You can't even buy a non-alcoholic drink at most of these places for what they're paying as an hourly wage.

Of course, there's also the problem that most waitstaff make way more than the business would ever pay them and generally prefer tip+minimum.

It's the reason that we never stopped doing it. The business owners don't want to stop, the staff doesn't want to stop. The patrons have no measure to see if they're getting fucked, so we just deal with it.