I'm an Aussie living in Phoenix. I try not to get too opinionated about whether a tipping culture is better or worse. I see comments here from Americans who sa

I'm an Aussie living in Phoenix. I try not to get too opinionated about whether a tipping culture is better or worse. I see comments here from Americans who say that when they eat out in other countries they're amazed at the poor service and figure this must be because of no tipping. Back home in Australia if a restaurant doesn't deliver good service they'll go broke. So most places I ever ate at back home had (what I would call) good to great service. This isn't to say I didn't receive some very rare bad service. Here in the US I've had about a similar experience. Mostly good to great service, and some rare bad service. The one big difference I've noticed is that here in the US (and I believe this is because of the tipping culture) I've had to "suffer" through "overly attentive" service. When the server constantly asks if everything is satisfactory, constantly topping up / refilling drinks and (I gather) thinking that they're giving us excellent service....... But in reality they're just infringing on our enjoyment of a night out.