[zamadatix]

I've always tipped the customary amount but using the logic "it screws over the worker so it's wrong" feels like a bad litmus test for whether trying to change a societal custom is actually right or wrong. By this logic there would be no right way to try to end things like the custom of folks pumping your gas by pumping it yourself instead (funnily enough, still several states this is actually illegal) because it would screw over the gas pump employee. That doesn't mean it's right to not tip at a food joint in the US, it just means there's more to something being right or wrong than whether a worker is the main one affected.

To me, I don't think there is any way to change the custom beyond regulation. The incentives just feel too misaligned. The crowd of customers leans towards going to the place with the lower list prices, intentional or not. The restaurants will never collectively decide on their own accord to go against that flow themselves. The servers are never going to collectively force the restaurants to make that decision. Each option requires "everyone just decide to forever on operate this new way which forces no-tipping alignment all together" and that's just never going to realistically happen. Customers aren't going to form a long lasting collective which convinces the servers to press the business nor are they going to form a long lasting collective to boycott businesses directly. Businesses aren't going to care about anything but never optionally baking in higher prices on the menu since it's giving customers away to competition. What each group actually wants as a majority is irrelevant for something as minor as this. The only way it happens is if the majority are for it being regulated as such, which can happen with representatives deciding how the collective of restaurants need to behave.

tl;dr: I tip because not tipping isn't going to result in change, not because the only way to enact change is to make sure a worker is in no way ever affected during the change.

[fnordpiglet]

Yeah, personally I think the tipping culture is wrong and I don’t like people to feel they have to grovel for my pittance. It feels gross to wield that power over people. If they give bad service they should simply be fired, rather than having to earn that on each and every exchange. Some restaurants have started including tips without optionality. This feels right - it scales with the business volume. By making the business more successful, cross selling upselling and creating loyal customers, the wait staff wins. Probably the way to change things is to seek these restaurants out and make their business model successful rather than screwing over folks who are just trying to get by.