Japan does this right: nobody tips. Customers pay the restaurant, and the restaurant pays the waiters.
Tipping is one small step away from paying bribes. Don't do it. Don't encourage it. Don't accept it.
Tipping is one small step away from paying bribes. Don't do it. Don't encourage it. Don't accept it.
But I suspect I'll not convince you.
It's sort of the same as the problem of automation: the people at the bottom get screwed for a while while the system self-corrects.
I don't know why I do it, and I don't really attempt to justify it beyond "This guy did something nice for me and made me believe he enjoyed it, so that is worth at least something" mixed with not wanting to worry about whether or not a tip is expected.
Apologies if I'm screwing up life for everybody else. I do at least pocket tips when I'm told that they aren't required/desired/expected/wanted, but I would much rather err on the side of over-tipping than under.
Otherwise, sorry that my immoderation has caused so much irreparable harm. Regardless, I'm not likely to change until/unless the system is changed.
One can argue that, because the advertised prices would be, say, 18% higher, the restaurant would fail due to customers preferring restaurants with lower advertised prices. But at least the experiment could be run in this case in a more or less ethical manner (costs to the business itself could be absorbed by a speculative insurer that is convinced business will not decrease for that particular restaurant). Might not even matter for really high end restaurants, since they don't advertise prices anyways.
Except on the West Coast... Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Minnesota and Montana all have the same minimum wage for tipped and non-tipped employees.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_Stat...