage' on average, but I that may be me projecting my own actions onto others.
- carabiner 3y ago
  You're gonna love this, tipping at self check-out! https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/tipping-at-self-checkout-machines-becoming-prevalent/509-f07af0eb-47eb-458e-86b8-ee616e32be37 https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/tipping-at-self-chec... Soon, your local gas station's pump will ask you for a tip. USPS will drop an empty envelope for tips. When paying for a parking ticket, an extra line will be added for gratuity.
carabiner 3y ago
Normalize not tipping. Press that "no tip" button if you're ordering at the register. Just do it.
- WirelessGigabit 3y ago
  I've been at places where there was no 'no tip' button. I had to put in 0 myself.
  - carabiner 3y ago
    Yes, I've seen this. Satanic.
WirelessGigabit 3y ago
The USA needs a big reform on when it comes to what is displayed as a price to lure in people. What's the meaning of having a price advertised only to be met with + taxes and fees. I can calculate the taxes in my head but the fees are so arbitrary. What's stopping a shop advertising a car at 10% below MSRP and slapping on a dealer showroom MSRP? We shouldn't allow fees for things they are mandatory. Like the resort fee. Or the online purchase fee. And the tips at the end. Always begging and begging.
- InCityDreams 3y ago
  Started in Europe too. I tried an online shop dealing in a very particular hobby of mine...got the end - 5 10 15% tip buttons. I sent them a message: no more custom from me until the buttons go. I gave them the link to an alternative source i found. Still no reply.
  - esperent 3y ago
    If they're using a pre-built sales system, which they almost certainly are, the buttons come with the system. There should be an option to turn them off but there might not be. And for sure, as a seller it's tempting to leave them there.
- arielcostas 3y ago
  Yeah, I can't understand how Americans can live that way, having to calculate the tax in their head, or adding the fees for everything and all. In Europe I go to a supermarket, and if something has a 1€ price tag, I only need a 1€ coin. Every price includes VAT,unless the seller is B2B, since companies don't pay VAT. And in those cases, prices must indicate N€+VAT. And the tips, that stupid model of calculating the percentage and stuff is new, copied from the US. At least in Spain it's common not to tip, or at most round to the next euro and "keep the change"
  - esperent 3y ago
    > Every price includes VAT As a seller this absolutely sucks. Not saying it's a bad thing. It's not. But imagine you're a small business, and you price the croissants you've just spent hours making at €1 each and you know you'll only get €0.79 of that. It feels unfair. Especially since you'll end up paying even more tax after that too. So I guess you could say the US method favors the seller, while the (mostly) rest of the world method favors the buyer.
paul_grisham 3y ago
I'm a landlord and have been giving my tenants the option to tip. It's well deserved for all the extra work making sure they have a nice place to stay.
- McDyver 3y ago
  Do you also tip them for being good tenants?
  - paul_grisham 3y ago
    I'm providing the roof over their heads, they provide the rent and (much appreciated) tip
    - StimDeck 3y ago
      That’s nice. I have never met a landlord that actually built the house themself. That does seem worthy of a tip.
- tetris11 3y ago
  This is the most out of touch comments on this entire platform, or one of the funniest. Do you not have a day job that can supplement your rent-seeking behaviour?
  - rat9988 3y ago
    Obviously the funniest
    - Melting_Harps 3y ago
      Or a reminder how ostentatiously out of touch the land owning class gets after perpetual class division, which ultimately always leads in the 'proles' rising up as History has shown. Honestly, this is berift with why tech should be as remote as possible; it is these kind of parasitic fake jobs become lucrative in HoL areas who exploit this feature of a crony-capitalist model, which is often referred to as late stage capitalism by the vocal misinformed: they fail to realize that this has been baked into the system all along--the very term landlord has overtones of a fiefdom based structure, wherein a monarch allows an initiated member of likely lower class/caaste to take care of there lands as a 'trade' and operate as an enforcer. Tips are just the new veiled bribe in order to get things done to your dwelling etc... this is as old as history itself and a subsequent component of Society and we should just be honest about it after millennia, because we clearly seem to want to keep it in place. When these idiots start telling them to eat the 21st century of cake (insect protein?) is whem you know things are about to kick off, and the WEF has been a bit too vocal on this for some time.
preommr 3y ago
People are confused about tipflation because they don't want to acknowledge how messed up the tipping system in North America is. With more places asking for tips I often see "I only tip if I am sitting down". Why? Because it's what people are used to. In time, this too will be normalized and people will one day tip at these places too like they do at restaurants. And frankly, people should be tipping at other places if they tip at restaurants since all the same principles apply - your plumbers, doctors, etc. work hard too, so they deserve the compensation the same way waiters do. And before anybody says that waiters make less (which is not true in certain states and Canada where they make minimum wage), then just remove the exception for minimum wage instead of having tipping. And no you shouldn't continue to tip in the interm because the servers themselves have no incentive to switch since they make more under tipping - they don't care about making minimum wage so why would customers worry about it for them? The usual response to this is that we shouldn't push people down but pull people up, so let's do that, tip everybody and pull up those compensation numbers.
- jtriangle 3y ago
  Tipping is a communication of exceptional value to the provider of a service. Doctors provide expected service, as dictated by the rules and regulations they, themselves are subject to. Plumbers are in a similar, though less rigid, situation, ie, most services have a very clear expectation of service to be provided that is not normally exceeded if at all. Food service workers are in a situation where, the expectation is self-service, and as such all of the service they provide, ie, the things you wouldn't do yourself, is exceptional and therefore it is necessary to communicate that additional value provided in the form of a tip. The reason the mass deployment of unnecessary tipping prompts seems so consumer adverse to most people is that they do not have a well thought out idea of what is actually happening when they tip, and instead have to wrestle with guilt or tradition to make their decisions. When you understand the situation at hand, there is no such guilt and that allows you to see the mass deployment of tipping prompts for what they really are: a ploy to manipulate customers into subsidizing employee wages.
  - Nullabillity 3y ago
    That would make some semblance of sense if there was an option to opt out of the table service.
EEMac 3y ago
It's called bribery or corruption and is common in third-world countries. "You actually want me to do the job I'm already paid for? Give me cash."
- Melting_Harps 3y ago
  > It's called bribery or corruption and is common in third-world countries. "You actually want me to do the job I'm already paid for? Give me cash." While true, it is just veiled and normalized in 1st World nations and perhaps more pernicious due to severity; at least it's honest in the so called 3rd World as you mentioned which ironically makes it more tolerable to me. I don't like it, but I'm also beyond the hope we can undo this until an immense reduction in population makes housing, and the maintenance that supports it, a post-scarcity commodity which I fear will likely never completely happen.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  Yes, one area where I am forced to tip significantly and very often is with my food delivery service. This is, of course, a matter of "pre-tipping": I must enter the tip amount when placing my order, not after receiving the service. So I consider any "pre-tip" to be a bribe, because I cannot know who is handling the service and I cannot know how the service will be performed. I have seen many food delivery workers (they are all contractors, of course) who brag about stealing food from bad tippers. I am not a bad tipper, and delivery drivers steal the drink from my order all the time. In fact they did it more often when I just ordered one drink; now I often order two, and I find that it comes in a carrier and they leave it alone. Perhaps it's a huge bother for them to wrestle one lonesome moist cup, and they'd rather keep it for themselves. If I do decide that the driver caused some big problem or outright stole from the order, I will pursue customer service to reduce the tip to $0. They don't always understand that, so I have to spell it out. And yes, I do increase the tip when I find that exceptional service has been rendered.
  - martin8412 3y ago
    If stuff is missing from my order due to theft, then I'll be contacting customer service to let them know that either they replace the entire order(I'm not touching food messed with by the delivery driver) or I'll not be paying anything at all. If they refuse I let them know that I'll be contacting my card issuer asking for a chargeback. They usually comply before I do that.

