>The reason you tip your waiter is (ostensibly) because it creates a direct incentive for better service, by leaving some of the compensation up to the customer.

Funny how service is as good if not better in the vast majority of the rest of the world, despite a lack of tipping culture.

Is that true though? "service with a smile" and "The customer is always right" are notions I've seen far far more in the US.

I think its more of a cultural thing than an effect of tipping, but service in the US is usually pretty high quality.

From what I can tell (traveled to US, EU, live in non-tipping culture), it is often:

"service with a FORCED smile" which I find far worse than service without a smile.

and

"PRETEND the customer is always right" which happens in non-tipping culture too (do whatever makes the least trouble for yourself at work).

Yes, it's absolutely true.

Any Asian country I've been to had much better service than the US. France (Paris) had excellent service. Greece had extremely nice service. These are all low- or no- tipping places.

I would say the opposite, service in most other countries is better than the US.