I've done both, and wanted to share perspective because I see a LOT of anti-tipping nonsense lately.
In Australia, the pay is $22 an hour. Shifts are usually 3-4 hours long and you get a LOT of split shifts – they just send you home after the lunch rush and you have to come back in later. If it's slow, they'll send you home early and your earning potential drops to $0. Why do they do that? Because it's not economically feasible to pay you when nothing is going on. What this means is you'll have an entire day set aside for work, but you might only be working 10:30am – 1:00pm and 5:00pm to 8:00pm. That's an entire day gone for 5 and a half hours of pay.
In the US, as we all know, the customer pays most of your wages, which means it's worth making $2 an hour during slow times because all you'll need is two families of four racking up an $80 bill each to make $32 in tips.
The system of tipping in American restaurants isn't greed, and it isn't predatory to the waiters. Actually it seems like the only people furious about the existence of tipping are people who don't/haven't worked in service.
Also? The food is more expensive, by a lot, and far exceeding the currency exchange rate. Minimum wage is $22 here but if I want to go to a *really* nice restaurant, I'm probably paying at least $45 for my dinner and a shared app, and a single soft drink.
The point is, someone is paying for service. If it's the restaurant paying full wages to the server, your meal is going to be fucking expensive and your service will probably be sub-par. If you're doing it through tipping, service will be amazing and you choose, within reason, how much they will take home. And by within reason, I mean never dropping below 15% unless they were explicitly rude.
Service is a career in the US, and not really anywhere else except perhaps Italy and France. It's definitely not a career here. People choose it. If you're furious about the system of tipping in the US, are you a server? If so, please share your experience and why you're furious. If not, why are you co-opting the struggles of other people so you can rile up some anger?