Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'Coerced into tipping'? How apps are changing the culture of tipping in SF

sfgate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 215 posts

Re: 'Coerced into tipping'? How apps are changing the culture of tipping in SF

#111

Post by RickS »

safgasCVS wrote: post #108

Shifting the burden of paying employees to the customer via guilt and coercion is what's wrong here. Customers should not be made to feel like an asshole for not appreciating seeing their quoted price go up 20%. Lobbying Congress? Start with not supporting dickheads who do this. Charge 20% more and pay your employees properly

A number of restaurants have tried this, and more broadly, JCP tried something of the same sort (charge the "real" price, do away with the manipulative abstractions).

You start hemorrhaging customers. People's baselines for how much food costs are old and calcified, and customers flat out can't be counted on to act rationally and in their economic self interest.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/jc-penney-admits-marking-pri...

Re: 'Coerced into tipping'? How apps are changing the culture of tipping in SF

#112

Post by RickS »

jjeaff wrote: post #104

I am frustrated with articles like this that keep pushing a higher and higher "acceptable" tip percentage. 20% is not normal. 20% is very high for very good service. 15 years ago, 15% was normal. Now the minimum on these pos pos's is 18. I tip 15% and no more unless service was well above normal. And I have no qualms about hitting 0 for anything that isn't sit down service, including Uber and Lyft. We have to fight t…

"tip creep" is a really great term for what's going on.

Services that don't have tips encoded in wage law (like restaurants [mostly]) are either passing along large scale pricing errors, or begging for arbitrary, subjective price increases beyond what's needed to run the business. Neither of those should be met with a smile.

Re: 'Coerced into tipping'? How apps are changing the culture of tipping in SF

#113

Post by Camillo »

scarejunba wrote: post #91
Rainymood wrote: post #55

I hate the tipping system ("tipping") in the US. It's so forced and only benefits the business owner. You should not have to rely on uncertain tips to make up a minimum wage that is just stupid. Both parties keep the system alive, someone has to break the cycle.

It also benefits the tipped worker because they get to see more of that portion of their paycheck. Sales tax is never paid on tips and Income tax is rarely, if ever, paid either. It's just a tax exemption that we've encoded into social behaviour.

It's not a tax exemption, it's tax evasion. Same for all those "cash only" places - they're simply not declaring most of their income.

Re: 'Coerced into tipping'? How apps are changing the culture of tipping in SF

#115

Post by simulate »

It's very difficult to change tipping expectations. Uber unsuccessfully tried to maintain no tipping through its app. After driver complaints[1] and pressure from NYC[2] and others, Uber added tipping.

[1] https://www.wired.com/2016/05/uber-wants-to-save-us-from-rac...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/nyregion/new-york-city-ub...

Re: 'Coerced into tipping'? How apps are changing the culture of tipping in SF

#116

Post by Camillo »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #85
sfRattan wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the practices you describe are politically motivated advertising of prices (and related to price discrimination). To add on a living wage fee is to imply that a lower price available at other restaurants does not pay a living wage. This is a left of center virtue signal: "Eat here, where we make sure our staff earn a living wage." To add on an ACA coverage fee is to imply that, without mandatory healthcare,…

> To add on a living wage fee is to imply that a lower price available at other restaurants does not pay a living wage. This is a left of center virtue signal: "Eat here, where we make sure our staff earn a living wage." No, it isn't. It's a fee that started showing up in places like Seattle (and probably SF) after the minimum wage was raised, as a right-of-center jerk signal: "I would charge you less and screw my em…

No, you're thinking of a different thing. In SF some restaurant will have an "SF employee mandate" line, a 2% surcharge or so, to account for a local law. That's a protest against the law: it's the same principle behind listing tax-excluded prices, basically making sure people see how much the local taxes cost them.

A smaller set of restaurant does something different. They list some prices, and then in the fine print at the bottom they say "a 6% surcharge will be added to provide a living wage in SF", or something. This is not to comply with any local tax or law, it's just paying your employees more on your own accord, but then excluding an arbitrary percentage of that from your listed prices because... I have no idea why. But all places I've seen that do this have been very left-of-center.

Re: 'Coerced into tipping'? How apps are changing the culture of tipping in SF

#117

Post by metaphor »

scarejunba wrote: post #91
Rainymood wrote: post #55

I hate the tipping system ("tipping") in the US. It's so forced and only benefits the business owner. You should not have to rely on uncertain tips to make up a minimum wage that is just stupid. Both parties keep the system alive, someone has to break the cycle.

It also benefits the tipped worker because they get to see more of that portion of their paycheck. Sales tax is never paid on tips and Income tax is rarely, if ever, paid either. It's just a tax exemption that we've encoded into social behaviour.

> ...Income tax is rarely, if ever, paid either.

If tips are handled in the digital (as opposed to cash), doesn't that change the meta with respect to traceability?

Re: 'Coerced into tipping'? How apps are changing the culture of tipping in SF

#118

Post by ironjunkie »

I'm convinced that those systems have deliberately be made to push the customer to tip (more) and therefore increase the transaction fee for the payment operator (Square most of the time).

Most of the workdays, I go eat lunch at "order at the counter" places. The Square ipad is directly visible to everyone behind me in the line as they can all see that I put "No tip". More than once, I have seen people look back to check if other people in the line would see their choice, and subsequently change it to a "socially acceptable" tip of 15%.

Re: 'Coerced into tipping'? How apps are changing the culture of tipping in SF

#119

Post by d1zzy »

Cogito wrote: post #107
ggm wrote: post #29

The article explicitly addresses SF So this article is about a state which enforces a minimum wage above the US norm for workers in tip-heavy industries. US minimum wage is like $2.15 and federally mandated tip+wage rate is $7.25 and the Californian state wage is $10. This is functionally equivalent to federal minimum plus 30%. I realize the transition moment here is confronting, and with family who work and depend o…

For the people saying that this would have unintended consequences, that may well be the case. Somehow, the rest of the world seems to get by without the same tipping culture. Moving towards a fair pay for work culture may require more than just 'not tipping', but we already have many examples where it is the case. Prices may go up, or tax laws need to change, but just because there are thin margins in the industry d…

Speaking about "unintended consequences", I would like to see a study if there's any correlation between heavy tipping culture and service quality. So far in my travels the US has been the place where waiters are the "nicest" while places with little tipping (but high menu pricing, ex. in Europe) I've had mixed service quality (but generally significantly worse than in the US).

Re: 'Coerced into tipping'? How apps are changing the culture of tipping in SF

#120

Post by mnm1 »

hedora wrote: post #65

I’m more annoyed about sit down restaurants that automatically add “living wage fees” or “aca coverage costs” to bills before tip. How is this acceptable? What other industry quotes prices that don’t include wage costs, then bill for a higher amount. It’s particularly bad because pulling the percentage out of the tip lowers the percentage of the amount I pay that would go to the server (vs baking the price into the m…

I've never seen such things, but unless it's stated clearly somewhere beforehand on the menu or elsewhere, I'm pretty sure you don't have to pay such bullshit costs. You should bring it up to the manager and ask why you're being charged for things you didn't order. Those restaurants are clearly run by greedy assholes, so they should be confronted.
Post reply on HN