As anyone who has ever worked for tips or traveled abroad knows, tipping is observably a cultural phenomenon. Me, personally, I think complaining about it is t

As anyone who has ever worked for tips or traveled abroad knows, tipping is observably a cultural phenomenon. Me, personally, I think complaining about it is tacky and shows poor character. I even tip (albeit less) for takeout. Why? Well for one the kitchen staff did just as much work as they would have had a waitress brought my order. And second and far more importantly, because that’s how I’d like to be treated and I generally aim to follow the golden rule in my dealings. As another aside, normally there is significant hysteresis between prices and wages. Percentage based tipping has no hysteresis and is thus observably a more just compensation model for servers. Especially in a time where grocery prices are up 20% over the past four years. Also, wage theft is a pervasive problem and tipping is resistant.