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Comment by listenallyall | Hacker News Reader

> If you buy something at a counter, there is no social expectation that you tip

In the USA, plenty of counter-service restaurants/shops have tip jars. Further, many counter-service food outlets have added a tipping option to their credit card process, usually with 15% as the minimum.

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Those tip jars are basically a "if you don't want to deal with coinage or $1 dollar bills, we'll take it off your hand" option. You won't be thought poorly of for not tipping at a cafe or counter-service restaurant the same way you would be for not tipping a regular waiter.

Thanks Starbucks, for taking those dollar bills off my hands so I don't have to deal with them! How convenient of you! The homeless guy outside will also perform the same service, by the way, but I wouldn't be "supporting a living wage" if I gave him the money instead of your baristas.

Starbucks isn't taking anything; they are receiving from people who give willingly. If you choose to give them your money, you've got nobody but yourself to blame. In the case of tip jars at counters you can't even blame social pressure, participating in such a scheme is completely voluntary and most people do not.

Your argument is reductive. ALL tips are given willingly.

Starbucks could, at any moment, bar individual stores from placing a tip jar at their registers. Just like McDonald's. No tips, no issue, no should I or shouldn't I?

Tips to wait staff are voluntary but have significant social pressure behind them. Tip jars at counters have no social pressure behind them. That's not reductive, that's just the practical reality of tipping culture in America. If you refuse to tip a waitress a very significant portion of the American population will consider you tantamount to a thief, a morally bankrupt person. Refusing to put your change in the tip jar doesn't even cause people to bat an eye. The social dynamics between these two scenarios are worlds apart. Ignoring these disparate social dynamics is reductive.

If you're going to be outraged that Starbucks offers you the opportunity to tip people at the counter, perhaps I should feign outrage that you spend your money on starbucks instead of making your own coffee and giving the difference to the homeless. Starbucks has a significant profit margin after all; that is money you could be donating!

Your outrage would be misdirected, as I have not patronized Starbucks in many years. But among friends who do, they absolutely feel pressure to tip, especially when they see the same barista every single day. I'll trust them over you, thanks.

> "But among friends who do, they absolutely feel pressure to tip,"

I'm pretty damn skeptical of that, since in America the vast majority of customers do not put anything in counter tip jars. Maybe you've got some sort of strange selection bias going on...

They have tip jars, but there is no social expectation that you should use them. Sometimes I drop my change in them if I don't want it in my pocket.

> many counter-service food outlets have added a tipping option to their credit card process

I see this as just a little bit underhanded... creating the expectation of a tip in situations where one is not needed.

Also, the presence of a tip jar does not create the need for a tip.

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