What would you do if you were asked to tip … no one in particular?
On Oct. 16, Dr. Clay Moss posted on social media about what happened when he tried to buy a bottle of water at a self-service CIBO Express convenience store in Terminal C of Newark Liberty International Airport.
Even though he was the only one in the store and checked out his own beverage, the screen prompted him to leave a tip.
“Look at this. This is what the world’s come to nowadays,” Moss says in a video that has been viewed millions of times on TikTok and Instagram.
“Who is this automatic 18% tip — that I have to click out of — for?” Moss asked his audience. His transaction included a $6.49 bottle of water and an 18% tip (or $1.17) added to his total. He promptly removes the tip.
“Who am I … who am I tipping here? What? Is this what we’ve come to? I don’t know,” he says at the end of the video.
Representatives for CIBO Express did not immediately respond to TODAY.com’s request for comment.
Most people were on his side in the comments: One wrote that “tip culture has gotten out of hand…,” and another asked, “How is it possible that other countries pay their staff, taxes and there is a very minimal tipping culture — and nobody is angry?”
Others raised the point that workers, while invisible to him, are involved in bringing him the water he purchased.
“That water bottle didn’t walk itself to the cooler. Someone had to put it there! Oh yeah, a waged employee,” one wrote. “I’m curious in this situation who gets the tips and if they’re shared with the employees or it goes to the store.”
Moss describes going viral for his comments on tipping culture as an “unexpected side quest.”
“What made this moment so absurd to me is that we’ve removed the human interaction but kept the social expectation,” Moss tells TODAY.com. “I’m happy to thank someone for good service. But standing at a self-checkout, my question was pretty simple: ‘How the heck did we get here?’”
In his video, the screen shows, in very fine print, an “Employee Benefits Surcharge” added to his purchase, and that the surcharge is “not a gratuity payable directly to staff.”
According to Inc., the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says the surcharge aims to “help provide annual wage increases for thousands of airport workers and help concessionaires offset labor-related costs tied to airport minimum-wage requirements and the Healthy Terminals Act.” It was approved in December 2024.
A Port Authority representative says it will work to remove the tipping option from the machine seen in the video.
“Tipping prompts have no place at self-checkout kiosks and we have previously worked with OTG to ensure customers do not receive those prompts,” they tell TODAY.com. “We have contacted OTG about the kiosk shown in the video and expect the tipping option to be removed immediately. We will also confirm that no other self-checkout kiosks are prompting customers for tips.”
More businesses have been asking for tips in recent years, leading to tipping fatigue, with 40% of consumers tipping less this year because of tighter budgets and rising prices.
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
