In addition to inflation, I've anecdotally noticed "suggested tip percentage inflation" at restaurants nearby, where the iPad presented doesn't have the usual 10,15,18/20% on the screen but rather 20,25,30% (many times, in addition to auto-gratuity practices that began in the pandemic). At least for me, tipping has been one of those things that I wish were different like Europe, but it exists and there's a social norm around 15%. But given the option to "be the jerk" and not tip or normalize 30%!? 30% is insane. If 30 is on the screen I'm hitting zero. It's not normal. I'm not sure how these point of sale systems work and who is pushing these new norms, but I'd be interested to hear some story or justification for the new highs.
What people need to recognize is that this is yet another corporate tactic to distract from their abusive practices.
Just like recycling plastics; instead of designing actually recyclable or biodegradeable products and actually implementing recycling, they sell unrecyclable crap, ship the waste off to China (until they refuse it), and try to make everyone feel personally guilty for their insufficient personal recycling practices.
With tips, they make a business model of paying they people poorly, extracting maximum profits, and holding prices just low enough for you to buy, they laying a guilt-trip on all the customers to help their poor workers. Similarly, WalMart runs seminars for their workers on how to get more government poverty benefits, so that the taxpayer subsidizes their business.
At first, I was for tipping, as I've always been a solid tipper and of course I want to help the worker. But now, they are just obviously pushing the limit to see how far they can push our collective guilt. Plus, we have zero idea of how, or even if, these "tips" actually get to the workers. I'm starting to think that the only solution is for the society to reject it completely and go No Tip. If they aren't paying their workers enough, they will quit.
I have personally noticed that I now subconsciously avoid buying stuff where tipping is involved exactly because the corporations are trying to more than double the expectation, so what was a habitual generous tip is now framed as being a cheapskate, and I don't want to feel pressured into it, and I don't want to make the worker feel shortchanged or disrespected, so the likelihood is that I'll just skip the whole transaction, and everyone gets nothing.
I’ve made my own personal vote against this behaviour by no longer patronizing businesses that do this.
The only way (short of legislation) for consumers to change tipping is for businesses to be aware that having pinpads with options like this means they’re going out of business.
I had a recent experience where I ordered pickup from a restaurant’s website (instead of a delivery app to make them more money). I paid a 10% tip since it was a pickup. I get to the place and they just cancel my online payment and made me pay again, and under the pretext of getting my signature, presented me with the 20/25/30 option. I was very mad and left a custom 10% to send a message. Needless to say, I will not be going there back again.
In Singapore, it's common that restaurants will charge you a 5% service charge. And then you usually don't tip at all. Many restaurants will also clip a "bill preview" to your table when they bring the first round of orders. So unless you ordered additional rounds, you know precisely how much they will deduct when you give them your card. For me, that cost predictability adds a certain peacefulness to the whole dining experience.
I identify with this article. I’ve tipped at least 20% by default my entire life at bars and restaurants. Always keep cash in the car and my wallet to tip valets and other hospitality workers generously.
It all felt predictable. I could estimate how much things were going to cost because I knew where tips were expected and the typical rate.
Then it all changed, with tipping appearing all over. My barber added Square checkout and added a tip screen with 10%/15%/20% options. Then later it became 15%/20%/25%. Now at my most recent haircut it was 25%/30%/35%. This is an addition to their price increases every 6 months that have doubled the price of a haircut (pre-tip) in the last 3 years. On my last visit the barber made a comment that everyone seems to be going longer between haircuts these days for some reason, but he didn’t seem to put it all together.
I ordered takeout from a local restaurant via an app, leaving a tip within the app. When I arrived the person at the counter made some comment about how tips are appreciated and how they still work for tips. I casually mentioned I did it in the app, but they tried to start a conversation about how the app takes a percentage and how they’re getting fewer customers these days for some reason. I just wanted my food, not to get pulled into a guilt trip about double tipping. I haven’t been back because I just don’t want to deal with that after a long day of work.
Its starting to feel analogous to TicketMaster or AirBnB, where you’re presented with one price up front but then when you get to the checkout you’re hit with a substantially higher price that you didn’t expect. The unpredictability is getting tiresome.