47 points by carabiner 3y ago

My resentment is not directed at the retail worker. It's directed at at the system that enables this. If I don't tip, I'm being an asshole to the worker. If I do, I'm enabling the system that lets them get by with less on schedule wages. I hate it. I don't have a problem paying a service fee for table service, etc. (would much prefer it just be included, taxes too) but, yeah, I can't buy a pack of gum in the US without a screen asking me if I want to tip.

autoexec 3y ago
> If I don't tip, I'm being an asshole to the worker. No you're not. It's the employer being an asshole to the worker. Just because the asshole employer is begging you to volunteer to subsidize his labor expenses so that he can pay his workers less and less that doesn't make you obligated to and it ultimately hurts the workers anyway since what they really need are higher wages that aren't dependent on the whims (or wealth) of whoever happens to walk in, and the employer has no reason to provide that if customers agree to pay their employees for them. I'll start paying tips for basic/retail transactions when companies start tipping me for being a good customer. I'd even be tempted to start carrying around an ipad and demanding that employees enter a tip for me on it, except that the employees have no control over the POS system their employer users and I don't want to waste my own time. Hopefully pressing the "No Tip" button every single time gets the message across.
- garbagecoder 3y ago
  The kid in the store just wants a bit and doesn't understand that 9 times out of 10 and it's just an awkward interaction. I get what you're saying, but what I mean but "I'm the asshole" is in the eyes of that (usually) kid.

