alt Hacker NewsIn the US, the tip is an expected part of the expense of eating out (and increasingly having any human in the loop). I hate it, and I really wish it wasn’t the case, but it pretty much is. If you say “I didn’t tip because the service was what I expected”, you’re pretty much considered an asshole.
(Incidentally, this is also one of the reasons why the costs of eating out in the US and seem so much lower. Most people who come from non-tipping cultures don’t understand that Americans actually tend to pay significantly more than sticker price, especially after you include taxes, which are also often excluded).
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>If you say “I didn’t tip because the service was what I expected”, you’re pretty much considered an asshole
Sorry, this is definitely not the case. Many times the worker is doing exactly what is needed and nothing more (eg: pour a beer in a glass, handing me a pizza). Why would I be considered an asshole if I didn't tip? That is ridiculous.
As other people have said, tipping in the US has really become obnoxious. I definitely tip while seated for a meal, but asking for a tip to hand me a cup of coffee, pour a beer, etc only makes the system worse.
In my personal experience, the belief that “you should tip no matter what” is surprisingly pervasive. Anecdotally, I once had a situation where a restaurant completely dropped the ball—they brought me a cup of coffee, then never returned to take my order, even after I asked. After wasting my time, I had to leave and eat elsewhere. I didn’t leave a tip, yet many of my peers insisted I still should have. I disagree. The idea of tipping someone for poor service—especially when they’re clearly not even trying—is, frankly, sickening. If that makes me the a-hole in these situations, so be it—I’d rather be that than reward apathy.
Relative numbers (e.g. 1% above or below an average) can ferry signals to both humans and data mining algorithms.
https://plus.maths.org/content/information-surprise
> Shannon wanted to measure the amount of information you could transmit via various media. There are many ways of sending messages: you could produce smoke signals, use Morse code, the telephone, or (in today's world) send an email. To treat them all on equal terms, Shannon decided to forget about exactly how each of these methods transmits a message and simply thought of them as ways of producing strings of symbols. How do you measure the information contained in such a string?