It's different because in restaurants and bars it is so well established and priced in, it's really just part of the price.

Then make it a part of the price!

This is the same US mentality where businesses are allowed to advertise the pre-tax price of a product. Essentially it's just a way for the seller to lie about their product price (yet the financial industry has free rein to force business to not itemize the CC fee).

Everything seems more expensive in Europe, but at least you're paying prices that already include VAT.

There are restaurants that have tried, several in Brooklyn currently do. I guess we'll see how it all plays out.

This is like saying, "paying for your food is subsidizing the business." No customer can "subsidize" a business. If anything, you're hurting the business by tipping your servers. If you were to pay the bar directly and not tip, you can't assume that 100% of that would go directly to the bartenders. Profits are generally seen as some percentage of revenue, so those would be taken out, then the inceased wage would mean the business would have to pay more in payroll taxes, so that gets taken out as well. The only way to ensure the bartender doesn't _lose_ money from the change would be to pay the bar _more_ than you would have tipped. But in that case, you'd buy fewer drinks. In the end, the only one who profits is the tax man while you get less beer and fewer appletinis.

It depends my friend worked as bartender when he lost a job in 2001 he made about 90K thanx to tips which was not too far off what he was making as software engineer. So I highly doubt a bar would pay anything close to it.