[vladvasiliu]

> It is a mechanism to move labor costs to the consumer.

How does this work? The corp already handles some form of payment to the worker, especially when you tip as part of a card payment. And in both cases, the consumer foots the bill.

How's it different from paying the worker more and asking for more money upfront?

[xp84]

The gready sleazeballs who like the "tipping" system (mostly, restaurant owners) would prefer to pay all their employees $0 and have all diners/customers/etc pay 100% of the wages out of guilt.

While 10% was customary in the first half of the 20th century, the standard tip gradually increased to 15% by the 1980s.

In 2025 it's not uncommon to see little shortcut buttons for 20, 25, 30%. You can see where this is going. They want us to tip 50% and they pay $0, even though restaurant menu prices are one of the things that has experienced more inflation than other things.

[mindcandy]

> would prefer to pay all their employees $0 and have all diners/customers/etc pay 100% of the wages out of guilt.

It is my understanding that this is literally the origin of tipping.

After the abolition of slavery, there were many black people newly looking for work. And, there were employers looking for workers, but unwilling to pay money to black people.

So, someone got the idea to promote that tipping was something fancy European aristocrats did. And, you can be fancy like they were by tipping my workers (that I refuse to pay).

Tipping was previously seen as un-Americanly classist. And, most states tried to ban it when it started to pick up steam. But, it was too late. So many employers were enjoying unpaid labor that the bans were repealed.

Later, when Minimum Wage was established, workers who lived on tips alone were almost all black. So, unsurprisingly, tipped workers were excluded from the wage regulation. And, today they are only acknowledged as fractional minimum laborers.

[xp84]

Perhaps shouting these problematic racist origins from the rooftops is our best shot at getting the support of the Left on board to at least establish that having business models based on obligatory tipping is unethical, if not to ban it.

[assword]

It would backfire. They’re already losing the culture war. I don’t think the demographic you’re targeting will be very valuable on the scale of real political action.

[Workaccount2]

The workers love the tipping system too, and it is directly in their interest to talk about how much it sucks, so that you are guilted into tipping more.

I spent 10 years in the food service industry working every position. The whole thing is racket, and the narrative used is carefully worded.

[cafard]

When I first had the money to pay for restaurant food ca. 1975, 15% was standard. I think that the Waiter Rant guy considered anything under 20% an insult, about 30 years after that.

[FeloniousHam]

Ah yes, the greedy sleazeballs. If you knew that the total cost of the meal would be the same, say $20 for the meal, does it to you matter if: 1) you pay $20 "no tip" and the owner pays non-tip minimum wage, or b) you pay $16.50 for the food and $3.50 separately to the server in the form of a tip ?

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

The problem is that the customer does not know the cost of the meal; they typically rely on the business owner to be upfront about that. Tipping is guilt-motivated drip pricing. The only thing the commenter got wrong is that the restaurateur has to prime the customer with some cost so they can voluntarily add a percentage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drip_pricing

[geodel]

> If you knew that the total cost of the meal would be the same,..

Huh, why should I know this at all. I read the prices online or in restaurant when I enter in. I will assume that as my cost of food.

[xp84]

> If you knew that the total cost of the meal

That's the crux of it. All surcharges are scams designed to trick the customer into thinking the meal is priced lower than it is. Sales tax not built into menu prices is a scam that the government is at fault for allowing. All other surcharges including the socially-obligatory tip and the scummy "health care surcharges" common in California, are scams that the restaurant is choosing to do. All of these are insulting.

It's no different than telling women I'm 6' and then when they meet me revealing that's only when I'm wearing cowboy boots and a big hat.

[FeloniousHam]

I don't like tipping (in most cases) either, but who is greedy here? The owner, who is following social norms and separating the optional service charge from the cost of the food, or the server dependent on the tip for their wage?

[pc86]

There is a very clear different from the consumer's point of view between paying a 20% delivery fee with no tip (and realistically having most drivers still expect an in-person tip) and a 5% delivery fee with a tip amount of your choosing (and maybe only 1/1000 drivers expecting/requesting yet more).

I have always been a generous tipper and I try to always put myself in that person's shoes when deciding how much to tip but even I notice the psychological difference. If you don't ever think about it, have never had a job waiting tables or dealing with the public, it'd almost be a nonstarter to have a higher delivery fee regardless of tip expectation.

[gmadsen]

psychologically they are very different. Framing the wages as a "tip" moves the conversation to the drivers and users, where users think tips are an out of hand culture problem and drivers view the users as stingy. Then the company sits out of the spotlight collecting their absurd rents

[shit_game]

It moves the real cost of the additional labor from the prices displayed for items (like you would see in a B&M grocery store) to some tertiary part of the purchase process that is displayed 1) after the used has gone through the effort of app navigation and selecting their purchases and 2) has been through the majority of the purchase funnel and self-selected as a high-prospect sale. This helps keep the listed prices for items in these apps relatively comparable to their in-store listed prices, acting to convince the user the sale is reasonable (similar to online sellers making up for low listed prices with high shipping prices). Moving this additional cost to some tertiary step lessens the impact of goods pricing seeming too high by adding a "small optional fee" at the end of the purchase process that the user is expected to subconciously understand is effectively a bid on labor. I'd imagine the psychology behind it is depressing.

[Eisenstein]

That is true. What is also true is that having things delivered to you is not free, and the prices of the goods cannot be same for delivery vs warehousing in a store.

[pc86]

Sure it can.

I'm not saying it's free but it's not a foregone conclusion that 100% (or any percent) of that cost must be passed on to the consumer.

If a manufacturer/distributor/restaurant is willing to accept lower margins for the increased reach and market access, they will.

[Eisenstein]

It cannot be the case because the business would cease to exist in their current form if they did that. They would close their retail stores and become online only, because there is now zero incentive for anyone to go to the store instead of ordering it and having it delivered.

[geodel]

Different because now list price of a sandwich is $8.99 instead of $14 that customer will actually pay. Hotels, resorts, restaurants, tours etc are master at this. Even after knowing these add-ons people fall for it often enough to keep this practice running.

Besides economists think positively of this so it has support not just from interested parties but officials, think tanks etc.