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Comment by tombert | Hacker News Reader

I don’t know about strippers but I am right up there with you on tips becoming absurd here. Every kiosk where I swipe my credit card wants a tip now. I didn’t really “like” tipping before, but I accepted it as just part of the transaction for getting a waiter or waitress to write down my order and deliver me my food and refill my drinks.

Now the companies want a tip for the food I pick up myself directly from the restaurant and leave. I am not sure what I would even be tipping for, for making me the sandwich? Shouldn’t that aspect just be rolled into be price of, you know, the sandwich?

I used to feel kind of guilty for declining to tip at these kiosks, but I don’t anymore. In fact in a way I guess it’s sort of saved me money since I dislike this process so much that I have taken to just buying groceries and making food at home more often.

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I feel you so much on this. So many shops pressing for many more ways to allow tips, for example presenting a percentage with options 10%, 20%, 30%... to frame customers into picking the one in the middle! Does any of you'all know if there are law defining maximums for tipping, like maybe in european countries or something?

Not so far as I know, but mandatory tipping (i.e. adding a service charge to a bill) is illegal in many countries, and it wouldn't surprise me if having a tip screen on a payment terminal were against local regulations.

We don’t enforce laws on business in the usa

I don't think that's true. I will agree that it's not enforced enough, but the FTC and SEC do enforce laws on businesses on a pretty regular basis.

I can at least tell you that in Australia, nobody tips anybody unless they feel like it, and nobody complains if you don't.

Our minimum wage is higher here though.

Yeah I think it's a kind of distinctly American thing. You're just expected to tip for everything here. I'm sure there's historical reasons for it but they aren't really important because the fact is that regardless of the reason I just really dislike it.

I would much rather employers pay their employees a livable wage and roll the cost of that into the price of the service.

Even if they pay a living wage, why wouldn't they give you a chance to pay more? It's not their fault that you choose to pay extra because your self esteem can't withstand a picture on a screen.

I mean, they're free to do whatever they, I just don't enjoy it; the frequency in which tips are being asked for now is just annoying, I didn't really think that's even a controversial statement.

But I do kind of dispute that it's just a "self esteem" thing. Often the "no tip" option is smaller and harder to spot, and I think that some people genuinely do not realize that "not tipping" is an option, and it's not like these kiosk manufacturers don't know this.

Yeah it drives me nuts, and I am somewhat convinced that it's going to backfire, though I don't have any hard evidence on it.

I will go to restaurants when I'm traveling for obvious reasons, but for the six months or so I haven't really eaten out more than five or six times, all of which were for special occasions. For comparison, I used to go to some form of restaurant in the past four times a week. I gradually started to avoid places that have the tipping kiosk, but then just transitioned away to just avoiding restaurants entirely

Now, there's actually a bunch of reasons that I don't eat out anymore, but one thing I'm pretty sure is this: you know what's even worse for a business than people not tipping for a service? Them not showing up to even buy the service.

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