Eisenstein 3y ago

I hate how 'tips' are used for things like Walmart to offer free local delivery when it actually costs 'price + 10%' unless you want to be a horrible person. It would (and should) cost that price anyway if that's what it takes for the driver to get paid even close to reasonably -- just bake it into the price of delivery and don't rely on people's guilt to have it get done. I would love to see a study on the difference in take-home wages between systems which are setup the same but have one with cheaper out-the-door offerings made through lower base wage and expected tip for the worker. I want to say I would expect the 'tip + lower pay' come out ahead of the 'set wage' on average, but I that may be me projecting my own actions onto others.

carabiner 3y ago
You're gonna love this, tipping at self check-out! https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/tipping-at-self-checkout-machines-becoming-prevalent/509-f07af0eb-47eb-458e-86b8-ee616e32be37 https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/tipping-at-self-chec... Soon, your local gas station's pump will ask you for a tip. USPS will drop an empty envelope for tips. When paying for a parking ticket, an extra line will be added for gratuity.

carabiner 3y ago

Normalize not tipping. Press that "no tip" button if you're ordering at the register. Just do it.

WirelessGigabit 3y ago
I've been at places where there was no 'no tip' button. I had to put in 0 myself.
- carabiner 3y ago
  Yes, I've seen this. Satanic.

WirelessGigabit 3y ago

The USA needs a big reform on when it comes to what is displayed as a price to lure in people. What's the meaning of having a price advertised only to be met with + taxes and fees. I can calculate the taxes in my head but the fees are so arbitrary. What's stopping a shop advertising a car at 10% below MSRP and slapping on a dealer showroom MSRP? We shouldn't allow fees for things they are mandatory. Like the resort fee. Or the online purchase fee. And the tips at the end. Always begging and begging.

InCityDreams 3y ago
Started in Europe too. I tried an online shop dealing in a very particular hobby of mine...got the end - 5 10 15% tip buttons. I sent them a message: no more custom from me until the buttons go. I gave them the link to an alternative source i found. Still no reply.
- esperent 3y ago
  If they're using a pre-built sales system, which they almost certainly are, the buttons come with the system. There should be an option to turn them off but there might not be. And for sure, as a seller it's tempting to leave them there.
arielcostas 3y ago
Yeah, I can't understand how Americans can live that way, having to calculate the tax in their head, or adding the fees for everything and all. In Europe I go to a supermarket, and if something has a 1€ price tag, I only need a 1€ coin. Every price includes VAT,unless the seller is B2B, since companies don't pay VAT. And in those cases, prices must indicate N€+VAT. And the tips, that stupid model of calculating the percentage and stuff is new, copied from the US. At least in Spain it's common not to tip, or at most round to the next euro and "keep the change"
- esperent 3y ago
  > Every price includes VAT As a seller this absolutely sucks. Not saying it's a bad thing. It's not. But imagine you're a small business, and you price the croissants you've just spent hours making at €1 each and you know you'll only get €0.79 of that. It feels unfair. Especially since you'll end up paying even more tax after that too. So I guess you could say the US method favors the seller, while the (mostly) rest of the world method favors the buyer.

paul_grisham 3y ago

I'm a landlord and have been giving my tenants the option to tip. It's well deserved for all the extra work making sure they have a nice place to stay.

