In addition to the waitstaff at restaurants, customers are now being asked to tip food-delivery workers, Uber drivers, Starbucks baristas, Chipotle employees, and mechanics. Customers have also said they've been asked to tip even when they use self-checkout machines at cafs, sports stadiums, and airports.
Many of them are not happy about it. After The New York Times published a story last month about gig workers' struggles to get tips, readers responded with over 3,800 comments. The most popular pushed back on the idea that customers should have to step up their tips to supplement these workers' incomes.
But tipping wasn't always so prevalent. Though historians don't universally agree on one story of the rise of tipping culture in the US, there's a general consensus around the broad strokes of the narrative — and it's one that will likely comes as a surprise to most Americans.
While the origins of tipping are uncertain, historians say it likely began in Europe during the Middle Ages, when many people lived under a feudal system. Tipping emerged as a master-serf custom in which masters would tip their servants for good service. By the 1700's, tipping in Europe had evolved from masters tipping servants to customers tipping service-industry workers.
In the US, historians say tipping was almost nonexistent prior to about 1840. But in the years leading up to the Civil War, many wealthy Americans discovered the practice on their...
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