itwontbelik

There are a lot of business dark patterns, and when they are prevalent in that society, that society is always poor and corrupt.

An Egyptian friend, once warned his friends about me: "Now he's American. When he says 2pm he means 2pm, and when he says we have to leave at 8, that means we have to leave at 8. This is why Americans are rich. They respect schedules, and care more abut business than friends or family."

When I was a child, the set of rules were pretty common:

* Don't tip at counters

* Don't tip the owner of an establishment

* Tip on the quality of the service, not the quality of the food

* Very low tips should be utilized only in case of very bad service. (A penny tip sends a much bigger message than no tip)

* Round up to the nearest dollar for taxi drivers or Ubers, since they are almost all self-employed, and you don't tip bus drivers do you?

Also, I only tip in cash, and only by putting that cash directly in the hand of one of my servers. Otherwise the manager, who is not supposed to be tipped will likely take a cut.

I have lived in Istanbul for a decade now and while many of us do tip, and tipping is rarely expected. The expectation is higher than foreigners, but if you live here, you end up eating at the same places over and over, and that expectation goes away fairly quickly. When I first moved here I realized I was tipping 3-5x what a local would, because I was tipping American standard.

Tipping is mostly expected when there is a lot of service involved in the meal. This means either fine-dining, or Meyhanes where you spend 3-5 hours drinking heavily (Raki/Ouzo) and eating mezes & fish.

I think the tipping culture you're talking about is "Bakshish" which is really more of a bribe than a tip. It doesn't exist much in Turkiye anymore (unless you're an Arab or Syrian refugee, their experience is far different than others). Bakshish is still very prevalent throughout the lower Balkans, Serbia and most Islamic nations I've visited and worked in, except for KSA and UAE (they'll kill you for that shit.)

> There used to be no tipping at all but with the increase in tourism that's no longer the norm.

I take this as local employees stating their entitlement to nickel and dime tourists as much as possible.

:(