CMV: Tipping culture in the US is ridiculous and should cease entirely.

When I graduated college, I moved to the US after being born and raised in Europe. I was shocked to learn that you are expected to tip basically everywhere, all the time, because the workers are paid minimum wage (which is already laughable in the US) and rely on tips for a big part of their income.<br><br>I cannot stress this enough: we don't have this anywhere in Europe (or at least in Western Europe). Maybe the culture of tipping in the US stems from Europe in the past, but it has been a part of the past for a long, long time now. You do not tip the cashier at the supermarket, at the gas station, at Starbucks, at McDonald's, or your food delivery guys. You do not tip for every single goddamn thing you do anywhere.<br><br>In the US, I feel like I am constantly being guilt-tripped. I order a takeaway coffee, and I have to tip the cashier. I order a coffee in a coffee shop, and there is a tip jar near the till, both for the cashier and the barista. When I get my coffee a minute later, I have to tip the barista. Based on the amount that gets deducted from my card when I order a takeaway coffee using an app, I have to assume this is the case for Starbucks and other coffee chains too.<br><br>I order a pizza delivery and the app will display something like "if you enjoyed our service, please leave a 10-15% tip." I have to specifically untick those boxes so I don't leave a tip. But how does the app know if I enjoyed the service or not? I haven't even received anything yet, how can I have enjoyed it?<br><br>I'm sure that if I asked for my money back because the pizza was cold, the delivery guy would immediately tell me that the app told him to deliver within 30 minutes when it was a 20 minute drive. It was 35 minutes, and he cannot be blamed.<br><br>Personally, I have delivered pizzas, and fast food, and I have worked in restaurants. I know how hard these jobs are and how underappreciated workers are in the service industry. And I agree that they should be paid more. But it is not up to the consumer to pay them more. The minimum wage is already an outrage, and it is even worse when employers rely on their employees receiving tips in order to make up for their own lack of pay.<br><br>If the business is struggling so much that they have to pay their workers minimum wage, it should probably shut down. If the business is not struggling, it should be paying its workers a real wage. It is not up to the consumer to supplement this wage because the business is being run by greedy people. Also, I am not a billionaire. I do not have the money to be generous.<br><br>The tipping culture also leads to something entirely different: tips are not declared as income and so cannot be taxed. This is deeply unfair to the rest of the population who cannot supplement their income with tips. I do not work in a service industry, so I do not get tips. I cannot avoid paying taxes on my income either.<br><br>CMV: Tipping culture is ridiculous and should cease entirely. Minimum wage should be a living wage too.#####