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Why Tipping Is Impossible to Get Rid of in America

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Re: Why Tipping Is Impossible to Get Rid of in America

#71

Post by theonemind »

alexb_ wrote: post #24
colejohnson66 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Servers like it because it gives them more money, but so would paying them properly. Business owners like it because they save money on not paying their employees good wages. Customers do not like it because it's, essentially, a hidden fee. If I had bad service, I should not be obligated to tip. But society has decided that I owe a 15-25% service fee to my waiter even if the service sucked.

>If I had bad service, I should not be obligated to tip. But society has decided that I owe a 15-25% service fee to my waiter even if the service sucked. Says who? Just don't tip if you hate the service. That's what I do.

I left a quarter once for service that deserved it. The waitress threw it at me.

Culturally, the tip is part of the price. They just can’t call the police for a dine-and-dash because it legally isn’t. So I don’t think just not tipping is a realistic option. So it’s what you owe in all but law.

Which is not me defending tipping. I find the thing ridiculous and distasteful enough that I probably just won’t eat where tips are at that level of expectation more often than not. It’s not such a necessity that if I don’t have line-item veto that I won’t veto the whole thing.

Re: Why Tipping Is Impossible to Get Rid of in America

#72

Post by cowpig »

gambiting wrote: post #25

"Customers looked at the higher prices ($25 for the chicken instead of $21, $17 cocktails instead of $14) and ordered fewer and less-expensive items, even though they were paying exactly the same amount for them by tacking 20% onto the check at meal’s end." You know what, I worry about this sometimes. We think that we're so evolved and advanced race - that we have poetry and literature, modern medicine and rocket sci…

I don't see an emotion vs logic dichotomy being applicable here; we just don't process numbers like calculators because the world is messy and everything is a context-dependent guess with imperfect information.

If 99.9% of the time I go to a restaurant the number I see is eventually adjusted by sales tax+tip, my mental "value" heuristic is going to be comparing that number to how hungry I am, how soon I think I'm getting the burger, how good I think this place is, etc.

If half of restaurants abolished tips I'm sure I would develop the ability to incorporate that into my heuristic.

And sure like any heuristic it has its failure modes but in general, if you look at a whole population, those heuristics tend to be pretty astonishingly effective in aggregate.

Re: Why Tipping Is Impossible to Get Rid of in America

#73

Post by hgomersall »

ghaff wrote: post #31
LarryMullins wrote: post #12

Make no mistake, tipping continues in America because most Americans like the system. If you don't like to tip, there are plenty of restaurants where tipping isn't expected; specifically those where you carry the food yourself from the counter to your table. If enough people hated tipping, restaurants that don't have tipping would eventually out-compete those that do. They may yet do so, but presently most of the pub…

With respect to Europe, in the UK it's pretty common to see a "voluntary" 10% added to the bill for table service these days. The expectation of tipping for more and more things and the ratcheting up of default amounts in digital payment systems are somewhat annoying. But knowing that you'll be paying 20-25% more or so in a lot of situations between tipping and sales tax isn't really that much more of a mental burden…

I'm actually ok with that if it's clear and up front - as in, written on the menu, which in my experience it usually is. It's not like you have to guess the additional expected fee at the end.

Re: Why Tipping Is Impossible to Get Rid of in America

#74

Post by [deleted] »

rcme wrote: post #8

I think there is a 3rd possibility in how tipping ends: people get sick of tipping and stop doing it. It seems like every single transaction asks for a tip these days. I tip heavily, but even I am getting weary of tipping so often. Most of the time, it feels like the tip shouldn't be necessary; the employers should be covering the cost of the employee. If people get used to declining tip prompts, it's possible that w…

[deleted]

Re: Why Tipping Is Impossible to Get Rid of in America

#77

Post by konfusinomicon »

I delivered pizza back in the day, over 10 years ago now.. I still remember the few people that went above and beyond and gave me a really good tip.. today I don't work for tips, but those feelings have influenced how I tip today and I hope that the pizza people whom I tip well will remember my acts of kindness and some day when they are more fortunate as I am now, will pay it forward to the next pizza guy, and the stream of goodwill will continue for the rest of time, or until pizzas are no longer delivered

Re: Why Tipping Is Impossible to Get Rid of in America

#78

Post by saurik »

I think part of what is causing the "customers pay more" effect is that tipping manages to do the thing where it captures "whales"; and this is critical for business in America due to wealth inequality, and is similar to the numerous often-frustrating-but-maybe-justifies attempts at maximizing payments in other industries (such as games, music, etc.).

Like, I don't think it is the right lesson to say that the higher price points scare away people in the abstract, as if everyone who is eating is paying the meal plus 15% and they are just being dumb by not realizing they are paying "the same" in a world where tipping doesn't happen. (edit: And yup... I now see other comments leaning into "Americans are bad at math").

It isn't that uniform: a lot of people tip 10% while many are tipping 20%; there are people who aren't tipping at all and people who routinely tip 30%... and it doesn't stop there! There are also people who at least occasionally throw in some massive tip... I myself have, for various reasons that made sense at the time, thrown down a >100% tip on small checks.

Sure, some people like the awkward "control" over the wait staff, but that is also simplistic: there are people who make it a status symbol and proudly are known among their friends--the wait staff doesn't matter--as "big tippers"; and there are people who get into friendly competitions with their friends over who tips the most.

The result is that this turns into a kind of "pay what you can" at best and an awkward gamified mechanic to force people to stretch to pay more at its worst, resulting in people who have the money to pay subsidizing the people who don't, which maybe is actually a good thing? If nothing else, I see why it is profitable, even if customers ALL kind of dislike it.

(It also, though, causes people who "feel the weight of society" and feel a need to tip to ensure people get paid to subsidize the people who have the money but are selfish and don't give a shit. My guesses as to the balance of people who don't tip much because they can't and those who don't tip much because they won't affects my personal feelings on whether it is "fair" or not.)

Re: Why Tipping Is Impossible to Get Rid of in America

#79

Post by errantmind »

The annoying part are all the tipping-adjacent restaurants trying to get 'in' on tipping. Like burger joints and pizza carryout defaulting to 15% tips at checkout.

I could see it eventually going the way of internet advertising.. so noisy that a significant minority rejects the system altogether.

Re: Why Tipping Is Impossible to Get Rid of in America

#80

Post by ghaff »

encoderer wrote: post #55
gambiting wrote: post #25

"Customers looked at the higher prices ($25 for the chicken instead of $21, $17 cocktails instead of $14) and ordered fewer and less-expensive items, even though they were paying exactly the same amount for them by tacking 20% onto the check at meal’s end." You know what, I worry about this sometimes. We think that we're so evolved and advanced race - that we have poetry and literature, modern medicine and rocket sci…

I’ve come to believe that most people are not cheap but they have an aversion to feeling like they were suckered out of their money. They will pay $65k for a truck that is known to have incredible margins for the manufacturer, and be delighted to do so, unless they find out they could have gotten it for $59k.

There are all sorts of biases in pricing.

One I remember from Richard Thaler years ago was that, if you were comparison shopping in physical stores (this was pre-Web), if you saw a TV in a store that was $1 more expensive than in another store you had shopped in, you'd probably just shrug and buy it. But if some $2 item were $1 more, you'd probably go back to the first store even if it cost you more than $1 to do so--because fairness/being ripped off. (And I think most people are cheap at some level in many contexts.)

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