The tip economy is expanding, and some indeterminate number of consumers doesn’t like that. A January 23 Associated Press report observes that the ubiquity of tip screens has turned what once was a voluntary transaction into a quasi-compulsory one. Customers at retail food establishments are now invited routinely to choose what amount or percentage of their purchase should be added for a tip, even when they’ve received no table or counter service. If you don’t want to tip, you no longer have the option of ignoring the tip jar by the register or shrugging because you’re out of singles. You must acknowledge your stinginess by affirmatively clicking “No Tip” before the register sucks money electronically from your credit card or debit card or iPhone.
The business magazine Fast Company rather ingeniously named this phenomenon “guilt-tipping” in 2013. (Guilt-tripping—get it?—minus the r.) Ten years later, the AP reports, “many say [guilt-tipping] is getting out of hand,” although the AP doesn’t document how many people say that. Neither did similar pieces in The New York Times last April or on CNN in December. So it’s hard to say whether we’re talking about a few grouches on TikTok (looking at you, antidietpilot) or an incipient haut bourgeois uprising.
If it’s the latter, they need to calm down.
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