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Comment by mgaunard | Hacker News Reader

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mgaunard

Americans, please just stop tipping.

Thank you.

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I wonder if people know this is just an entirely unhelpful view on the subject.

You might want to review the guidelines for commenting:

"Be kind. Don't be snarky. ..."

It's someones view. If you feel its unhelpful, I'd be curious to know your reasoning behind it.

How is the original comment not snarky?

Perhaps it was, but surely that doesnt absolve replies from following the guidelines.

No, thanks. Server wages would have to be adjusted first, unless you want to screw those servers.

Please hold while I tip my waiter extra for serving me and my family on Christmas.

I'm sure there's some other cultural practice that you can crusade against, maybe in your own country?

(I do not tip in other countries like Japan as I respect their customs and wages are factored for no tip)

> Server wages would have to be adjusted first

Yep, that's what we wish for your waiters and waitresses: to be paid correctly, so they can enjoy a salary that does not depend on their appearance and the customer's mood and the state of mind of all parties involved, and so we can have the right price upfront when choosing from the menu and not feel pressured to pay more when leaving. If you want to sell me fries for $5, service included, just put it like this on the menu already. Abstract away the implementation.

While we are at it, please display the prices with all taxes included, in your shops too, I don't care about the prices without taxes, and I don't care for computing the tax myself, which varies from cities to cities :-)

To stop tipping would be the first step. The market would take care of the rest.

But I know its not that simple in this chicken and egg situation.

Yeah all of those waiters could just fallback on their massive savings and wait out the period between not being tipped and the laws changing.

Meanwhile I'm the dick that didn't pay these people for serving me, in the name of some crusade an article told me to do.

Or, we could stop tipping after the law changes. I think we all agree waiters and waitress should have decent income at all times?

Yes that's my point. I was replying to:

> To stop tipping would be the first step.

Ah, yes, sorry. I misread that sentence and understood the opposite thing.

I guess if people agreed to massively stop tipping all at the same time at a given, announced day, employers might be forced to adjust the salaries for the given month and maybe even the prices on the menus, but I don't see this coming.

Ideally, they would fall back on a robust social system, but that is another debate.

Ultimately we are talking about abolishing an undesireable status quo somehow. Not changing anything is certainly not going to have achieve that.

Undesirable to you and that blog writer. Not to me or many people, including servers.

I have no interest in abolishing tipping culture, I prefer it.

We also have differing opinions on what social systems are for apparently.

But all of that is okay, Merry Christmas.

Im not cheering for either side, but the article provides very concrete arguments to why tipping creates an environment where servers are revarded based on racist and sexist notions, which seems extremely undesireable to me. Is that a system you prefer? Why?

The problem is that the outrageous tipping policies that you have infect the rest of the world.

Good on you for not tipping in places where it’s not expected.

Now could you please go fix every travel blog that has bullshit SEO articles on “should I tip in $country” and always has the same BS content “5% if you’re unhappy, 10-20% if you were satisfied with service, at your discretion for outstanding service”.

If I had the power to fix blog content I'd do a lot more than that.

> 5% if you’re unhappy, 10-20% if you were satisfied with service

Looks reasonable in the US from what I saw, aren't these the correct numbers? I know it varies from place to places.

That was my point, that’s it BS copy paste content created for Americans, yet it doesn’t apply nearly anywhere.

Ok, I guess I found articles that actually gave the correct advice per country when I needed it.

That does not seem specific to the topic we are discussing, SEO spam impacts anything.

Recently a friend of mine visiting Italy was convinced that you had to tip in Italy, and told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about because I was French v.v

It’s your problem if you want to waste your money

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