Hard to believe, given the way airlines cram in as many seats as possible these days, but not that long ago, there used to be PUBS in economy class. Let's think about that for a second. A flying pub, complete with a bar and video games. IN ECONOMY.
    It's hard to imagine now that people were even allowed to smoke on planes (let alone that smoking and non-smoking sections were next to each other without any physical barrier, meaning that the last row of non-smoking seats may as well have been smoking).
And yet, back in the day, all manner of wonderful features were installed on planes as airlines competed for business. Check out this list of incredibly civilised things that airlines used to offer you, including live pianists and people carving succulent pork at your seat and then sit back in your cramped modern-day seat and read your creased, sweaty copy of Sky Mall and cry. Cry for the past, when people wore hot pants and installed Peruvian art.
    The Golden Age of Flight wasn't all chilled champagne and unchecked casual sexism, though - tickets were incredibly expensive (you think paying a flying pianist is cheap?) as this feature from the Wall Street Journal explains.

As a Brit living in the US, I've been through the known stages of tipping culture: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance. The 'acceptance' stage involves a period of over-tipping, as if atoning for past sins - why, yes, I'll give you 40 per cent on that lunchtime sandwich because although I'm British, I KNOW ALL ABOUT TIPPING, DON'T YOU KNOW?
    Thankfully for bank balances everywhere, this doesn't last and you settle into the routine 20-25% that marks you out as a normal member of society. I have no beef with tipping people who rely on this for their income. It's just the way it is. However, it doesn't STOP it being the greatest trick capitalism ever played, getting the customer to buy not JUST goods and services, but also to pay for the salary of those providing it. It's kind of genius how this practice has slinked its way into everyday life. We don't really even question it any more. Well played there, capitalism.
    It's always refreshing, then, to go to restaurants in the US where tipping is explicitly prohibited, presumably because the employer is stepping up and taking care of its staff (and not because the staff are living on the streets and living off leftovers). Where I live in New Orleans, there's a locally famous traditional restaurant called Mothers. You are not expected to tip here, and there are signs indicating as much. It's tricky since the staff are so entertaining and their baked ham, with its sticky, caramelized edges, puts you in a generous mood.
    Non-tipping restaurants, though, are obviously still newsworthy, as this report illustrates. A restaurant that pays its own hard-working employees a living wage. While in Europe this would be so quotidian and mundane it would pass unnoticed even within the walls of the very restaurant, in the States, the resistance to capitalism's most enduring victory is treated with wide-eyed curiosity. Like I say, as long as people are getting paid, I'm good with how it happens. It's hard to imagine the tipping culture here being overthrown, but interesting to note the footholds, however small. If 'upscale New York restaurants' can do it, there's hope for everyone. 
    (And see THIS feature by Esquire on taking it a step further and outlawing tipping altogether...)