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I am ignoring the commission aspect of the service, because in practice there often isn't any. Tips are frequently pooled, meaning all three servers in your hypothetical would end up with the same cut of the day's take regardless of their personal performance. Besides, if muffin vendors want to incentivize their staff with a commission scheme, why not just incentivize their staff with a commission scheme? Why force the general public to do it (badly) for them?

And the idea that eliminating tips would be "jacking up" prices is exactly the line of faulty reasoning that tips are designed to exploit. The muffin already costs 20% more than the number on the little plaque in front of it claims. Without tips the same amount of money would leave the customer's pocket and the employer and employee would still ultimately split the proceeds from that sale the same way. No prices actually change, but the numbers become a lot more honest and simpler for all parties to reason about.

The truth is vendors don't want prices to be simple to reason about because when they're difficult to reason about the other actors in the system will, on average, tend to make mistakes of reasoning in the vendor's favor.

> In the tipping model, a very efficient server could, say, serve 100 miffins/hr and be tipped 20% each accordingly. A fast, but rude server could serve 100 muffins, but perhaps get 0-10% tip each sale. A slow, but polite server may only serve 50 muffins, but garner 20% tip each.

Well, sure, in some world where tipping actually reflects service and politeness alone, rather than being significantly determined by gender, race, and attractiveness.

> If you simply jack the muffin price up and distribute equally among all servers, as you suggest, then there is no incentive to perform above average - no lesson learned for lackluster performance.

Sure there is, employers can monitor performance and use pay incentives (and punitive disincentives, including termination.)

Employers of workers in customer service jobs in industries that aren't typically tipped do this (and even in tipped industries, they do some monitoring and at least the negative incentives.)

All I'm saying is that, while it may not be a perfect system, I like having the the power to judge the quality of service provided to me on a case by case basis.

> a very efficient server could, say, serve 100 miffins/hr and be tipped 20% each accordingly. A fast, but rude server could serve 100 muffins, but perhaps get 0-10% tip each sale. A slow, but polite server may only serve 50 muffins, but garner 20% tip each.

This seems like a weird argument. Do the customers get no say in whether or not they want muffins?

You seem to be implying that a person behind a counter selling muffins is able to alter dramatically the demand for muffins by being efficient.

Most cafes or stores that I see are basically waiting for customers or have only a couple of customers, nowhere near reaching the limits of how fast a worker can throw muffins at them.

I realize you're only using muffins as an example but it's the same with most food places I see.

"(without tipping) then there is no incentive to perform above average - no lesson learned for lackluster performance."

How is it then that non-tipped employees have incentive to perform above average, or learn lessons from lackluster performance?

Every single industry has already figured out how to motivate and reward employee performance. Tips are completely inconsequential in this aspect.

As someone who has worked in the service industry, and now frequently dine out, I vehemently dissagree that the prospect of a larger tip does not motivate service industry staff.

No matter - do away with tips. I will continue to tip voluntarily and I garuntee I will recieve superior service from appreciative staff.

They don't know how much you're tipping in the beginning so you're almost never going to get "superior" service on the first go. Also highly dependent on context. Moving some food around doesn't have a big spectrum of quality.

Tipping voluntarily as you say is just building up a relationship with money. Neither unique nor special, but it's not exactly what's being discussed here.