Tipping used to have a few simple rules.
When I was in my teens, my dad taught me that 15% was the norm at restaurants. (“Take 10%, which is just moving the decimal point, then add half of that.”) In my college years, I tipped bartenders $1 per Rolling Rock. You tipped cab drivers. People who cut your hair.
The landscape has changed dramatically, with American businesses of all stripes now prodding consumers to tip, confronting them with a digital tablet that includes an option for a custom amount as well as preset percentages (I’ve seen some that offer 20%, 22% and 30%, with the old 15% nowhere to be found).
There have even been instances in which a self-checkout machine has requested a tip despite the lack of human interaction.
The only thing standing between you and my Cranky Old Man tirade about this state of affairs is my colleague Erica Sandberg’s excellent breakdown of the new normal on tipping – and specifically when it’s OK to say no to automatic tipping requests.
One thing I particularly liked: The way the piece harnesses data to give a fuller picture of tipping culture and the fatigue with being deluged by digital (and rather public) suggestions for tipping.
The Psychology of Gratuities
Those suggestions typically come at the end of a transaction, when the employee spins the tablet around and you have to pick a tip, or leave a custom amount (or nothing at all).
The piece quotes an April 2026 Popmenu study that provides some idea of what that interface – that pressure, really – does to people’s tipping behavior.
“The Popmenu study found that when customers are shown preset tip amounts, the middle option is the most popular choice after leaving a custom tip:
- 36% of customers leave a custom tip, meaning they enter their own tip amount instead of choosing one of the preset options.
- 32% of customers choose the middle tip option shown on the screen.
- 17% of customers choose the lowest suggested tip.
- 9% of customers choose not to leave a tip.
- 7% of customers choose the highest preset tip.”
The article also cites a July 2026 Omni Calculator survey that found 66% of customers feel intense pressure when an employee watches them after flipping around that screen. And 40% “are actively boycotting certain businesses entirely just to avoid the anxiety of dodging tip prompts.”
In March, a WalletHub survey found that more than 80% of Americans think tipping has gotten out of control, and more than two in five say the practice should be banned.
That Sounds Like Politics
Banned? That would be a political decision about economic policy.
In truth, while it’s a financial decision, there’s a lot of politics around tipping.
That’s because setting the minimum wage – and the much lower tipped minimum wage – is a political decision. For some people, tipping is driven by an awareness that many service-sector employees depend on tips to meet their basic needs.
There’s also the question of wage theft. I hate those digital tablets because I have zero confidence that the front-line employee will get the money, unlike handing over a bit of cash.
In France, where I spent many years growing up, sit-down restaurants used to be service compris – no need to tip – and service non compris, where the customer was expected to tip. French law now requires the cost of service to be included in the bill.
French workers also enjoy a more generous social safety net, another political decision that further reduces the need to tip. (Fun fact: the French word for “tip” is pourboire, which literally translates to “for drinking.”)
Some of the European opposition to tipping stems from the feeling that the tip unfairly keeps staff servile, that it’s undignified for them to work with the tip hanging over their heads.
It’s easy to say tip fatigue is the fault of cheap consumers. And in some cases, it is. But for many – at least 40%, according to Omni Calculator – it’s about an entire system demanding we bankroll service-sector employees one stressful screen-flip at a time.
