An article featuring complaints about some of the lowest paid people in SF getting paid a little more because of a new technology lacks some self awareness.
Tipping at restaurants is bad enough: why do I have to decide how much the waiter should make? If you make me think about it, 20% gross honestly seems way too much: the back of the house contributes a much larger portion of the value of the meal, so it feels like I'm stiffing _them_! But tipping waiters is ingrained enough that I just always give that 20%.
Any other transaction where apps try to add tipping, though? That's going to be $0 every single time, guilt free. If anything, I feel like I'm doing my part to keep companies from ruining another social interaction.
Do away with the tipping and pay people properly for thier labor. En lieu of that happening (and I don't see it happening soon) I'll still tip at these kiosks. I don't have much sympathy for people who complain about them but I get your point.
There's a weird economy to tips - in many (most?) US restaurants, the kitchen and non-wait staff (hosts, bussers, barbacks) are tipped out at the end of each night by those who receive the tips.
A busy night at a healthy place where everyone is hustling can send everyone home happy.
Repeated studies have shown that tipping is inherently discriminatory, with people of color faring worse than, say, conventionally "pretty" blonde women.
In this case, the workers don't even get the one benefit of tipping that wait staff do, namely, cash that can go largely untaxed.
What's happening here is that companies are setting a new normal that lets them not only avoid the cost of employees by calling their workers "independent contractors," they're even avoiding the cost of paying them a fair wage at all.
This isn't about guilt, it's about service workers being hurt by basic concepts like fair and equitable pay, benefits and stability being replaced by a gig economy where their take-home pay is subject to the whims of patrons' moods.
My main objection was more to do with the sentiment of well paid tech workers I have met who complain about this technology because they feel pressured to tip a low paid workers more. A position I have little sympathy for.
Anything?