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The story
A post in a Canadian Lemmy community went viral after someone described their surprise at being offered 10%, 20%, and 30% tip options on the payment terminal when ordering takeout at a Toronto café. The poster wondered, “Isn’t this an American thing?”, and the replies split between “tipping is just normal in Canada now” and “no, that’s a bad habit imported from the US.” The thread also dug into differences in wage systems: some US states let the minimum wage for service workers drop to as low as $2-something an hour on the assumption tips will cover the rest, while Canada’s minimum wage is fairly uniform at around $15/hour — meaning the two countries rely on tips to very different degrees.
What people said
Background and Key Points of This Debate
Behind this back-and-forth is “tip fatigue,” a complaint frequently raised across North America in recent years. As payment terminals that automatically surface 10–30% tip prompts have become more widespread, customers are increasingly asked to tip even on takeout or to-go orders, fueling confusion and frustration. Commenters noted that in the US, some states set a lower minimum wage for service workers on the assumption tips will make up the difference (with examples cited as low as $2-something an hour), making tips practically essential to a worker’s livelihood — whereas in Canada, the minimum wage is fairly uniform at around $15/hour, so a tip reads more as an added “thank you” than a survival necessity. In other words, even though “whether to tip or not” looks like the same act on the surface, what it means for the person giving it and the person receiving it differs between the two countries. Treating “tipping on takeout is just normal” as a blanket rule without accounting for that difference is an easy way to end up misunderstanding the situation.
*This article excerpts and loosely translates a thread titled “Is tipping the norm here in Toronto?” from the overseas forum Lemmy c/canada, rendered into Japanese by our editorial team. Responsibility for the translation lies with this site.
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