25% tipping at US restaurants as a default? Crazy. Even 18% should be optional.

Restaurants have raised their prices, so even a 15% tip on the ordered food and drink means more money than it used to mean.

Also, nothing stops restaurants in the US from raising the wages the restaurants pay their employees. Especially not at a time when the labor market is as tight as it is. If anything, the public and the employees are done a long-term service when they are encouraged to to ditch their cheap employers who have made their employees over-reliant on tips from customers.

About tipping/service charges in Asia, a lot of those service charges are de facto revenue for the employers in Asia and not passed on directly to the employees providing the service.