The post-pandemic tipping conventions mean that you can't be price sensitive and remain sane. What was a sincere risk gratuity two years ago is now a social expectation, and while food delivery and ridesharing in cities is very convenient, the service-class it created implies that now middle income people need to exercise some noblesse oblige to offer some dignity and offset some of the class resentment these jobs create. A tip now is whatever you wouldn't be embarassed to accept in their position.
In Canada, advertised prices for anything that isn't sitting on a shelf are basically a meaningless anchor number. We have a sales tax of 13% on everything, and then once you add the various service, subscription, card tap processing fees, credit card fees, warranty, "donation," and other fees, it's prudent to add at least 35% to any advertised price in your budget.
My answer was to avoid businesses that have more than one or two locations and shop at locally owned places as much as possible. Personally I just left the city as soon as I could afford to, for many reasons, but one of them was the effects of the inequality from importing people en masse from poor countries to do service jobs for the nouveau bourgeois was just becoming vulgar. No level of tipping in the world will change the relationship between a largely publicly funded middle class and the people who massage them, do their nails, drive them around, deliver their food, walk their small dogs, and clean their short term rentals. It's gross. Where possible, I opt out.
Tipping culture is out of control. Some of the things I’ve seen and oppose:
1. 20/25/30% becoming the default instead of 10/15/20%. 20% is now expected and people throw passive aggressive remarks at you if you tip 20%.
2. Tipping at places that don’t provide any service: mom and Pop clothing stores!?; takeout places where you pick something from the shelves and walk to a counter to get it billed; restaurants where you order at the counter, pick it up when it’s ready, eat on a table and clean up after yourself when you leave;
3. Expecting tips after you’ve already charged for the service. This includes but is not limited to delivery apps: you get charged a service fee, a delivery fee, a local legislation fee that is to ensure the workers get paid fair wages, all of which exceeds 30% of your order. Then are expected to tip. It makes sense in some cases (delivery from a far place or a big order etc.), but not as a default. I’ll tip when you only charge delivery fee or don’t charge anything (like old school pizza places).
4. Tips for salaried employees or contractors. I am not paying my plumber a tip after I paid the dude $140/hour in labor charges on a job that cost me upwards of $3000. Just no.
It's encouraging to read that people are reacting like I am to this increased pressure to tip—namely, by tipping less.
Hopefully this customer behavior will make its way back to management (and maybe even lawmakers) so that we get to a more reasonable system (i.e., no drip pricing, employers pay a fare wage, tip screens for random purchases go away).
Yesterday I went into a little French cafe in Portsmouth NH with a small grocery area in the front. I bought a shrink wrapped jar of mustard. Brought it to the counter. Touchless transaction. I don't remember the tip options, but I don't believe they were above 20% or 25%.
I made eye contact with the cashier and selected zero. I figure she didn't even notice the number I selected but I sure felt guilty doing it.
But, why don't I feel guilty tipping 20% when I have a hand basket at the Market Basket with 80 dollars of food, or a grocery cart with 450 dollars of food in it?
As a brit living in the US, whenever family come over and we're paying a restaurant bill it's painful to have to tell them that typical tipping is 20% here, not 10% like back home, and it's not baked into the bill either. That extra 10% can be pretty painful on a nice meal if you've mentally budgeted a specific amount, and that's in an actual restaurant with service.
I used to be actually called a service charge, still is in some place, which reflects that's its for good service. At least, it was originally, and still is in Europe to an extent. It's not just a mandatory top-up regardless. It also mentally helps separate out the restaurant service change where there's genuine service, from the person just checking you out at a store or counter.
my hypothesis not backed by data is that this is Square (and other pos provisers) and their salespeople convincing store & restaurant management they can pay workers less by putting a giant tip screen in front of customers. Of course Square gets a cut of that tip :)))
It also varies across the country what the min. wage for servers is. Some use a discounted rate, where tipping at a certain level is factored in. Others don't have a separate wage for "tip" jobs.
I remember the first time I saw tipping on a tablet at a counter service place. I did tip because I was too surprised to think about it. But afterwards I had time to think about it and I’ve never tipped in that manner since. However, it did put a bad taste in my mouth about tipping. I used to tip 18-20%, but I now refuse to go above 15% and have even stopped tipping for some situations I used to tip. In my opinion, this was a big misstep by the business community.
