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

Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 1001 posts

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#71

Post by zzzeek »

I can't believe these comments, what is wrong with you people?

if you are a highly paid technology worker, when you go to service establishments where people are working hourly and are desperate to work 40-50 hour weeks just to pay their rent and feed their kids, you *tip*. *generously*.

the US has an insanely out of control income inequality issue that is very intractible and structural. If you are so fortunate as to find yourself on the winning end of it, as is the case for a vast portion of Hacker News members, yes, (WHILE SAID STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY CONTINUES TO NOT BE SOLVED BY OTHER MEANS), you should be transferring to the members of your local community who are not so fortunate (AND ARE EXPLICITLY ASKING FOR TIPS AND/OR WORKING WHERE TIPPING IS CUSTOMARY) and you should be happy to do it.

hi - not as *a subsitute for raising the mimimum wage*, of course not, of COURSE wages should be raised. of COURSE if everyone were paid fairly in the first place, THAT WOULD BE GREAT. however, at the moment, the federal minimum wage hasn't been raised in 14 YEARS, so FOR THE MOMENT, until said inequality issue can be structurally modified, workers really could use tips. that's why they are asking for them.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#72

Post by notch656c »

bscphil wrote: post #68
giardia wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always done 20% because it's easy to do in my head. Nowadays it's a low tip for those tip prompts and I punch it in manually if I tip at all. When I delivered food my tip spread was funny. Many people wouldn't tip at all, many would just let you keep the change or give you a token amount (~5-10%), and a few people would give you over 50% tips. Not many gave me 15-25%.

> When I delivered food A "token amount" is pretty reasonable if you take tipping at face value, no? It's supposed to be a reward for good service. Waitstaff engage with you many times over the course of about an hour, and every person at a table receives service. It's fairly reasonable in this case to tip in proportion to the total bill. On the contrary, it's roughly the same amount of work for a delivery driver to…

See my below post. The issue is the delivery driver has to pick up the order from a full service restaurant much of the time. The full service restaurant workers will blackball the delivery driver if he doesn't tip them, and that happens proportionally to the cost of the food. After 2-3 times the delivery driver not tipping the restaraunt at the food he's picking up, he will be waiting forever until his customers cancel.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#73

Post by justinpowers »

hkarthik wrote: post #47

I wonder if the POS companies take a share of the tip as part of the total transactions flowing through their systems. Then they'd be incentivized to show the tip screen by default, and maybe jack up the default amount to 20-25%.

Most POS systems do not charge per transaction, neither by count nor dollar amount. It’s usually an upfront or flat monthly fee, based on number of terminals, level of service and feature set.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#75

Post by Pxtl »

Well, during COVID shutdowns I got into the habit of paying sit-down tips to takeout staff and 20% to patios because I knew how servers were suffering at the time, while I got to be a "laptop person" at home.

But now since there's been no formal "end" to the pandemic, it's hard to say when/if you change that.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#76

Post by tptacek »

godelski wrote: post #30

One thing I've never understood is the argument for tipping. It has always been "because servers are being paid less than minimum wage." Which the issue with that is that that varies state by state. Most west coast states do not have a separate tipped wage[0]. So the question is, why do we tip at all on the west coast[1]? Worse, it seems to be expanding and increasing in size[2] The followup argument is often "well t…

Tipping is a system in which customers explicitly, optionally, and variably share some of the cost of labor. It has the features of allowing individual patrons to modulate the labor subsidy they provide, based on their current price sensitivity, the value they place on warm fuzzies (don't dismiss this!), the relationship they want to build with the business, and the service they perceive themselves to be getting.

You can't do all these things with prices; prices apply universally across customers, and for the most part in the hospitality industry they can't float (see airline tickets as an example of a floating price, and the sheer loathing it creates in the customer base).

Later

I also should have added, and probably led with, the fact that tipping addresses a big agent-principal problem in hospitality: in restaurants where servers rely on tips, their incentives are strongly aligned with those of customers; without tips, virtually all the incentives are aligned with that of management.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#77

Post by bscphil »

tkuraku wrote: post #62
godelski wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have to outlaw it but we should do something more difficult: make it not the social norm.

Not sure how to do that when business can just decide not to pay fair wages and rely on strangers to supplement employee's income through tipping.

I mean, "require businesses to pay their employees minimum wage" is really not too big an ask in most countries.

Edit: to give you credit, I think that may have been your point. I lost track of context in the thread.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#78

Post by godelski »

zzzeek wrote: post #71

I can't believe these comments, what is wrong with you people? if you are a highly paid technology worker, when you go to service establishments where people are working hourly and are desperate to work 40-50 hour weeks just to pay their rent and feed their kids, you *tip*. *generously*. the US has an insanely out of control income inequality issue that is very intractible and structural. If you are so fortunate as t…

I'd rather just increase the minimum wage. Why do this pick and choose thing? If the minimum is not enough then it isn't enough for __everyone__.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#80

Post by boomchinolo78 »

tkuraku wrote: post #38

I think tipping should be outlawed. The price should be the price. Workers should not be subject to inconsistent pay for the same amount of work. In addition it gets rid of any bias in wages (more attractive people or people of different ethnicities might get higher tips for the same work).

What? Who is harmed? Are we to pretend all waiters do an equally good job? Good service gets good tips, bad service, not good. It's just an incentive system.

The only reason it starts to breakdown is because there are really cheap people out there who will skimp on the tip and then complain when waiters treat them like shit.

If you are a regular at a place and you tip well, they'll spoil you.

Post reply on HN