So, I'm sorry, @Emberguard but your answer is not incorrect but it only addresses half of the equation. Hence, my previous assertion that "Of all of the upgrades you can do to your tavern, the tablecloth is the only one that actually benefits your "guests."
I understand there is benefit in the tablecloth. I also find a great deal of irony in regards to who gets the benefit of a tablecloth and people in this thread wanting selfless friends. There's nothing more self-serving than rejecting friend requests on the basis of them not having a tablecloth. Do that enough times and the only reason they'll place a cloth has nothing to do with benefitting others; it'll be to avoid being rejected by the community, so then it's still just to benefit themselves
If people truly only wanted people who visit the tavern, surely the focus would be more on the floor upgrade rather than the tablecloth. The floor matches the motivation to visit taverns given that's its sole purpose
There's a implied statement within what you said earlier:
"I just see it as courtesy to the people I'm asking to spend time to give me something I'll need: tavern silver."
The first implication being that they somehow don't need to visit, and the second implication being that we need to ask. If your friends don't need the silver, and they don't visit unless you ask.... defeats the whole point of the tablecloth anyway. They'll visit if they need to visit and if they're waiting to be asked then they're still not visiting. I do wonder how many of those that reject on the basis of tablecloth are still actively visiting everyone their friends list
no matter what, even when they don't need to visit. 'Cause that would mean a whole lot more than just expecting everyone else to be more selfless than we ourselves are prepared to be