
Why Does Tipping Still Exist? - atlasunshrugged
http://freakonomics.com/podcast/tipping/
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siruncledrew
I understand the ‘why it’s done’ part about wages/service; it’s the nuance of
tipping (when, where, how much) and the invisible social pressure that’s the
issue to me.

For example:

\- Person unloads TV I ordered off a truck and puts it at my door for me. Do I
tip cash for that? Isn’t that just their normal job routine?

\- If I go to a restaurant and order $20 of food and $200 of wine bottles, am
I supposed to tip 15-20% of $220?

\- If I buy a bottle of juice from a coffee shop, does that still warrant a
tip?

\- Does one still tip restaurants for carry-out?

\- What % do people tip for deliveries or rides?

\- If someone is dressed nicely, are they expected to tip >20%?

There may be more things I’m missing. Moving from EU to US when I was younger,
these are just different adjustments I noticed in tipping for stuff.

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ThronalDump
It's because USA is a dysfunctional society. Why does homelessness exist? Or
USA gun-laws, or rather allowances.

The problem is USA. How difficult is it for USA to emulate the civilized
world? You've existed for over 200, almost 250, years, now.

Get on it. The problem is U S A .

~~~
jmpman
Homelessness is a USA specific problem? I’ve seen homeless in downtown Tokyo.
Incredibly polite homeless, but homeless.

As for gun laws, I don’t understand how that has any impact on our tipping
policies.

I once took a British colleague to a Baseball game here in the states. It was
“mini bat night”, where they would hand out mini baseball bats to the
attendees as they entered the park. My colleague was horrified - “you couldn’t
do that in the UK, people would be hitting each other with them”. My response
“you can’t hit each other with mini bats in the US because you don’t know
who’s armed”.

Which society is more civilized? I’ve never been concerned about assault at a
sporting event. Well, maybe a Raiders game, but I wouldn’t include that crowd
as a fraction of civilized society.

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dlkf
Lots of interesting numbers and anecdotes in the piece, but they fail to
mention a simple explanation for why tipping still exists despite being
discriminatory and inefficient: we're playing an asymmetric game.

\- Tipping is massively beneficial to both restauranteurs (who can pass on the
cost of human resources to the customer) and to servers (who can make a good
salary performing unskilled labor - provided they are good looking, well
spoken, etc etc).

\- To the rest of us, it's not so terrible that we are willing to bear the
public shaming we could be subject to for failing to conform.

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CM30
Why does everyone assume tipping only exists in the US? Because it still
exists over here in the UK, and quite a few other parts of the world, and the
people we give these tips too aren't making less than mininum wage (with tips
apparently making up the difference).

Honestly, as long as the wages before tips are fair, then there's nothing
wrong with tipping as a concept.

~~~
Dockson
_Honestly, as long as the wages before tips are fair, then there 's nothing
wrong with tipping as a concept._

Do you wish tipping as a concept would spread to all customer-facing
industries?

~~~
CM30
I wouldn't mind it personally, so long as it was something the employee could
get without managers intefering/taking the money or it being mandatorily added
to the end of the bill as a service charge. And it obviously shouldn't be
necessarily to make up for a wage that the employee couldn't otherwise live
on.

But there's nothing wrong with the idea of tipping per se, and if customers
want to reward employees for good customer service/work, then they should be
able to.

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Data_Junkie
Same reason all unnecessary things exist, it benefits rich people in the rich
remaining rich and the poor remaining poor.

