The problem stems less from how it might have originated and more from what it results in.
Multiple times I've been travelling for dinner with coworkers and someone notes "oh, tip is already included here" (be it the group size, the way the place works normally, or whatever reason) and then half the table starts redoing the receipt because they were tricked into it. This example highlights it's not always about intent, work already has a set policy of how to tip (i.e. no generosity or etc involved), people are just getting plain tricked into doing something else instead. Regardless - it's successful in the growth of tips, so it spreads.
Similarly, "just click skip and move on" puts the friction in the wrong direction - especially if you're not alone. It's great that it can apply a lot of the time, but the problem is it has friction, sometimes strong, in certain scenarios - again, this friction is only weighted towards the growth of tips.
Lastly, the vast majority of people have some level of desire to be fair, even if they don't want to be generous. Any uncertainty which can be created in the tipping process ("am I supposed to tip here?", "is the tip in the service charge, if so how much goes to the person/how much were they expecting to get in total?", "is the recommended tip on the receipt more than I expected", and so on) tends to push people to tip more than their generosity alone would have inclined, and it's really quite unfair to say the solution is to just click skip and hope all will understand each time.
Unfortunately, there is pretty much nothing pushing in the opposite direction. Your options as an individual, or even sizable portion of society, are to shit on the wait staff's income about it in hopes they complain enough that management gives them a better salary (that'd take quite the movement). Everything about this side has the exact opposite incentive pressures as the above, and so whether particularly generous folks are a factor or not... there's really nothing that's going to get done about it for the typical person.
Maybe we can start some place in the middle of "being able to walk into a place and understand what the cost will be up front", such as including tax in the base prices of things, and it'll open more doors about tipping for the same consideration. Until then, we all are stuck with dealing with it.
"Your options as an individual, or even sizable portion of society, are to shit on the wait staff's income"
My primarily option is to multiply the estimated cost of going to the restaurant by 1.3 (tip+tax) and make my decision about going there based on that figure, not on published menu prices.
That's a good estimate for an individual visit as of today but is precisely the kind of thing that which has resulted in "normal" tips going from +.1 to +.15 to +.2 as the years go on (erring too low has more friction than erring too high, and if something else raises the amount traditionally tipped somewhere then "normal" for this will tend to adjust upwards in a large group).
Will owners realize at some point that the tips are really coming out of their pockets? If a guest has to pay $10 tip, she will buy $10 less food.
The staff wages (what tips offset) come out of their pocket either way, advertising the lower price is just a marketing technique.