system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Tipping in restaurants should not be calculated by percentage

I'll start by saying that tipping has gotten out of hand and I think employers should just pay their staff a livable wage. But since that is unlikely to happen, I think the way we calculate tips doesn't logically make sense.

For example - I go to a restaurant and order the most expensive meal and the table next to me gets the cheapest. If we both stay there for the same amount of time and the waiter/waitress doesn't have to do anything extra, then it doesn't make sense that my tip should be significantly higher. It would be different if the tip went to the chef, but if the wait staff treats the two tables the same, why should I pay more?

Edit: the same argument could be made for bartenders. If I go to the bar and order a pint of craft beer that has a higher ABV and costs 10x more than a pint of a cheap imported beer, why should I tip the bartender more? They are both on tap, it requires no extra effort.

I believe tips should be calculated based on the time spent in the restaurant and the service received by the waiter/waitress.

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gpt
There are endless permutations for how a tip should be calculated and mitigating factors - 

- how many were in the party?
- did you have any special requests? 
- where there anybody with an allergy?
- were there any children under 10? Under 5?
- did you take a long time to order?
- did you ask lots of questions? 
- did you ask for extra water, bread, napkins?
- did the staff have to anything extra/different for you?
- were you a good patron, kind, polite, and easy to handle, or were you awkward and hard to please? 
- did you have loads of dishes, glassware etc that were difficult to handle?
- did you leave your table a mess or were you neat and tidy?
- did you order extra things like drinks from the bar, additions, etc, or did you just take what on the menu, no swaps? 

Each of these questions results in differences for how much you should tip but that's mostly too complicated for your average diner who doesn't want to pull out a calculator after dinner. 

Doing it based on how much you spent is faster, more cost effective for *everybody's* time (you, your guests, the staff), and represents a reasonable compromise of tipping everybody appropriately based on their behavior (how the staff acted towards you) and basing it on individual circumstances that were within your control (what you ordered). Is it *exactly right to the penny?* No. But tipping shouldn't require a degree in accounting to figure out and most people want an easy shorthand to make it quick, discrete, and mostly fair for everybody involved.