Point taken but I still prefer the employer keeping an eye out to check that people do their work like they should. The rude and lazy get laid off, the one's who do their work don't have to worry about whether or not they get enough tips to supplement their pay.
I don't think that's a huge issue.
The waitstaff are going to get paid acceptably regardless. Your meal is going to cost the same regardless. Tipping just moves part of that cost from being uniformly distributed through the employer, regardless of service quality, to being distributed directly based on the service provided.
Employers can't react quickly to poor service. The manager of a restaurant isn't going to fire someone just for being bitchy once. But with tipping, displeasure at being bitchy gets expressed immediately.
Another thing to keep in mind is that waitstaff have to earn minimum wage with their tips, or their employer is required to make up the difference. On average, tipped employees end up making a solid chunk more than the minimum wage.
I guess I don't see a problem with tipping mostly because in my experience, failing to tip is such a strange outlier that I don't see it as a huge deal. I mean, I know it happens occasionally, but I can't imagine it being a serious enough problem to cause someone to fail to make rent. When I hear a story about someone leaving a shitty tip, everyone gasps and the room goes silent (not really). It's a pretty ingrained social habit.
Heh, like once I specifically gave a bartender no tip. To be fair, I was totally trashed and I don't remember what, but something she did pissed me off. So I left a big $0.00 tip. My roommate was so very pissed at me, because he hangs out at all the bars, everyone knows him by name, and so now everyone knows that his roommate was being bitchy to a bartender. So later I went over and apologized.
