First, good servers are far and few between and yet the expectation is always there (even in Canada for some bizarre reason). And people’s definition of good is also different. I don’t care about service with a smile, or being periodically asked if the food is good. That’s actually annoying to me. Just get my order right and get my bill within a reasonable time. Even if you are juggling 3-5 different tables, you have a notepad for a reason. That’s not worth much to me, especially since those are requirements of many other min wage jobs (ffs EMT personnel salaries are not paid much more than min wage, you see them asking for tips?).
Second, tipping culture goes easy beyond dining in. They ask for it whenever you pay, even takeout. That’s just rude imo.
Third, anecdotally, service quality is not correlated with tipping. The best servers I’ve experienced have been going to Japan where they don’t do tips.
And it may seem that this is punching down, but it is not because conceptually tipping is a mechanism to justify suppressing wages/value of labor by businesses. Instead, “hating The game” should be about raising min wage as a whole so businesses pay more, and if that means goods cost more, at least the consumers are more informed that way.