I wonder if there's any evidence of how many customers are lost because of dark patterns or general scumminess. I suspect it's not many. I generally try to avoid giving money to any company that actively hates it's customers. For example Amazon, which is the like going to the shadiest third world bazaar and having every scam in the book thrown at you each time you try to buy something.

Same for any company that uses chatbots or otherwise prevents customer support.

But my guess is that people only care about price, and we'll just see an even faster race to the bottom as people get more conditioned to using disrespectful interfaces.

Back to tipping, it's ironically the impersonalness of shitty automated service that enables this. Few self respecting people would ask for 20% tips when they did literally nothing and you served yourself. But a computer interface can shamelessly nag you for whatever.

I bought a bagel today and the checkout machine had options for 20%, 30%, or 40%! There was no way to opt out, so far as I could tell. I will not go back.

sometimes you have to hit the 'other' or 'custom amount' to set zero. They know what they're doing...

Whoa thanks! I thought I was alone. Everytime I bump into that it makes me doubt if there's people who actually leave 20%-30% tips regularly.

I tip my barista 20%, but they also just make my drink when I walk in and by the time I pay, it's waiting for me to walk out with. A relationship forged over years is well worth an extra quarter a day.

Where do you live where coffee is that cheap? $1.25?

Today my latte cost $6+ and I tipped $2 for it. Walked away wondering how the hell it got so expensive :/ (normally I just make them at home, but was lazy this morning)

I was referring to the 5% over 15% being a quarter. My latte is roughly $5 and I tip about $1.

On a visit with my mom to the bay area a few weeks ago, we went into a chain philly cheese sandwich place and after placing our order the guy at the counter directed her to the POS screen to swipe her card and it automatically suggested a 15% tip for the counterperson. I watched the visible uncomfort on her face while she tipped this business out of guilt, all the while my mouth was open wondering where it all went wrong. we had zero interaction with the counter guy beyong saying the order we wanted.

Don't tip anyone! Thats how it spreads

I'll take "Dangers of Vertical Integration" for $2,000, Alex.

Don't the restaurants set their own recommended tip options? I don't think that's Square's fault. And their readers are at least far better than the old school black rectangle ones that take forever to do each screen