An incredibly common complaint when people discuss tips is the perceived injustice of having to pay employees’ wages when the onus of that should be on the employer. It’s literally been brought up in this thread multiple times, including the comment I replied to.

So no, I’m not actually that convinced that people really understand it. While there is a social and psychological difference in tips vs raised prices that is meaningful, the economics are essentially the same, so appealing to some sense of economic justice really doesn’t make sense. People continuously talk about how employers simply need to abolish tipping and pay their workers more, seemingly unaware that that would be directly financed by higher prices roughly equal to the tips they’re already paying.