My thought is that this doesn't shift the burden to those that can afford to pay (and choose to tip) it shifts the burden to many of those who (for a lack of a better way to put it) don't have the money but feel bad if they don't tip. Also I fully understand why businesses do this but it creates a negative feeling at the point of purchase in terms of rejecting and not tipping.

Americans are beggers because they don't have employee rights. Some people euphemistically call this "tipping culture"

Time to start the #NeverTipper movement!

Blame the payment processors. If you are a store and you buy a point of sale machine, it comes preconfigured to 18%/20%/25% or whatever tips, and it is not well documented how to change it. Most small business owners give up and stop bothering.

Why do the payment companies do this? Because they get ~1% of the tip.

I just wanna know how everyone thinks is acceptable to tip for a product that you did not even receive yet. How do I know if it’s even good? Can I take my tip back if it’s not?

There is pretty much one way to stop this: stop patronizing carry-out and counter service establishments that throw a tip question into the checkout process. It's not enough to just elect zero tip. Stop giving them your money, period.

No problem tipping for good sit-down table service, or a good bartender at a bar. But at carry-out and self-service places, there's no service provided so nothing to earn a tip.