5 ms·

Well, you can now, and I do. It's hard enough living in California and especially San Francisco, and I believe being in the service industry here is no picnic.

Well, you can now, and I do. It's hard enough living in California and especially San Francisco, and I believe being in the service industry here is no picnic. Tipping is the least I can do.

abecedarius 2y ago
I know this feels right, but introducing tip culture into a market currently free of it is bad. Where there's a norm of tipping, it doesn't make the servers more money than where there is not; what you should expect it to do is to decrease the quoted price and increase the variance of income to the servers. And incidentally increase the mental overhead for everyone, increase the artificiality of interactions, etc.
- dventimi 2y ago
  > I know this feels right, but introducing tip culture into a market currently free of it is bad I couldn't possibly agree with this less. My view is that "it depends." Level salaries in San Francisco and I'll consider not tipping. Until then, I'm comfortable with my choices.
  - abecedarius 2y ago
    Do what you wish, of course. But you seem to think this helps to level income, given the "level salaries" bit. What I'm saying is it doesn't. Markets equilibrate; they adjust when the form of payment changes. I'd agree that after tipping culture is definitely established in a field, then stiffing someone is unfortunately bad, unless you can coordinate on reversing this harmful cultural norm. This is just very different from not helping to establish the harmful cultural norm, which is a positive, prosocial good; I believe you are doing the opposite of a prosocial good here, without realizing it. Of course I'm a fallible human.
    - dventimi 2y ago
      Well. I don't want to speak for other people. If I were an Uber driver I personally would like to make more money rather than less, and if that happened with tips I wouldn't grumble too much about it. Maybe that's just me.
      - abecedarius 2y ago
        Huh. Do you also think U.S. employees would be better off if Social Security had been created with a 12.4% tax paid by the employer, instead of a 12.4% tax paid half by the employer and half by the employee?
        dventimi 2y ago
        Non sequitur
        abecedarius 2y ago
        Sigh. OK, I tried.
        dventimi 2y ago
        Did you? You asked a question about Social Security policy, in a thread that's arguably about individual tipping practices. Perhaps you regard the former as an illustrative thought experiment which helps reason about the latter via shared principles, but it's a shame you didn't elaborate on it because as it stands, I regard it as a non sequitur.
        abecedarius 2y ago
        It's irritating to be accused of not engaging, when you've twice ignored my main point that expectation of tips lowers the posted price and makes life harder for all of the drivers/servers. Making life harder is not a benefit. I tried to probe for what is not coming through to you this third time, with another case where the legibility of a cost is shifted to no benefit. Not going to continue here.

Well, you can now, and I do. It's hard enough living in California and especially San Francisco, and I believe being in the service industry here is no picnic. Tipping is the least I can do.

abecedarius 2y ago

I know this feels right, but introducing tip culture into a market currently free of it is bad. Where there's a norm of tipping, it doesn't make the servers more money than where there is not; what you should expect it to do is to decrease the quoted price and increase the variance of income to the servers. And incidentally increase the mental overhead for everyone, increase the artificiality of interactions, etc.

dventimi 2y ago
> I know this feels right, but introducing tip culture into a market currently free of it is bad I couldn't possibly agree with this less. My view is that "it depends." Level salaries in San Francisco and I'll consider not tipping. Until then, I'm comfortable with my choices.
- abecedarius 2y ago
  Do what you wish, of course. But you seem to think this helps to level income, given the "level salaries" bit. What I'm saying is it doesn't. Markets equilibrate; they adjust when the form of payment changes. I'd agree that after tipping culture is definitely established in a field, then stiffing someone is unfortunately bad, unless you can coordinate on reversing this harmful cultural norm. This is just very different from not helping to establish the harmful cultural norm, which is a positive, prosocial good; I believe you are doing the opposite of a prosocial good here, without realizing it. Of course I'm a fallible human.
  - dventimi 2y ago
    Well. I don't want to speak for other people. If I were an Uber driver I personally would like to make more money rather than less, and if that happened with tips I wouldn't grumble too much about it. Maybe that's just me.
    - abecedarius 2y ago
      Huh. Do you also think U.S. employees would be better off if Social Security had been created with a 12.4% tax paid by the employer, instead of a 12.4% tax paid half by the employer and half by the employee?
      - dventimi 2y ago
        Non sequitur
        abecedarius 2y ago
        Sigh. OK, I tried.
        dventimi 2y ago
        Did you? You asked a question about Social Security policy, in a thread that's arguably about individual tipping practices. Perhaps you regard the former as an illustrative thought experiment which helps reason about the latter via shared principles, but it's a shame you didn't elaborate on it because as it stands, I regard it as a non sequitur.
        abecedarius 2y ago
        It's irritating to be accused of not engaging, when you've twice ignored my main point that expectation of tips lowers the posted price and makes life harder for all of the drivers/servers. Making life harder is not a benefit. I tried to probe for what is not coming through to you this third time, with another case where the legibility of a cost is shifted to no benefit. Not going to continue here.