I've seen this over and over in SF and now rarely eat out. Many friends and coworkers are taking the same approach, most of whom never used to cook at home. Scamming your customers 5, 10, 20% at a time doesn't seem like a great long term strategy
That's the inevitable outcome of this type of behavior. Like so many startup's attempts to squeeze customers in the short term, it works for a small window of time but leads to longer term consequences that are never properly accounted for.
For most tech workers an extra 20% on top of everything else is not that big of a deal, but for anyone who saves up for a night out that can be a big upset.
The only companies that can do this drip pricing and hope to get away with it long term are essential services without serious competition (for example telcos). All of the rest of these drip pricing schemes will come back to hurt companies in the long run.
I've basically given up on restaurants entirely. Even without ridiculous tipping and other surcharges, prices have gotten out of control. The food just isn't that great, and restaurant food is not known for being healthy, with excessive amounts of fat, sugar, and salt. The only function it fulfills is that I'm less hungry after eating it.
So these days I just prepare my own food. It's better in so many ways: cheaper, healthier, faster, no risk of disappointment.