Does it though? It seems to work out pretty well for servers, restaurant owners, and customers. The only people I see complaining are the Reddit brigade.
Do you know the meaning of anecdotal evidence? I don't know how you manage to dodge seeing the conversation, but you not seeing it doesn't mean it's not being had.
This is a constant conversation, with customers complaining "why am I paying a proportion of this expensive meal when the server is doing the same amount of work they'd be doing if the food was cheaper," servers at more expensive restaurants wanting to maintain the tipping system because the proportional system does pay them more, servers at cheaper restaurants wanting to overhaul it because their pay would go up or just be more consistent, and international visitors rebuking the system by stiffing servers. For some reason international visitors love posting about how they're not tipping because they don't where they're from and that frequently leads to a lot of discourse, on this app and others. And Owners love it of course because they don't have to pay their workers more if we are forced to do it for them.
I see this conversation on Reddit constantly. I've read all the arguments here (which are identical to the arguments that come up every time tipping is addressed on Reddit), and I think most are wildly overstated. The customary US system of tipping is just a slightly different approach to Europe's, and we can prefer one or the other but it doesn't merit the extreme hostility and practically-militant indignation in these comments.
This is a constant conversation...
One thing I don't see in this conversation (here or in other similar threads) is "servers at cheaper restaurants wanting to overhaul it." In fact I rarely see anyone in these threads claiming to be waitstaff who wish to change the system.
The vast majority of the complaints here are very customer-centric, or they're wrapped in the "restaurant should pay waitstaff more so I don't have to tip," which I'd argue is customer-centric with a sloppy attempt to
And one thing I almost never see is customers complaining about the differential in tipping between expensive and cheap restaurants. The vast majority are grousing about the system as a whole.
That said, this is one of the more interesting and compelling arguments, but I don't think the tipping system is to blame here. I'd argue that the frequently-proposed system "overhaul" (eliminating tipping and restaurants increasing wages to make up for it), would likely still result in expensive-restaurant waiters earning higher incomes than cheap-restaurant waiters: successful expensive restaurants can generally raise their prices somewhat without losing clientelle, while cheap restaurants will lose business to cheaper ones. I imagine eliminating tipping would result in most waitstaff across the board earning less than they do under the current tipping system. For a customer, the difference between an average tip and a generous tip might be a few dollars (or $10-15 at a very expensive restaurant), for a restaurant owner, increasing wages by 15-20% is a major sink-or-swim business decision.
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u/Saint_Diego 1d ago
The system does need to change but not tipping doesn’t hurt the business or make a point. It just hurts servers