This is a dangerously stupid article.

Tipping is confusing, and paradoxical. We tip some people who provide services but not others who work just as hard for just as little pay.

We tip people who are largely exempt from minimum wage requirements. Even the article acknowledges this:

Indeed, Tore Skjelstadaune, leader of the Norwegian United Federation of Trade Unions (Fellesforbundet), which organises restaurant workers, waiters and hotel employees in Oslo, has spoken out against tipping except where service is exceptional. ‘It is a principle that you should have a salary you can live on in Norway,’ he told the Norwegian online newspaper Nettavisen in 2013.

If you want to wring your hands and wonder about tipping, keep your eye on Seattle: the minimum wage is effectively doubling over the next few years, and tipped positions have a wage a dollar less than non-tipped positions. Watch and see if tips go down. I'll bet they do. 'cuz prices are going to go up and when you're tipping 20% on top of a 20% overhead increase, that macchiato just got spendy.

And let's completely ignore why tipping has gone up, by the way - tip skimming. The advent of computerized point-of-sale terminals permitted restaurants to institute all sorts of fees and surcharges upon tips, effectively taking a third of the staff's tips "because." Now you know why your server, that was perfectly happy getting 15% 15 years ago, gets snippy when he doesn't get 25%. "Polite gift, demeaning handout" - or widespread tax on employees?

Finally,

Anthropologists as well as economists are left scratching their heads by tipping.

Jesus fucking christ.

I have a local restaurant. I like to eat there. I know my servers, I tip well. They have one table that, for reasons that have never been explained, entitles you to a free basket of monkey bread.

Guess who gets to sit at the monkey bread table every.single.time?

There's no mystery here: you foster a positive relationship with the owners and staff of any establishment you frequent more than once because it ensures that you will be treated kindly and fairly. That doesn't mean I tip extravagantly - but it means that when there's a problem with my food I discuss it like an adult, it means that I leave 20 percent (because they've got terminals and they're skimming - everybody skims) and it means that when I'm acknowledged as a returning customer I acknowledge the server, greeter or busser as a known acquaintance, not a stranger. Know where the service is consistently the worst? Airports. Know why? The staff knows that they'll never see you again and you have no incentive to reward their attention. This isn't even an unspoken rule in Hollywood - anybody who works in a "deal economy" has favored tables at multiple restaurants in multiple neighborhoods so that wherever the meeting is, you're going to get a spot in the corner away from the noise where you can speak privately and where your water glass is always full. It doesn't even cost much extra, just an acknowledgement of the relationship between you and the server.

Wanna see what this article should be about?

It seems that the more honourable that restaurant work is in a society, the less that staff are tipped. Hence, Japan is one of the few countries in the world where tipping is actually offensive, because it is seen as dishonouring the server.

Know how you get rid of tipping? You take a large, far-reaching and culturally respected restaurant chain and have them come out in favor of a living wage by compensating their workers fairly. You have that chain let it be known that their industry is service and as such, their servers are paid like valued employees rather than hangers-on scrabbling for spare change (know why Tudor England got in the habit of gifting money to a house's staff? so they wouldn't steal your shit). You make tipping uncool and it'll be gone faster than gay marriage bans.

You write fumbling, obtuse, misinformed articles like this and it'll be with us forever.