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Comment by corin_ | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if they've ever AB tested, somehow doubt it.

Would tips go up if the buttons were changed from 20/25/30 to 25/30/35, or would people type in their own amount more, or pay no tip more? What about if there was only one suggested tip rate, 25%? Or a slider you could drag from X to Y? Or...

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Or maybe skip the fancy UIs and recommend paying cash for tips?

As someone who's worked service jobs in my youth, I'd really like to stress the importance of cash over CC tips.

Pay is usually abysmal and CC tips don't always make it into the pockets of the people who deserve it, not to mention the delay.

Also, cash is easier to split when necessary. For example, between the wait staff and the kitchen staff.

So please always tip in cash.

I was under the impression that generally (maybe this is a UK thing?) credit card tips get pooled and shared out between staff, whereas cash tips, although they sometimes get pooled, are more likely to go straight to the person you give it to.

Either way, it's not really relevant to this story..

I worked in a kitchen for almost a year (in the UK). CC card tips appeared on my weekly payslip. Cash tips never got split with kitchen staff.

That's a real shame.

The client's impression of the wait staff is greatly influenced by the kitchen staff. That's why we would split our tips.

In Germany, tips using EC-cards or CCs get taxed. Tips in cash don't.

I think the case is that cash tips should be declared on tax forms, but rarely are (at least that's how it is in the UK)

IIRC, in Austria, cash tips are tax-exempt, but exactly what constitutes a tip (and who can receive them) is defined by tight rules. I suspect it might be similar in Germany.

No, I'm not going to support your tax evasion.

As long as we are forcing people to pay a surprise tip at the end of the trip and celebrating how much cash we are raking in, why not make the tip amounts 5000%, 10000% and 100000%, with jail time for those who don't pay the minimum tip? Fits in with the rest of the horrific police state that the thugs in control of New York government have implemented there. Saves the cost of a trip to North Korea, with all of the authoritarianism!

You need to go read up on what a tip is if you think it is "forced", or indeed a "surprise". And the buttons for quick tip-giving are nothing to do with the government, either.

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