I don't disagree about the "saying one thing and doing something else" part. I was commenting on the general principle of lowering one's wages (even to below minimum wages) if the person gets enough tips, and how common that is.
It's kind of just semantics, but the thought is that tips don't commonly reduce wages, wages stay the same and tips remove the responsibility for the restaurant to ensure that average hourly pay is meeting the general minimum wage.
Another way to put it is that the tips don't normally change the wage structure, which is exactly what Amazon did.
I hear you, I'm not sure how useful this is as a comparison though; plenty of things are fine and dandy if you're upfront that you're doing it and gain agreement from the other party, and illegal if you conceal that you're doing and don't get agreement.