McDyver 3y ago
Do you also tip them for being good tenants?
- paul_grisham 3y ago
  I'm providing the roof over their heads, they provide the rent and (much appreciated) tip
  - StimDeck 3y ago
    That’s nice. I have never met a landlord that actually built the house themself. That does seem worthy of a tip.
tetris11 3y ago
This is the most out of touch comments on this entire platform, or one of the funniest. Do you not have a day job that can supplement your rent-seeking behaviour?
- rat9988 3y ago
  Obviously the funniest
  - Melting_Harps 3y ago
    Or a reminder how ostentatiously out of touch the land owning class gets after perpetual class division, which ultimately always leads in the 'proles' rising up as History has shown. Honestly, this is berift with why tech should be as remote as possible; it is these kind of parasitic fake jobs become lucrative in HoL areas who exploit this feature of a crony-capitalist model, which is often referred to as late stage capitalism by the vocal misinformed: they fail to realize that this has been baked into the system all along--the very term landlord has overtones of a fiefdom based structure, wherein a monarch allows an initiated member of likely lower class/caaste to take care of there lands as a 'trade' and operate as an enforcer. Tips are just the new veiled bribe in order to get things done to your dwelling etc... this is as old as history itself and a subsequent component of Society and we should just be honest about it after millennia, because we clearly seem to want to keep it in place. When these idiots start telling them to eat the 21st century of cake (insect protein?) is whem you know things are about to kick off, and the WEF has been a bit too vocal on this for some time.

preommr 3y ago

People are confused about tipflation because they don't want to acknowledge how messed up the tipping system in North America is. With more places asking for tips I often see "I only tip if I am sitting down". Why? Because it's what people are used to. In time, this too will be normalized and people will one day tip at these places too like they do at restaurants. And frankly, people should be tipping at other places if they tip at restaurants since all the same principles apply - your plumbers, doctors, etc. work hard too, so they deserve the compensation the same way waiters do. And before anybody says that waiters make less (which is not true in certain states and Canada where they make minimum wage), then just remove the exception for minimum wage instead of having tipping. And no you shouldn't continue to tip in the interm because the servers themselves have no incentive to switch since they make more under tipping - they don't care about making minimum wage so why would customers worry about it for them? The usual response to this is that we shouldn't push people down but pull people up, so let's do that, tip everybody and pull up those compensation numbers.

jtriangle 3y ago
Tipping is a communication of exceptional value to the provider of a service. Doctors provide expected service, as dictated by the rules and regulations they, themselves are subject to. Plumbers are in a similar, though less rigid, situation, ie, most services have a very clear expectation of service to be provided that is not normally exceeded if at all. Food service workers are in a situation where, the expectation is self-service, and as such all of the service they provide, ie, the things you wouldn't do yourself, is exceptional and therefore it is necessary to communicate that additional value provided in the form of a tip. The reason the mass deployment of unnecessary tipping prompts seems so consumer adverse to most people is that they do not have a well thought out idea of what is actually happening when they tip, and instead have to wrestle with guilt or tradition to make their decisions. When you understand the situation at hand, there is no such guilt and that allows you to see the mass deployment of tipping prompts for what they really are: a ploy to manipulate customers into subsidizing employee wages.
- Nullabillity 3y ago
  That would make some semblance of sense if there was an option to opt out of the table service.

EEMac 3y ago

It's called bribery or corruption and is common in third-world countries. "You actually want me to do the job I'm already paid for? Give me cash."

Melting_Harps 3y ago
> It's called bribery or corruption and is common in third-world countries. "You actually want me to do the job I'm already paid for? Give me cash." While true, it is just veiled and normalized in 1st World nations and perhaps more pernicious due to severity; at least it's honest in the so called 3rd World as you mentioned which ironically makes it more tolerable to me. I don't like it, but I'm also beyond the hope we can undo this until an immense reduction in population makes housing, and the maintenance that supports it, a post-scarcity commodity which I fear will likely never completely happen.
NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
Yes, one area where I am forced to tip significantly and very often is with my food delivery service. This is, of course, a matter of "pre-tipping": I must enter the tip amount when placing my order, not after receiving the service. So I consider any "pre-tip" to be a bribe, because I cannot know who is handling the service and I cannot know how the service will be performed. I have seen many food delivery workers (they are all contractors, of course) who brag about stealing food from bad tippers. I am not a bad tipper, and delivery drivers steal the drink from my order all the time. In fact they did it more often when I just ordered one drink; now I often order two, and I find that it comes in a carrier and they leave it alone. Perhaps it's a huge bother for them to wrestle one lonesome moist cup, and they'd rather keep it for themselves. If I do decide that the driver caused some big problem or outright stole from the order, I will pursue customer service to reduce the tip to $0. They don't always understand that, so I have to spell it out. And yes, I do increase the tip when I find that exceptional service has been rendered.
- martin8412 3y ago
  If stuff is missing from my order due to theft, then I'll be contacting customer service to let them know that either they replace the entire order(I'm not touching food messed with by the delivery driver) or I'll not be paying anything at all. If they refuse I let them know that I'll be contacting my card issuer asking for a chargeback. They usually comply before I do that.