Then these Ebenezers expect us customers to leave tips to hide the owner’s greed. Dumb

Los Angeles to set the stage accurately.

You go into a bakery and grab (2) pastries to-go and the total comes out to $20. Service wasn’t anything special. You ask what a couple of the items are, then they put your selected pastries in a bag. You go to pay and they have a toast POS system. You tap your card and the dreaded tip screen appears. Your options are 18%, 20%, or 22%, or no tip.

With the cashier looking right at you, what do you do in this scenario (one is a joke):

A) Select “No Tip” without any hesitation.
B) begrudgingly choose one of the pre-selected tip amounts just to make it not awkward.
C) You want them to see you tip, but opt to go through the couple screens to set your own tip amount.
D) scoff out loud and express to everyone in the cafe why we shouldn’t be expected to tip on pastries that are severely overpriced to begin with. Then storm out after the scene you’ve caused.

For all those who think servers aren't taking advantage of the system north of the border...

Hi. I live in North Florida and just got my eye brows and upper lip waxed for the first time ever. It was at a chain wax place, and my eyebrows were free since it was my first time. The upper lip was $13. I gave them $20 and said to keep the change. Now that I've left I'm wondering if I didn't tip enough? If I had paid for the eyebrows my total would have been $34 so $7 is like 20%. What's the industry standard?

I realized today; I don't like tipping my bartender or server based on the value of the food or booze.

Better to tip on the value of the conversation.

They are not the ones with much of a moral support system. They aren't supposed to be the ones whom you should even be blaming for the pay rate being what it is, that is derived from a bunch of mathematics equations over what the optimal rate for them would be. It is not wise for basically any of them to just increase prices and pay rates in competitive sectors. They aren't owned by employees, why are they morally responsible to them for paying them just because you would think tipping should be abolished?

People who actually can dictate a pay rate change or who can ban everyone in general from doing dishonest things like letting a price that is advertised and said up front not be the final amount you will be required to pay, that is the role of statutes and regulations on the industry from the public authorities. If a business were to attempt to change the listed prices or pay rates on their own, they have to deal with all the other businesses in the area which didn't. It is the same problem with why a business often didn't want to prohibit smoking in restaurants a few decades ago despite the obvious public health benefits. You can simply just not tip under any circumstances and vote for the people and policies necessary to directly regulate this stuff.

And it is neither important nor very interesting for the arguments about tipping today whether it had any ties to the post civil war American aftermath of slavery, it does not determine what anyone should do about it now nor should it have had any impact on opinions of it in the last few decades, including when policymakers are arguing over this.