jdw
Having lived in the USA (my birth country) for 23 years and in Japan for 29 years, I must say Japan's culture of paying people decently enough to eliminate tipping entirely is the right course. More respect is given to customers, and all guesswork about how much to tip is eliminated.
While it has been cultural in the USA to tip long before I was born, that doesn't make it good or right, especially so because it is EXPECTED even if service isn't great. When you don't have tipping, nobody thinks about good or bad service so much, and the people who provided the said service still get paid. If a restaurant or hotel offers terrible service, rather than withdraw a tip, people simply won't come back. Simple!
Not having to pay tips would revolutionize the USA for the better. Naturally, anyone in a service industry or the restaurant industry will passionately say otherwise, but such comes as no surprise. People defend the status quo. But that defense doesn't make it right. Japan and many other countries prove you can exist happily without tipping, and it's less stressful on the person who needs to pay as well. The two biggest reasons Japanese people get stressed when visiting the USA is (a) you have to be on your guard because it's less safe than Japan, and (2) you have to figure out the convoluted tipping culture!
Patrons are thankful, but they shouldn't be culturally shamed into paying even more for already pricey Apple gear. If given a choice between a tipping Apple Store and a non-tipping one, I would of course go out of my way to visit the non-tipping store every time. We should be able to express gratitude from the heart, not from the wallet.
