I’m not going to shame you for being a eurobrain, but why would you start talking authoritatively on the deranged state of North American tipping culture when you dont seem to understand how it works?
It’s surprisingly common for cashiers to re-enter your tip amount for you when they reset the machine if there was an issue with your transaction, or maybe they fudged the automatic gratuity on a large party, or maybe the person needed assistance with the machine and the cashier decided that was their chance… Unfortunately when people’s incomes rely on tips, and a tip is expected on every meal, it’s only a matter of time before someone takes advantage, and unfortunately some people just… Aren’t super observant.
As terrible as Capital One is (extremely bad), this isn’t a dark pattern to keep you from spending money, they get more out of you if you spend more on your Credit card because of the interest on repayments.