News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on WSJ: Americans Are Tipping Less Than They Have in Years.

Re:WSJ: Americans Are Tipping Less Than They Have in Years by Animats on Friday January 10, 2025 @03:47PM (#42659999)
It's become silly. I go to Starbucks and buy a pre-packaged item. I walk to the counter. I put the item in front of the scanner. The operator pushes a button and the total appears. I put my credit card atop the credit card reader. The credit card system asks for a 15% tip.

This is too much.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:WSJ: Americans Are Tipping Less Than They Have in Years by mrayycombi on Friday January 10, 2025 @08:34PM (#42662482)
Indeed, you need to tip for the privilege of self service.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:WSJ: Americans Are Tipping Less Than They Have in Years by sixothree on Saturday January 11, 2025 @03:24AM (#42664287)
Just pay your freaking workers. I’m sick of paying for labor someone else benefits from.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:WSJ: Americans Are Tipping Less Than They Have in Years by jemmyw on Saturday January 11, 2025 @05:49PM (#42669580)
Where I live (NZ) nearly all cafes have a manual espresso machine and making a coffee is a bit of work. We don't have a tipping culture at all, but I'd gladly tip a dollar to a barista who makes a better than usual coffee.

When I visited the US recently I noticed that manual coffee machines aren't much of a thing anymore - or maybe it was an area thing because I don't recall this being the case when I lived in the US briefly 10 years ago.

The upshot of this is - it's not skilled work to produce a coffee, they're not as good (on average), and they're easily 2-3 times the price per coffee after tipping. I can only assume that cafes in the US are making an absolute killing.

[ Parent | on HN ]