I'm personally bothered by the entire tipping culture in the US. Once used to acknowledge that someone has gone above and beyond, now it is just used by businesses as a means to pay below minimum wage (which is too low already). The fact that it is also percentage based this means a person working at a restaurant with higher prices likely makes more money just because I'm charged more for the food. This doesn't seem fair to those workers who are wait staffing at a more affordable restaurant. I can tip above standard percentages at those restaurants, but this isn't going to translate to the whole.

It is also well known that other discriminatory issues factor in to tips (age, gender, race, attractiveness, etc...)

Bottom line, tipping should be thrown out as an expectation and should have zero impact on wait staff wages. Restaurants should be forced to pay at or above minimum wage and menu prices can be adjusted accordingly. As dependent as today's society is on the food service industry, maybe it is about time they unionize and start striking at the local and/or national levels until some laws are changed to treat them fairly.