How You Can Support Indie Creators—and You Need To
Beyond tipping culture, there are meaningful ways to support independent creators that don't involve money. Here are eight of the best.
o, you walk into your favourite coffee shop for a simple vanilla latte. Then, the barista smiles warmly as they flip around an iPad with three glowing buttons: 15%, 20%, 25%. The numbers stare you down while a line of impatient customers forms behind you. You hit 20% on a $7 drink because pressing "No Tip" is admitting you're a bad person. Later, you grab some delicious takeout at that new place nearby, the iPad is spun around again. Then, you decide to get a haircut at the barber and there's *another* spinning iPad with a display of percentages.
Even at the self-serve frozen yogurt place where you literally did everything yourself.
I get it. Even the auto repair shop you walk into at this point asks the same thing: A tip. A little extra on top of the money you're already (over)spending.
[Around 72% of Americans say tipping is expected in more places today than it was five years ago](https://www.pewresearch.org/2023/11/09/tipping-culture-in-america-public-sees-a-changed-landscape/), a phenomenon dubbed ["tipflation."](https://www.pew.org/en/trust/archive/winter-2024/americas-new-tipping-culture) Digital payment systems changed tipping, with [research showing people tend to tip upwards of 11% more when using digital methods](https://www.mightytravels.com/2024/07/the-evolving-landscape-of-tipping-culture-a-look-at-emerging-trends-in-2024/) compared to cash. And who uses cash, anymore? The expansion of businesses accepting tips has been dramatic, with [the percentage of specialty food stores like bakeries and coffee shops accepting tips increased significantly from 2019 to 2024](https://www.aarp.org/money/personal-finance/navigate-tipping-culture-rules/), and [specialty retailers seeing a 50% growth](https://www.aarp.org/money/personal-finance/navigate-tipping-culture-rules/) in tip acceptance during that same period. We're now being prompted to tip at [airport newsstands, movie theater concession counters, and auto repair shops](https://www.aarp.org/money/personal-finance/navigate-tipping-culture-rules/), all places that never expected gratuity before.
And there are a dwindling amount of places we can go to where this isn't the case. Public libraries, of course. City parks where you can walk among trees without anybody asking for 25% of the oxygen you breathe. The quiet corner booth at your local bookstore where you can flip through magazines without a screen demanding tribute (you might be asked to buy the magazine, though). But don't get me wrong, you *should* absolutely be spending more time in those kind of places, but that doesn't address the root issue here.
One of these few-remaining places that's free is our screens. The Internet. The majority of us are not paying for anything online and get hours of doomscrolling entertainment in retur
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