I found this Freadonomics episode [1] enlightening. A lot of restaurants have tried to have "no tipping" policies, but they usually revert after they lose business due to the higher prices.
Tipping also allows for price discrimination (a good thing in an economic sense). People who are well off tend to pay more, but people who can't pay as much can still be customers.
I find it really annoying too, but there are some reasons to keep it around. 30% is just crazy though.
I agree that the tipping system sucks. My nephew worked at an upscale restaurant for $2/hr because "you make all your money in tips". That's a shitty system.
A lot of the comments are about management shifting costs to customers, but even if tipping were outlawed, the customers are still going to be the ones to pay, right. I do think it would be a better system than tipping, but the end effect will just be to raise prices; it isn't going to come out of profits.
It’s gone from a kind of commission on service to a specific person to a voluntary overcharge for anything because why not ask if the customer is willing to pay more.
I’m not tipping in the drive through.
I equally hate the charity “round up” or whatever. I’ll donate myself without paying a commission you get to deduct, thanks.
I still don’t get why people tip for to go orders. I don’t take up space in your restaurant, you don’t have to wait on me or clean after me. I’m coming in to just pick up good, never going to tip for that.
[+] [-] davidjfelix|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toss1|3 years ago|reply
What people need to recognize is that this is yet another corporate tactic to distract from their abusive practices.
Just like recycling plastics; instead of designing actually recyclable or biodegradeable products and actually implementing recycling, they sell unrecyclable crap, ship the waste off to China (until they refuse it), and try to make everyone feel personally guilty for their insufficient personal recycling practices.
With tips, they make a business model of paying they people poorly, extracting maximum profits, and holding prices just low enough for you to buy, they laying a guilt-trip on all the customers to help their poor workers. Similarly, WalMart runs seminars for their workers on how to get more government poverty benefits, so that the taxpayer subsidizes their business.
At first, I was for tipping, as I've always been a solid tipper and of course I want to help the worker. But now, they are just obviously pushing the limit to see how far they can push our collective guilt. Plus, we have zero idea of how, or even if, these "tips" actually get to the workers. I'm starting to think that the only solution is for the society to reject it completely and go No Tip. If they aren't paying their workers enough, they will quit.
I have personally noticed that I now subconsciously avoid buying stuff where tipping is involved exactly because the corporations are trying to more than double the expectation, so what was a habitual generous tip is now framed as being a cheapskate, and I don't want to feel pressured into it, and I don't want to make the worker feel shortchanged or disrespected, so the likelihood is that I'll just skip the whole transaction, and everyone gets nothing.
[+] [-] arecurrence|3 years ago|reply
The only way (short of legislation) for consumers to change tipping is for businesses to be aware that having pinpads with options like this means they’re going out of business.
[+] [-] darth_avocado|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fxtentacle|3 years ago|reply
In Singapore, it's common that restaurants will charge you a 5% service charge. And then you usually don't tip at all. Many restaurants will also clip a "bill preview" to your table when they bring the first round of orders. So unless you ordered additional rounds, you know precisely how much they will deduct when you give them your card. For me, that cost predictability adds a certain peacefulness to the whole dining experience.
[+] [-] anamexis|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whycombagator|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PragmaticPulp|3 years ago|reply
It all felt predictable. I could estimate how much things were going to cost because I knew where tips were expected and the typical rate.
Then it all changed, with tipping appearing all over. My barber added Square checkout and added a tip screen with 10%/15%/20% options. Then later it became 15%/20%/25%. Now at my most recent haircut it was 25%/30%/35%. This is an addition to their price increases every 6 months that have doubled the price of a haircut (pre-tip) in the last 3 years. On my last visit the barber made a comment that everyone seems to be going longer between haircuts these days for some reason, but he didn’t seem to put it all together.
I ordered takeout from a local restaurant via an app, leaving a tip within the app. When I arrived the person at the counter made some comment about how tips are appreciated and how they still work for tips. I casually mentioned I did it in the app, but they tried to start a conversation about how the app takes a percentage and how they’re getting fewer customers these days for some reason. I just wanted my food, not to get pulled into a guilt trip about double tipping. I haven’t been back because I just don’t want to deal with that after a long day of work.
