You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquette of iPad Tipping
Hacker News threads about tipping are always rough. US tipping is not complicated. You are being asked to share with a service worker&#x27;s employer some of the burden of compensating them. The notion that you&#x27;re rewarding exceptional service is a polite fiction. Depending on where you are, the tip is either expected or it isn&#x27;t. Unfortunately for the mindset of a typical software developer, there won&#x27;t be much clarity on this point; you&#x27;ll have to rely on context clues to determine whether and how much of a tip is expected. You can reasonably withhold a tip from someone who is actively hostile or incompetent, but really all you&#x27;re doing is making yourself feel better. If payment and the tip is expected up-front, you can either buy into the cost-sharing dynamic of tipping, or you can not.<p><i>Very few people in the US are going to admire a principled stance you take against tipping.</i> The moral of the opening breakfast scene in Reservoir Dogs was <i>not</i> that Steve Buscemi was a smart and principled dude. Harvey Keitel was the one you were expected to admire in that scene.<p>A very easy, relatively pleasant way to get through life in the US if you&#x27;re well-off enough that you routinely buy coffee in expensive coffee shops: just always tip. Anywhere there&#x27;s a tip line. You never have to figure anything out, and sometimes people really appreciate it.