I think it depends on location.

It would be a bizarre approach in Scandinavia because the consensus here is that companies must pay their employees a decent baseline salary -- which unions negotiate across the whole sector -- so there's no expectation of a tip by default.

But for much of the rest of the world, it's not a given that working conditions are as good.

I think in the Netherlands the general rule is to tip up to 10% depending how good the service was, unless it was excellent and you go higher. When drinking a couple coffees in a restaurant it is okay to tip with a single Euro for good service, even if that doesn't amount to 10%.

I also tip 10% in Europe unless I see a table/service charge added, and I will gladly stop if you say so

I tip (live in US) as we are shamed into it, but I find the relationship between the customer and staff subservient and dehumanizing. The service folks must do the dance and check on you every 5 minutes ("Are we doing good here, hon?) while I in turn must come up with a fake smile and a thumbs up. What else am I gonna do? It's all kinds of weird but unlikely to change.

A couple of decades ago I had a waiter run out to the street after me, midtown Manhattan, a sushi/tappas place, sternly inquiring as to why I didn't tip them. I simply forgot, it was very late. I didn't need that.

It's definitely efficient for the worker. There's no employee tax or income tax on that money. The worker just gets the money directly.

I never tip because if burger with fries costs €15 then we had a fucking legal contract that you'll give me a burger with fries for €15, don't be like "uuuuuuh sir I'm going to ruin your evening by asking you to pay more at the checkout time because reasons".

That’s funny. When there recently, I had a woman put the cc machine back in my face with a pouty look after I had plugged in 10%.

She was non-Swiss herself though and I read it as trying to take advantage of a tourist

I lived in Swizterland, but never experienced any refund. Some places would reject tips outright when asked or point out that your tip is excessive, but a refund?

It’s not surprising to anyone that two random Spaniards may disagree on whether a number like this is high or low. That’s because Spaniards don’t all get together to agree on a common position for online posting; and because high/low depends on the context and comparison to other countries.

Spain’s gini coefficient indicates it is much more equal than USA, but not as equal as, say, Denmark.

You can’t hold two separate people accountable for their contradictory statements.

I don't think it is a fair comparison. The cost of raising a child can still be too high even in a fairly low gini country.

In fact I'd say gini has nothing to do with birth rate. Birth rate declines when parents have confidence that there is a good likelihood their children will survive to adulthood.

It is often easy to forget that just five hundred years ago almost one of two infants born didn't survive into adulthood. Low birth rates are good. Don't let anyone say otherwise.

In my opinion, low birth rates can't be attributed to income, or income inequality. I feel like it's more about optimism, to have kids you have to be optimistic about the future.

I'm saying this based on anecdotal observations from my biased POV, so take this with a grain of salt. There are income differences, but most are inter-city/region differences. I'd say within a specific city or region, it's low gini, but there's a high gini if you compare cross-region. Income and costs in a village in rural Spain are less than half that of a "mid-tier" city, and less than a third or even quarter of that of Barcelona or Madrid

Low Gini compared to the US, but mediocre for a European country (comparable to France, Germany, Italy; significantly worse compared to low-Gini regions like Scandinavia).

If anyone said this about the country that you’re from (based on this attitude, we all know what my guess is) you’d immediately clock how absurd it sounds.

  Gini:                 Spain << US
  Youth unemployment:   Spain >>> US
  Living with parents:  Spain >>> US
  First birth age:      Spain >>> US
  Fertility:            Spain << US

Two clichés to be contrasted with another two: the smiling first-name-terms coffee-shop barista in Hamburg, and the coldly brusque waiter in some Roman caffè storico.

All these generalizations are as slippery as a bar of soap.

Well, yes. That's why I labelled it as a "quirk", however as it looks people really seemed to have read a whole lot of other things into it.

requiring immediate gratification at all times is a standard, I suppose.