The tipping system needs to be abolished. First and foremost, it is a system to subsidize workers' wages through charity. This is bad for both workers and consumers, if they would pull their heads out of their asses long enough to think about it. If your business can't afford to pay your workers a living wage, then you don't have a sustainable business.

Second, like the article talks about, it is a system that weaponizes dehumanization, racism, and sexism. We've turned restaurants into a place where assholes get to play pretend and act like they're in the upper class (or at least, their perverted view of how the upper class acts). And the restaurants just throw their workers into that mess, telling them, "Yes, you are a garbage human, now lick the boots of bigots so you can eat tonight."

Third, it creates a false buffer between the restaurant itself and the tipped workers. Is there an issue with wait times, noise, or something else that is completely out of the server's control? Doesn't matter, the financial penalty will be assessed on the server.

I still remember not even living paycheck to paycheck, but living tip to tip. A bad night with no tips meant I wasn't eating that night. And so you beg and grovel with the dregs of humanity so you can afford to buy enough gas to drive home. Fuck tipping, I want to burn the whole system to the ground.

Yes mandatory tipping is clearly based on a toxic interpretation of how society should be. It's all about power. There was that "no-tip" restaurant that was sued by a customer who wanted to be able to tip the staff direct. It's all about power.

I think it boils down to a very simple construct. You have money (doesn't matter how you got it), you have a choice as to whether you want to share with those that don't. Don't want to share? Yay!! Good for you. The monarchy is alive and well. Only it's called something else. As they say in Thailand, "Same, but different."

So related to this, I was just on a different forum where someone brought up this fascinating nugget of truth: Americans don't view themselves as citizens, they view themselves as customers. They act like entitled assholes because they see themselves as customers of society, and society should bend over backwards to help them like they expect the Starbucks barista to. Society should help them at the expense of everyone else, just like how a demanding diner demands the full attention of a server waiting 20 other tables.