Choosing Beggars

It is meaningful, I agree, but the objections should be on that basis, not that tipping represents some kind of gross economic injustice. I think, fundamentally, being asked for money feels bad, and people are trying to re-interpret that as some kind of injustice imposed on them, rather than acknowledging that it's just a slightly different and mildly annoying way to distribute essentially the same cost. When you actually poll tipped workers, they tend to be against removing tips because it allows them to make substantially more than a fixed rate would.

I don't want to blame the individual too much, but it's really not that hard to factor in a potential tip into your decision making process, or to simply hit $0 on the iPad if you don't think the interaction merited a tip (no, I'm not going to tip you for ringing up a bag of coffee that I picked up off a shelf at a cafe, for instance). My loose understanding is that customers have started to reduce or decline tips for a lot of these more trivial interactions, so I'd expect some kind of market equilibrium to emerge at some point. It does somewhat represent those more easily guilted or manipulated effectively subsidzing those who aren't, which is perhaps a little iffy, but I'm not really gonna shed any tears over it.