Is American tipping culture a force for good or for evil?

Tipping customer service people has become all but compulsory in the United States, especially if the customer clearly can afford it. Supporters say it rewards excellence and preserves the personal spark between guest and server, while critics call it a legal loophole that normalizes poverty wages and invites bias. So is this practice an expression of generosity—or a moral sleight of hand that shifts responsibility from employers and lawmakers to the customers?
Here are some more questions:

• If restaurants indeed choose low base wages because the waiters are expected to receive tips, where does the moral burden really fall—on owners setting pay, on customers at the table, or on legislators who allow the model to persist?
• Does tipping genuinely reward good service, or is it a polite fiction that hides arbitrary, even discriminatory, patterns (for instance, biases related to race, gender, or accent)?
• Digital payment systems now suggest tip percentages (20%, 25%, even 30%), oftentimes where there’s almost no active service provided. Do these “nudges” cross the line from helpful guidance into moral manipulation?
• Does the tipping culture produce beneficial price discrimination? That is, if the base prices are indeed driven low by the expectation of tipping, and the rich customers are expected to overtip, then the poorer customers get cheaper service that they would have gotten if there was no tipping culture.

Come join us for some informal philosophical discussion. No prior knowledge or research is needed, but an open mind is.