It may have started out that way but today “servers” can be paid a much lower wage than the standard minimum wage due to their tips-earning potential. When I was in college I worked as a waiter & bartender and was paid $2.52/hr by the restaurant at a time when fed min wage was $5-ish (IIRC), relying heavily upon my tips.
Remembering what that was like, I tip generously if well served. Having been in the industry and having high standards, I am less generous if the job isn’t done well. Even so, I’m paying them for a service as many have pointed out so I don’t stiff people.
Cultural differences evolving as they do, a custom developed for a particular reason can morph into something altogether different over time. I don’t know about your historic assertions made above, but as far as today’s world goes I’ve laid forth the reasons as they exist now
Yes, I'm aware of all that. As I said I tend to tip well when I'm in the U.S. because the system has been set up to require it for the waitstaff to make their income. What I'm saying is it's a effed up system that's only prevalent in the U.S. We allow employers to skate the minimum wage laws under the basis of "tips will make up for it" and restaurants have figured out how to shift the burden of paying their employees onto customers instead of themselves where the burden should rightly be. Yes, I realize the customer ultimately ends up paying for everything, the system now is a slimy way of doing it. There is no other business sector where someone expects to be paid extra for merely putting their product in your hand.
It's become a monster which fosters some blowhard tossing a $100 bill on the table so a kid will ignore the rest of his paying customers in order to kiss the butt of his benefactor.
