This is always a factor here anyways when you shop or dine in person where it seems everywhere is insisting you should leave a tip even if you don’t feel it is warranted. Even for self-serve terminals in stores they ask if you wish to tip. That’s why this little investigation I was watching was interesting as they basically just set up a made up business of sort to see how many people would tip them and by how much.
Not surprisingly, most people had no clue where the money went but kind of did it out of habit and explicitly the social pressure of having to tip otherwise you are not being nice per se. It’s no surprise with results like these where businesses try and take advantage of the situation. It makes you wonder, as a consumer do you ever push back in these cases even if it doesn’t make you look good socially initially?
Some countries outright ban tipping which makes you wonder if it is something that should be adopted here as well. With how so many people are pressuring people to tip for everything as if it is an essential part of buying the product or service it’s almost like a hidden fee of sort where one is not advertising the actual price.