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Comment by malshe | Hacker News Reader

I am totally with you. The other day I bought shaved iced for my child which took perhaps 1 minute to make. I was already paying $5 for a really tiny cup and then another $1 that showed up as the suggested tip on the card reader. The employee was looking directly at me and I couldn't see the option for "No Tip" fast enough. So I had to click on $1.

That $1 didn't mean anything to me until then. It was suddenly a tax I was paying for not being Larry David :)

The businesses who think that are striking a balance between good customer service and paying fair wages don't realize that the consumers are leaving with a bad taste in their mouths.

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I've simply stopped going to businesses that abuse their customers in this way. Most recently, a fast food place near me changed their POS system such that if you want to leave less than a 20% tip, you have to engage in three extra button presses that are reasonably well hidden in the UI, leading me to just hit the 20% button in order to stop holding up the line.

They're the latest on my "will never do business with them again" list.

3 buttons will not hold up a line that much. you just punked out, and then refused to go back because you couldn't press the "other tip amount".

Buying a bagel from a shop with a POS like that was the breaking point for me: I will never go back, and tipping nudges have now lost all persuasive force. I have returned to the tipping conventions I grew up with (which are still unreasonable, of course; the entire practice needs to end).

Most businesses are increasingly using one of a handful of different POS systems (square, toasttab and clover).

I imagine the tipping options are set up by default on those systems and it requires a (probably already very busy, maybe non tech savvy) manager to manually go in and find the options to change or disable.

The workers are probably NOT happy about the extra tips going away.

Nobody really wins no matter what here. I guess I blame the new crop of POS POS vendors? IDK

They have to choose the default tip amounts so I’m pretty sure tips are off by default. Also, there was an interview on Vox or NBC where business owners state it’s off by default but “you are leaving money on the table by not asking.”

I especially love the dark pattern whereby the “suggested tips” are shown in descending order from left to right, trying to take advantage of people’s instinct to pick the first (presumably lowest) option.

Sometimes with 35% or 40% in that default spot on the left… madness

Yep I've actually started channel my inner Larry David these days even shaming the boss for not paying their employees enough. I even volunteer to teach them coding so they can get a better job (ok I am sure that's not a thing in this market but still). I find it releases the awkwardness and frankly is fun!

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