
The Tipping System Is Immoral - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/opinion/tipping.html
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war1025
> (You should still generally leave 30 percent)

Don't know where this guy goes out, but apparently too rich for my blood.

I dislike tipping because it's part of the "guilt" economy.

Just tell me what you think is a fair price and I'll decide whether or not I
want to buy it. Don't undercut the price by 25% and then be offended when I
don't pay the right amount.

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munk-a
> Just tell me what you think is a fair price and I'll decide whether or not I
> want to buy it. Don't undercut the price by 25% and then be offended when I
> don't pay the right amount.

The issue here is that you're not taking money out of the merchant's pockets,
your price is either being (effectively) subsidized by either other patrons of
the restaurant (assuming the total tips are low enough to trigger minimum wage
repayment by the owner) or your meal is subsidized by the servers which,
often, are very junior works or generally disadvantaged in terms of employee
rights.

If you're cool with that then that's all fine, but the person being undercut
is simply not the person who is setting the price.

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war1025
I mainly avoid the issue by just not going to places that expect you to tip.

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sushid
So you never eat out, ride a cab/rideshare, drink coffee or alcohol while out,
cut your hair, etc?

I find that hard to believe.

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war1025
I eat out at a sit down restaurant maybe once every two months.

Have never ridden in a cab.

Drink coffee, but don't feel that the ability to pull the spigot on a coffee
urn warrants a tip.

Don't drink alcohol.

Wife cuts my hair about once every six months.

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munk-a
I hate tipping and I tip. However, I disagree with the idea that we should be
scaling up our tips.

Single persons who refuse to tip because it is a terrible system are often
just being asses and cheap, when they aren't I don't disagree with them but I
think it's more productive to direct energy toward reforming labour laws to
get rid of server/etc minimum wage exemptions.

But! I strongly object to this article advising a 30-50% tip, it has the
potential to cause people to scale their tips up which will further deepen the
hole that we're in if it becomes adopted by a significant population.

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kick
Related:

[https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1187523223673458690](https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1187523223673458690)

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chousuke
How did the US custom of tipping come to exist in the first place? I live in a
country where tipping is practically nonexistent, and I think I would feel
severely uncomfortable with prices that don't actually correspond to what I'm
expected to pay, even if the mental arithmetic is easy.

I hear that tipping in the US is necessary because of low wages, but I can't
help feeling like it's dishonest business to shift the responsibility of
compensation from the employer directly to the customers.

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munk-a
Tipping came about during the great depression where restaurant owners lobbied
to have the statutory wages of servers reduced to (by their expression) allow
them to continue to employ them. It's weird because instead of taking the same
approach taken elsewhere with the WPA to subsidize existing positions or
nationalize some entities within that market segment.

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TheOperator
The tipping system in practice artificially inflates the wages of service
staff so I've never really understood the outrage around it. It's true that
tipping drives away customers but that's because it artificially inflates the
wages of service staff. It's still a net benefit to the service staff. It
maybe is a negative to the restaurateurs and back of house but certainly not
the service staff.

The article portrays tipping as sexist but the institution acts as a mechanism
to redistribute wealth from men to women. It's true that white women, young
women, and attractive women get tipped more and they will put up with
mistreatment to get tipped more but it ultimately smacks of attacking a system
for being imperfect more than because it's bad. The alternative model you see
at fast food restaurants is hardly less demeaning for women and definitely
less profitable. If one ever succeeded in stripping away tipping it would only
serve to keep more money in men's pockets in an attempt to end the sexism of
tipping.

I also strongly, STRONGLY dispute the idea that leaving 30-50 percent tips is
the best way to redistribute wealth if charitably inclined. It seems more like
a notion to make newspaper columnists seem woke and generous than something
that actually is an efficient way to do good. The advantage to tipping is the
social stigma essentially forces people to compensate service staff better
than they normally would but you're never realistically going to pressure
people into paying 50% or even 30% regularly.

On the more positive side I do agree with the authors notion that the racial
bias in tipping is rather extreme and unjustified. A third smaller tips for
black drivers is pretty hard to justify and simply being aware that it happens
is good knowledge.

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whiddershins
30%?

I can’t read the article because it is behind a paywall so maybe that is
ironic.

30% is beyond excessive in most situations.

In NYC, which I think is one of the biggest loci of tip inflation, we used to
do 15% pre-tax on a restaurant bill.

We used to do $1 every one or two drinks at the bar, but inflation has an
upward pressure there, and the slow demise of buybacks has a downward
pressure.

20% AFTER tax is what I usually leave on smaller checks, rounded down, and
that is considered pretty generous by any person I’ve ever come across.

Big debates might occur about that $400 bottle of wine (“I’m not tipping $80
for someone to open a bottle.” — “ok buddy, if you can’t afford the tip don’t
order it.” Blah blah blah) but these are edge cases. And overall arguing about
tips is annoying and a huge waste of time, energy, and good will.

But 30%?

Give me a break.

We even have new minimum wage laws in New York that protect food delivery
workers, the whole thing is Byzantine, but I’m pretty confident everyone is
getting paid.

Edit: ok I bypassed the paywall and sure, tipping a higher percentage makes
sense when your bill is tiny. I think basically everyone knows that.

But the rest of the article is absolute nonsense in every way, including
random counter factual statements such as “people from the Midwest tip more”
which no one I know actually thinks is true, and I don’t think it so strongly,
it would take a lot more than one random study to make me reconsider.

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jolesf
Tip more than 20%: good server or small bill for sit down meal

Tip 15%: mediocre service at sit down meal

Tip less than 15%: bartender, order at counter meal

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Simulacra
Tipping is an anachronism founded in slavery. I hate it and it's mostly the
reason why I don't go to places that expect them.

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pepe56
This. Not my problem that you start a job paying you 3$/hour leaving
expectations up to me.

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jaytaylor
Paywall bypass: [http://archive.is/oyimo](http://archive.is/oyimo)

