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Comment by redm | Hacker News Reader

In my experience, tipping culture first started to change with Starbucks, but it really seemed to accelerate with integrated tips in terminals like square and point of sale devices.

In short, when the checkout terminal asks you to round up your change for a donation to help kids, and the cashier is looking at you, nobody wants to feel like the jerk that says no.

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> when the checkout terminal asks you to round up your change for a donation to help kids, and the cashier is looking at you, nobody wants to feel like the jerk that says no.

I find it helps to remember that the corporation is not in it to help needy children, but to launder your extra pennies into being able to claim charitable donations on behalf of the company and consequently reduce their tax bill.

When you look at it as corporate greed, feeling like a jerk disappears.

>I find it helps to remember that the corporation is not in it to help needy children, but to launder your extra pennies into being able to claim charitable donations on behalf of the company and consequently reduce their tax bill.

This is an urban legend. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/06/10/fac...

It is an urban legend but it lets them claim to be the good guy because they contributed XX dollars to some worthy cause when it wasn't ever their money. Even if they decide to match some small amount from their profits, it's disingenuous to expect that match when they could just make that donation directly and do the right thing. They're going to make that donation either way because they cap the total amount they're contributing in most cases. I gave up trying to meet social expectations when the tipping and rounding up got so out of control. I still don't understand why there is an expectation of a tip for somebody who's handing a bag over the counter that they didn't nothing to prepare or even provide service since I'm not sitting at a table and expecting drink refills and everything else that I'm happy to tip for.

I get that they're underpaid but if I'm already paying more than a reasonable price for the product, I shouldn't have to pay yet again to subsidize the company who provided the product by supplementing their workers salaries just to allow them tomake a fair wage.

I don’t make charity decisions on my doorstep nor at a point-of-sale.

Instead, we plan our giving, update the plan annually, and I have no problem saying no to the adhoc requests for me to pay for a “company’s” contribution.

I have no issues saying no to all of these, at the expense of being called a jerk. I am not tipping someone to do a job that they were supposed to do in the first place, especially in a high tax regimes.

You may ask what has taxation got to do with tipping ? Well in a welfare state, the employees are supposed to be paid a moderate wage in accordance with living wages and inflation. I suppose some portion of the 50%+ tax the government rips off from me goes to this. Am not shelling out a tip on top of this.

In low tax regimes, there is an argument to be made for 15-25% tipping but even that doesn't stand true in current climate. The government has intervened and increased minimum wages everywhere. So unless there is some balance, tipping beyond a certain limit is economically illogical and overrated.

>I have no issues saying no to all of these, at the expense of being called a jerk.

It's less about being called a jerk, and more about the fact that these are repeated games you're playing with the people who now expect these tips.

Someone calling you a jerk is minor; someone acting on the fact they think you're a jerk is another. Best case you get poor service, worst case, who knows...

Its okay to boycott services where tipping is expected instead of giving a fair pay to the employees.

Upfront tipping is especially a red flag for me.

It's not a game if the answer is always No. Just always say No.

I think it changed with tipping screens on Square POS. Many states were pushing businesses to accept EMV payments and deprecate cash back in 2017 after Apple Pay became ubiquitous, and Square was the easy to use up-and-comer in that space. Flipping a screen and asking the customer to do a thing couldn't be beat.

Starbucks was quite late to "press the tip button to continue" culture. I think they added that to their payment flows in 2021, in fact.

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