Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

Re:Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes by saghm on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @02:12AM (#34500444)

A few days ago I got dinner delivered, and I added a $5 tip through the app (which came out to about 22%). When the delivery person came, he expressed disappointment about the size of the tip, which really surprised me. As much as I know that it would be better for businesses to pay better wages rather than tips being expected, I also know that the system being unfair isn't any consolation to workers who are just trying to make a living and don't have any power over the situation, so I've always tried to make sure that I give a sizable tip whenever receiving any sort of service where it might be expected. I admit that I haven't had any recent discussions with anyone who relies on tips to make a living in the past several years (the last one that I remember was a discussion with my older brother who had waited tables at a restaurant for several years), but my general understanding was that 15% tends to be low enough to not make up for below minimum wage that restaurants can get away with paying due to exceptions in law for jobs where tips are expected, but that 20% was a good baseline. Has this expectation changed in recent years? (Based on the specific wording of the complaint, I know that the delivery person did see the exact amount I tipped, so I don't think that the complaint was due to the app taking a share, but I guess I don't know for sure since he might have assumed I knew that or didn't think to mention it).

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Re:Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes by Acutulus on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @04:34AM (#34501549)

It's hard to say. I would argue that yeah, that baseline tip %age is creeping upwards in the US at least, though the rate at which is hard to quantify. There seem to be a lot of social factors at play that are continuing to put upward pressure on that number. I was taught 15-20% a decade or more back, but that feels to be closer to 25-30% now.

Delivery app tip culture is a fascinating rabbithole in and of itself. /r/doordash is a great repository of posts to look at. You can get a sense of expected order pricing/tip amounts/driving distances sufficient to compel a dasher to pick up your order. Much like with the restaurant industry you will notice that quite a few (I would say a majority of posters there) take issue not with Doordash but with the delivery recipient as the cause of their low earnings. Tips are the name of the game, and any fervor to change or push Doordash into changing their payment models are hushed by the collective din that laments "stingy customers".

Whether it was planned or a happy coincidence, that mentality is a sociocultural win for doordash as a company. The customer, who themselves can make no guarantees how much of that tip a driver will receive if paying digitally, is to bear the burden of blame more than the company that contracted that service to a driver when said driver feels underpaid. It feels me with a sense that's hard to describe. Disheartenment maybe? That new markets and services appear and the tipping culture we crafted for ourselves comes in with them, absolving some companies of paying market wages and sometimes shielding them from certain wage laws.

I wish we in the US could collectively agree that this culture of tipping is (imo) a net negative for everyone involved. But with an economy looking over an uncertain horizon, and the recent bottom-to-top wealth transfers facilitated by the chaos of covid, I think the simple act of throwing a few bucks to the service worker will remain the average American's daily act of "helping the little guy" regardless of how real that benefit truly is.

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Re:Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes by saghm on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @03:27PM (#34509783)

Thanks for the insights!

> It's hard to say. I would argue that yeah, that baseline tip %age is creeping upwards in the US at least, though the rate at which is hard to quantify.

I misread this at first and thought that it was saying the recommendation was to tip at a percentage equal to your age, which I found intriguing. It's certainly a lot easier for me to afford a 29% tip right now than it would have been ten years ago when I was 19, and that trend probably holds for most people, but age isn't _that_ accurate a proxy for wealth given that everyone gets old, but most people don't become rich.

> I wish we in the US could collectively agree that this culture of tipping is (imo) a net negative for everyone involved. But with an economy looking over an uncertain horizon, and the recent bottom-to-top wealth transfers facilitated by the chaos of covid, I think the simple act of throwing a few bucks to the service worker will remain the average American's daily act of "helping the little guy" regardless of how real that benefit truly is.

I strongly agree with you that tipping is overall worse for both workers and customers compared to guaranteeing proper compensation and then adjusting prices to reflect this in lieu of tips, but even as someone looking to "help the little guy" it feels like I don't have any significant ability to improve the situation, and I ultimately don't think it's right for me to withhold tips to try to pressure companies to pay their workers better. It just doesn't seem like it should be my choice to weaponize someone else's misfortune, even if I think it might help things in the big picture.

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