You don’t feel the need to tip the people stacking shelves at Walmart or the Amazon driver.

In almost any other job we reasonably expect that someone’s compensation is between them and their employer and that the state should be making sure they’re protected from exploitatively low income.

Why are waiting staff a special case? People have worse jobs that come without tips and it doesn’t seem to bother anybody.

Those tips are expected now and irrelevant to service so it’s also just helping employers get away with paying those staff members less, so it’s really just subsidizing restaurants and cafes at this point.

I'm not aware of this, but then the U.S. has a different tipping culture to elsewhere. Have you got any examples?

Also, if it's your responsibility to pay the staff, do you also get the right to dictate how they do their job (within reason)?

For example?

Name one (let alone "lots").