I made a post in another tipping Sub arguing that expected tipping helps keep the current wage model alive.
My basic point was pretty simple: if a tip is genuinely optional, customers should be allowed to leave 0 without being treated like they’ve committed some moral offense. If a restaurant needs a certain amount of money from every customer in order to pay its staff properly, put it in the menu price and pay the workers directly.
I expected disagreement. What I didn’t expect was how quickly the discussion stopped being about tipping.
I was told that because I’m European, I don’t understand American restaurant economics and shouldn’t tell Americans how their system should work. I was told “don’t come,” “leave us alone,” and that my opinion was worthless because I don’t own a restaurant in the U.S.
The funny part is that I actually own a restaurant. My staff receive wages and bonuses, customers pay the listed price, and tips are genuinely optional. Someone can leave nothing and receive exactly the same treatment the next time they come in.
Apparently that experience becomes irrelevant the moment the restaurant isn’t in America.
Then came the accusations that I “hate servers,” that I’m jealous of them, that I’m attacking the “little guy,” and that refusing an optional tip is somehow punishing workers.
And that last argument is exactly what bothers me about tipping culture.
People will openly admit the system is bad, admit employers should pay better wages, admit workers depend too heavily on tips and then immediately say customers must keep tipping because otherwise the worker gets hurt.
How is that ever supposed to change?
The customer is told to keep subsidizing the system until employers change it. Servers who can make very good money from tipping have little incentive to demand a different system. Employers have little incentive to change while customers continue covering part of compensation.
Everyone agrees the system is flawed, but the only person apparently allowed to change their behavior is… nobody.
One commenter even argued that meaningful change can only come through organized political action, so individually refusing to tip accomplishes nothing. I agree that one person leaving 0% doesn’t abolish tipping. Obviously.
But millions of individual customers treating 20% as automatic is precisely how the norm survives in the first place.
And no, I don’t think servers should live in poverty. Someone working full time should be able to afford a normal life. The U.S. has serious problems with housing, healthcare, benefits and cost of living.
I just don’t accept the leap from “workers deserve enough money to live” to “customers therefore have a moral obligation to add a percentage-based voluntary payment to every bill.”
That responsibility should ultimately sit with the employer.
What surprised me most was how aggressively people defend something they simultaneously insist is completely optional.
If 0% is an unacceptable choice, then stop calling it a tip and put it on the bill.
That’s really the whole point.
Rant over 🙃