I constantly have the same issue. Youtube even shows the video as already watched. I click not interested, then already seen, but another one pops up in it's place. Quite annoying.
Sometimes servers will be really cool and have a conversation with you, or make jokes, or be really charismatic, or go out of their way to figure out what kind of food you can eat if you have a weird allergy, and be really nice and obviously wanting to be helpful. They can please a difficult family member who generally complains about everything, or make great food suggestions based off what you say you like. There's a lot of stuff a server can do to go out of their way to stand out. Are you saying you've never had a server where you thought to yourself after you leave "wow, that guy was great."? (also I think some places aren't allowed to, or can't put pitchers on tables, so just ask for 2 waters for yourself if you drink a lot of water and don't want to be bugged)
People don't need to spend their money on the most optimal thing that benefits society. They can spend their money however they want. If they want to give it to a kind stranger who made their day better, who are you to tell them not to. I've had some awesome servers who have genuinely made me happier when I need it, screw it, I'll give them money to say thank you.
If you have money to spend on a $300 bottle of wine, you can probably afford a bigger tip. If you don't want to tip 15-20% on that $300, don't. There's a big difference from owning a dog, and paying for its food, than spending money on a fun alcoholic beverage.
I've worked at a restaurant for years, same with my friends. Good servers know how to not be too pushy. You greet them when they sit down, ask for drinks. You drop off drinks, take an order for appetizers. When you drop off appetizers, you take their food order and look around to check to see if anyone needs refills. You come back with refills, and then bring over the food when it's done. You walk past the table to check if there is any empty dishes to grab, and ask if they need anything else when you do.
Basically, my point is every trip that you need to make anyways, you check the table. If a table is hanging for too long, you start to get a little more pushy, because it's a business that's trying to make money. If it's a busy Saturday night and you have a table that doesn't want to leave, other people have to wait longer for that table, and also the restaurant makes less money. Imagine your annoyance if you make a reservation at a restaurant, and you get sat late because people are taking 3 hours to finish up.
Your point about obligatory tipping and not being able to penalize servers doesn't make any sense. If service is that bad, you just don't tip. If a server yells at you, you talk to the manager or just walk out the door. I've put zero for a tip a few times and no one has given me a hard time, and if they do, your night was already ruined by awful service anyways. Also, if you make it out the door in time, the servers won't even see your check by the time you're gone. If you can't bring yourself not to tip someone, that's on you. It happens ALL THE TIME. Almost every other night a server will tell me that so and so didn't tip, or tipped a dollar, etc.
By the way, none of this is for or against tipping, I'm just explaining my thoughts on the current system.
Apparently when I was a little kid, maybe 6 or something, I figured out how to deal with this. I was too short to reach the back of the microwave, so if I put something in the front, and it finished in the back, I'd have to call my mom over to help me. I figured out how long the microwave took to do a full circle, and how long it would take to do a half circle. So when I knew it would finish with a half circle, I'd push the food in as far as possible, I'd nudge it with my fingertips. When it was done, the food would appear in the front and I could grab it.
At this point, I think it is just semantics. You can call it a crash, I would call it a dip.
Mostly because I cannot seriously call it a crash (in a way that most people think about crashes), if just a few months later the market looks like as it never even happened in the first place. When I think of a "real" crash, I think of something the effects of which are still present for at least a year or more after the dip.
But that's just my personal take on it, I do not expect everyone to agree with this interpretation of what constitutes a "real" crash.
