Coming from a country with no tipping at all, it was somewhat creepy how the people expecting tips acted when I visited the US for the first time. You can tell when friendliness is fake/forced, and living in a country without tipping you don't see it nearly as much. I felt a bit uncomfortable.

Yeah, the huge difference is that in the US waiters or even managers might confront you if you choose to not tip.

There’s tipping everywhere (more or less, there are some exceptions). But there’s just one country that I know of where 15% is ”no tip” because it’s the expected baseline, and 25% is a small tip because it’s 5-10% over the expected minimum so the actual ”tip” part of a 25% tip is actually less.

I tip 0-10% where I live. Just like most Americans tip 15-25% but the first 15 are just eaten by expectation. There is zero difference except that 1) my menu shows actual prices 2) wait staff have a living wage regardless of tips or how busy the restaurant was that day.

What do you mean? Service is usually far better in Asia than in Western countries and there's no tipping.

I've been to both, a lot, and I've not noticed any difference whatsoever. Good service is the norm everywhere, honestly, and the odd instance of bad service happens everywhere too.

Beyond that, I personally find that leveraging someone's economic desperation to coerce deference out of them is disgusting. Give me staff who have the option to walk out without material harm, and choose not to.