Do you have to tip at a counter with a screen?

The spread of tipping prompts to bakeries, cafes, self-serve kiosks, and retail counters happened because payment software made it trivial to add them and because defaults are powerful, not because the underlying labor changed. Prompts commonly open at 18, 20, and 25 percent with the no-tip option positioned as a small secondary choice, which is a deliberate design pattern. Surveys have tracked rising public irritation with this and a measurable decline in tipping rates at counter service, which suggests the expansion overshot what customers accept.

A defensible personal rule: tip generously where tipped wages and real service exist, meaning sit-down restaurants, bars, delivery, hairdressers, and hotel staff, and treat counter prompts as optional and modest. Federal law still permits a tipped minimum cash wage as low as 2.13 dollars an hour where tips make up the difference, though a number of states require full minimum wage before tips, which is a meaningful distinction in whether your tip is supplementing income or replacing wages. Counter workers in most states are earning at least full minimum wage, which is the honest basis for treating those tips as a bonus rather than an obligation. The larger critique, that tipping shifts payroll onto customers and produces documented discrimination in who gets tipped well, is a real argument for pushing the norm back rather than expanding it.