Its starting to feel analogous to TicketMaster or AirBnB, where you’re presented with one price up front but then when you get to the checkout you’re hit with a substantially higher price that you didn’t expect. The unpredictability is getting tiresome.
[+] [-] motohagiography|3 years ago|reply
In Canada, advertised prices for anything that isn't sitting on a shelf are basically a meaningless anchor number. We have a sales tax of 13% on everything, and then once you add the various service, subscription, card tap processing fees, credit card fees, warranty, "donation," and other fees, it's prudent to add at least 35% to any advertised price in your budget.
My answer was to avoid businesses that have more than one or two locations and shop at locally owned places as much as possible. Personally I just left the city as soon as I could afford to, for many reasons, but one of them was the effects of the inequality from importing people en masse from poor countries to do service jobs for the nouveau bourgeois was just becoming vulgar. No level of tipping in the world will change the relationship between a largely publicly funded middle class and the people who massage them, do their nails, drive them around, deliver their food, walk their small dogs, and clean their short term rentals. It's gross. Where possible, I opt out.
[+] [-] darth_avocado|3 years ago|reply
1. 20/25/30% becoming the default instead of 10/15/20%. 20% is now expected and people throw passive aggressive remarks at you if you tip 20%.
2. Tipping at places that don’t provide any service: mom and Pop clothing stores!?; takeout places where you pick something from the shelves and walk to a counter to get it billed; restaurants where you order at the counter, pick it up when it’s ready, eat on a table and clean up after yourself when you leave;
3. Expecting tips after you’ve already charged for the service. This includes but is not limited to delivery apps: you get charged a service fee, a delivery fee, a local legislation fee that is to ensure the workers get paid fair wages, all of which exceeds 30% of your order. Then are expected to tip. It makes sense in some cases (delivery from a far place or a big order etc.), but not as a default. I’ll tip when you only charge delivery fee or don’t charge anything (like old school pizza places).
4. Tips for salaried employees or contractors. I am not paying my plumber a tip after I paid the dude $140/hour in labor charges on a job that cost me upwards of $3000. Just no.
[+] [-] iamdamian|3 years ago|reply
Hopefully this customer behavior will make its way back to management (and maybe even lawmakers) so that we get to a more reasonable system (i.e., no drip pricing, employers pay a fare wage, tip screens for random purchases go away).
[+] [-] digitalsushi|3 years ago|reply
I made eye contact with the cashier and selected zero. I figure she didn't even notice the number I selected but I sure felt guilty doing it.
But, why don't I feel guilty tipping 20% when I have a hand basket at the Market Basket with 80 dollars of food, or a grocery cart with 450 dollars of food in it?
[+] [-] cntainer|3 years ago|reply
The fact that restaurants or any business relying on the practice use it as a reason to underpay their employees just pisses me off.
[+] [-] hnbear|3 years ago|reply
I used to be actually called a service charge, still is in some place, which reflects that's its for good service. At least, it was originally, and still is in Europe to an extent. It's not just a mandatory top-up regardless. It also mentally helps separate out the restaurant service change where there's genuine service, from the person just checking you out at a store or counter.
[+] [-] 27fingies|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zeroonetwothree|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twiddling|3 years ago|reply
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
I have to say 30% is bonkers in Washington St. where min. wage is already $15.74
[+] [-] irrational|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zonotope|3 years ago|reply
Tipping also allows for price discrimination (a good thing in an economic sense). People who are well off tend to pay more, but people who can't pay as much can still be customers.
I find it really annoying too, but there are some reasons to keep it around. 30% is just crazy though.
[1] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-does-tipping-still-exis...
[+] [-] prirun|3 years ago|reply
A lot of the comments are about management shifting costs to customers, but even if tipping were outlawed, the customers are still going to be the ones to pay, right. I do think it would be a better system than tipping, but the end effect will just be to raise prices; it isn't going to come out of profits.
[+] [-] diggernet|3 years ago|reply
Placed an order at argon40.com, and at the end of the checkout process they prompted for a 5/10/15% tip. On a website. Just ridiculous!
[+] [-] jwie|3 years ago|reply
I’m not tipping in the drive through.
I equally hate the charity “round up” or whatever. I’ll donate myself without paying a commission you get to deduct, thanks.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] commiepatrol|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwjohnson314|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ekaros|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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