I think it is the case of “you think in the right direction, but you don’t do it all the way, so now I’m gonna attack you over this until you stop doing anything”.

Not paying tips is a good start.

I would not, that’s… what I’m trying to imply here… Yeah, businesses who don’t pay their employees enough bad.

You don’t get it, I think? The point is to get the workers to quit or protest because they don’t get paid enough, so that the place can increase the prices instead so they can pay their workers. If the place is still providing a nice service or good food or whatever it may be, you don’t want it to go out of business. Just make a worker-positive change.

Wait, where are you? I thought I recognised you from .ca, but it sounds like you might be thinking of the US system where they can pay nothing except tips. In my province you earn at least minimum wage as a waiter, and tips.

If I were to just straight up refuse to eat from restaurants under any circumstance, I’d be heavily incurring those intangible costs I mentioned, because it’s an expected social thing. That being said, I might consider it if I was in the US, but I’m not.

Also, tips have expanded well beyond servers, but that’s kind of beside the point.

But you are defending the system. You’re literally saying if you end up in a place that expects tipping then you should tip. What if you’re going out with a group and that group decides to go somewhere that expects tipping? Are you supposed to remove yourself from the group so you wouldn’t go into a place like that?

You can’t take this black and white stance where if you end up participating in this system you also have to perpetuate that system. Making the customer feel like they’re responsible for the livelihood of the staff is how this tipping culture is kept alive and that is exactly what you’re doing right now. You’re trying to claim we are responsible for their livelihood simply because we stepped into the restaurant and ate.