Spoken like somebody who knows nothing about economics. If your economy is growing, so are wages, so are costs, so are prices. No inflation = no growth. That’s why the US Fed targets 2% inflation. Below that, it tries to stimulate the economy. Above that it tries to slow it down. So prices are always going up and so are wages. That’s how it works in all the non-tipped industries, why the f should it be different for restaurants?
You should be concerned with a business being able to succeed because that means families are getting fed.
And that’s the problem. If I need to tip for the service workers to get enough money to live, then it’s on me to make the business successful by your definition, which doesn’t sound like the business is really succeeding. It’s succeeding because I’ve chosen to tip the right amount. I’m not going to withhold somebody’s wages just because service was poor: they need to feed their family. Let’s cut this “do a good enough job and I’ll tip good enough” bullshit out and make sure we’re actually feeding families?