Tipping has been weird ever since it ceased to be voluntary. This is the root cause. Everything else is a side effect.

But there's another side to tipping I've not seen anyone bring up. It gives people a means to employ discrimination. If you don't like a person's background, you can choose to tip them less than others. There's a reason we have anti-discriminatory clauses in labour laws pretty much universally. Individuals simply cannot be entrusted to act in good faith when it comes to the matter of discrimination. But tipping, moves the source of income from an employer who is beholden to regulations, to the absolute whim of individuals who don't have to answer anyone. It's crazy to think we are okay to leave people's earnings and livelihood to individual fancies. I wager that if there're any studies made on this, we will see differences in making tips depending on a person's background.

> If you can afford a $7 latte, they argued, why are you bristling at a $1 tip that would help your server?

If I worked there, I would have more issue with a place charging $7 for a drink and not paying it's employees fairly.