Tipping culture has jumped the shark

Let’s get one thing straight right out the gate: tipping is a gratuity. As in, a thank you. As in, optional. Not a tax. Not a surcharge. Not some moral obligation enforced by touchscreen shame tactics and social media guilt.

If you chose a job where tipping supplements your income, that’s between you and your employer. You signed up for that. Your boss decided to underpay you and offload the difference onto me, the customer. That’s not on me. That’s on you and them.

And look... I’m happy to tip for good service. I always have been. I think I'm actually fairly generous because I've waited tables several times in my life. But we’ve moved past tipping for service. Now we’re tipping for existence.

Tip creep didn’t come out of nowhere; Between 2015 and 2025, the number of transactions where people were asked to tip jumped by over 100%, largely because every POS system now moonlights as a passive-aggressive panhandler. Toast, Square, Clover... they all added tipping prompts into everything because guilt is good business.

The more you tip, the higher the total... and guess what? Square, Toast, and the rest take a percentage of the sale, tip included. You're not tipping the worker. You're tipping the ecosystem. They're not building empathy — they're building revenue streams. They’re not promoting generosity. They’re juicing margins.

But lets be real, you hand me a coffee someone else made... then spin the little Square screen around like a blackjack dealer and expect 20% on a $7 cup of hot bean water? What exactly am I rewarding here? Gravity?

Lately these digital tipping kiosks start at 20% like that’s the baseline. I’ve seen them jump to 35% or even 50%, as if the barista just did my taxes and gave me a back rub. One place literally put a sticker over the “No Tip” option in an attempt to prevent you from using it. Yeah, okay. Real subtle. All you have done is guarantee I will never go there again.

Meanwhile, in Europe? Yeah... tipping is mostly an afterthought. No 20% guilt tax. No iPads doing the “would you like to tip your janitor?” dance. You tip if something’s exceptional. Period. Over here, we tip people for breathing near our order.

And don't come at me with attitude when I don’t tip for something you barely did. You want a tip? Don’t make me feel like I’m being held hostage by a damn iPad.

And it’s not just coffee shops and restaurants anymore. I was at the airport the other day, using a self-serve kiosk — you know, the kind where you do all the work yourself — and at the end? Boom. Tip screen. Started at 20%... for what, exactly? Who am I tipping here? The kiosk? The airport? TSA for not fondling me extra hard?

It’s like a digital tip jar shoved in your face for existing. You do the labor, they collect the gratitude.

There’s even a term for this now: tipflation. I wish I made that up. But economists actually track it. In 2023, the average tip percentage on delivery apps hit 17.9%, up from 15% just a few years prior. And it’s not because people are feeling more generous... it’s because the default numbers got juiced and “No Tip” got buried under the digital equivalent of a scarlet letter.

And don’t even get me started on the kiosks that straight-up lie about the math. I saw one the other day where the total was $12, and the “10% tip” button (in microscopic fine print) said $4.00. Uh... in what reality is 4 ten percent of 12? Is this tipflation and gaslighting now?

From my point of view, if I walk in, order takeout, and you hand me a paper bag with food in it... congratulations, you did your job. That’s not a tip-worthy moment. That’s a transaction. Literally the transaction you were hired for and agreed to do.

Oh, and let’s not forget that a lot of places are now asking you to tip before the service happens. You pay and tip before the service. Like, “Hey, we might suck... but if you could tip us first, that’d be great.” No. I don’t prepay for disappointment.

And now we’ve got restaurants posting signs like “If you can’t afford a 25% tip, stay home.” Great. So now you’re actively telling customers not to come in... and then you’re confused when business drops and tips dry up? You played yourself. You weaponized guilt and killed your own damn income. Morons.

And the real crime is that some of these shops aren’t even passing those tips on. There have been lawsuits... because of course there have. One chain got caught keeping part of the tips and classifying them as “service charges.” So not only are you being guilt-tripped into tipping, but half the time the person you’re tipping isn’t even getting it.

The whole ecosystem is broken. It's a poorly-disguised transfer of responsibility from employers to consumers, duct-taped together with polite lies, social media guilt trips and touchscreen traps.

This whole situation is what happens when entitlement meets narcissism. The kind of self-righteous nonsense that turns handing someone a coffee into some sacred act deserving applause and financial tribute.

You don’t get to be smug about your minimum-wage job and then act like I’m the asshole for not tipping you when you barely lifted a finger. You’re not the hero of the story. You’re just another character, collecting a paycheck like the rest of us.

Do your job well, be pleasant, and I’ll tip you because I want to.

Start demanding it like it's a ransom?

Yeah... good luck with that.