No tipping means better business • Hacker News Board

Re: No tipping means better business

#31

Post by colechristensen » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 7:42 AM UTC

ahoy wrote: post #3

Is the restaurant industry in need of saving, from a restaurant owner's or diner's perspective? I'm fully on the "tipping is terrible for everyone involved" side, but I wonder if the framing here is based on anything.

It certainly seems like it should be more efficient for 100 people to eat dinner in a restaurant than for 40 people to cook 100 meals. (100 / average household size (~2.5) = ~40)

And yet it's considerably more expensive.

Because, it seems, a considerable amount of the cost of restaurant food goes to the overhead costs of the real-estate owners and the financial system. This is both directly and indirectly (the cost of the rent or financing of the restaurant space + the portion of employee wages that go to renting their homes + the cost of everything the employees purchase going towards rent etc.)

In other words it seems a disproportional amount of our economy goes towards people that own instead of people that do.

How do you solve that though? Increase rent-seeking taxes (interest, rentals, etc) and lower income taxes? (basically lowering significantly the benefits from buying things you don't use yourself)

Re: No tipping means better business

#32

Post by sundvor » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 7:42 AM UTC

This works perfectly well in Australia, where tipping is entirely optional and not necessarily expected - however can still be done, if you feel like it.

In the advent of tap based payments especially - which is now ubiquitous in Australia - and you just tap your phone / card / device to the terminal which already shows the bill, I'd say tipping happens mainly in higher end restaurants.

There's certainly no lack of restaurants in Melbourne - with plenty of people enjoying the vast array of options for eating out. I for one am happy to not have to worry about tipping on everyday meals, however on special occasions I will add say 5-10% if particularly pleased with the service.

Re: No tipping means better business

#33

Post by kiba » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 7:42 AM UTC

samastur wrote: post #19

kiba wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I support the land-value tax. Landlords would only be taxed on the value of their land and not the property they're building. They're heavily incentivized to develop as much as possible to pay tax, since land-value tax doesn't care about the cost of any improvement you make.

This wouldn't change landlord's incentives and therefore unlikely to change the outcome.

You would need to explain that to me.

Re: No tipping means better business

#34

Post by alkonaut » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 7:42 AM UTC

surrealvortex wrote: post #17

Unless everyone decides to kill tips all at once, this will never work out. No server will work for a fixed 20% increment when they have the potential to get a lot more than that, especially on Saturday nights. There have been plenty of examples of this not working out [1]. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/05/15/478096516/why...

The articles mentions a raise of 15 to 30%. A waiter who makes 40% tips would probably accept a no-tip job at a 30% raise (Assuming the 40% tips weren't very stable).

Re: No tipping means better business

#35

Post by surrealvortex » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 7:45 AM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #34

surrealvortex wrote: post #17

Unless everyone decides to kill tips all at once, this will never work out. No server will work for a fixed 20% increment when they have the potential to get a lot more than that, especially on Saturday nights. There have been plenty of examples of this not working out [1]. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/05/15/478096516/why...

The articles mentions a raise of 15 to 30%. A waiter who makes 40% tips would probably accept a no-tip job at a 30% raise (Assuming the 40% tips weren't very stable).

At least some of the 30% would go to back-end staff. The article I linked to presents a case where the cooks etc had a raise because of this.

Re: No tipping means better business

#36

Post by tomhoward » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 7:45 AM UTC

magaman69 wrote: post #2

restaurants will be gone when we all start popping meal pills. The tech is probably 3-4 years out by conservative estimates.

No way.

We've already had a huge preview into how well artificial food replacement products are received by the general public, in the form of Soylent and similar meal replacement drinks and powders.

The answer is that these products have niche demand at best, even before considering the problems they've had with quality control, negative health reactions, etc.

My own experience is that a few years ago I spent a few months living on a Soylent-like concoction of nutritional supplements . It covered all my nutritional needs and had me feeling great in some ways (just like Soylent users report), but after a while led to dreadful problems with my digestive system and mental wellbeing.

After everything I've seen and experienced, I'm very long on conventional food.

Re: No tipping means better business

#37

Post by coldtea » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 7:46 AM UTC

>Now what if we were to magically make tipping disappear? Think about the diner for a second. What if, by removing tips from your restaurant, you’ll actually end up delighting more guests, improving your food, and retaining employees?

Well, I've dined all over the world (not an American btw), and the US had the most friendly and alert waiting stuff, which I guess it's at least party because of the tipping.

Sure, in expensive restaurants all around the world you can get good service and waiters that always hover nearby. But in the US that's also true for the neighborhood diner.

Re: No tipping means better business

#38

Post by jay_kyburz » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 7:48 AM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #26

lefstathiou wrote: post #16

I've traveled the world and have come to the conclusion that diners are better off in a tipping environment. Realize this is purely anecdotal but time and time again we have come to the realization that incentives matter and incentivizing good service makes sense to me (and I shouldn't have to order a bottle of wine at lunch to get it). If all someone is going to do is play telephone from one side of the room to the…

Which other services would you introduce tipping to? Fast food? Buying shoes? Car wash? Repairing plumbing? Fixing a computer? I don't see why eating in a restaurant should need extra incentives to the waiters, when we expect good service without tips elsewhere.

Many years ago I was working in the US for a few months and went to get a haircut. I wondered why the guy looked at me strange when I suck my hand out for my change.

It wasn't until I was back in my hotel room that realised I was probably supposed to tip.

Re: No tipping means better business

#39

Post by xiphias » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 7:49 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #31

ahoy wrote: post #3

Is the restaurant industry in need of saving, from a restaurant owner's or diner's perspective? I'm fully on the "tipping is terrible for everyone involved" side, but I wonder if the framing here is based on anything.

It certainly seems like it should be more efficient for 100 people to eat dinner in a restaurant than for 40 people to cook 100 meals. (100 / average household size (~2.5) = ~40) And yet it's considerably more expensive. Because, it seems, a considerable amount of the cost of restaurant food goes to the overhead costs of the real-estate owners and the financial system. This is both directly and indirectly (the cost o…

This is not a problem of people who decide on the laws, as they are the owners. So in their pont of view it's the opposite that should happen.

Re: No tipping means better business

#40

Post by coldtea » Tue, Dec 27, 2016, 7:50 AM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #26

lefstathiou wrote: post #16

I've traveled the world and have come to the conclusion that diners are better off in a tipping environment. Realize this is purely anecdotal but time and time again we have come to the realization that incentives matter and incentivizing good service makes sense to me (and I shouldn't have to order a bottle of wine at lunch to get it). If all someone is going to do is play telephone from one side of the room to the…

Which other services would you introduce tipping to? Fast food? Buying shoes? Car wash? Repairing plumbing? Fixing a computer? I don't see why eating in a restaurant should need extra incentives to the waiters, when we expect good service without tips elsewhere.

>I don't see why eating in a restaurant should need extra incentives to the waiters, when we expect good service without tips elsewhere.

Forget what you "expect".

Do you actually GET "good service without tips elsewhere"?

My point (and the parent's point) exactly.