[jerf]

'The company has cited "safety and well-being" as a reason for introducing the membership fee.'

I've noticed the "fake because" lately seems to be getting more and more brazen from corporations.

This is about the third or fourth "for your safety and convenience we're helping ourselves to more of your money" I've seen in the last couple months, and unfortunately all the other ones I've seen are for products or services I actually have.

But I for one am just grateful that we have so many companies and governments willing to take more of our money, spend less of theirs, extend wait times, reduce services, and just generally do less for more money for our safety and convenience. Imagine how unsafe we'd be if they weren't taking so much money and actually provided service. What a bloodbath it would be.

[Joker_vD]

The supermarket network I usually shop at lets one chose 5 product categories (out of about 30 or so) that they will get cashback from. Recently, they've decided to split categories "Tea, Coffee, Cocoa" and "Fruits & vegetables" into two new categories each: "Tea", "Coffee & Cocoa", "Fruits", and "Vegetables", — with the stated reason "to improve your shopping experience". No idea how that would improve my shopping experience, but hey, they probably know better than I do, right?

[koala_man]

Which category are tomatoes in?

[asciimike]

The US Supreme Court has some thoughts they'd like to share with you...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_v._Hedden

[tym0]

Probably Vegetables like all other Fruits that are Vegetables...

[moate]

People always bring up tomatoes. Where's the love for cucumbers, squash, eggplants and peppers?!

[cogman10]

And don't even get me started on berries!

Fun fact, eggplants and tomatoes are berries, raspberries and blackberries are not.

[moate]

Cucumbers: Also berries!

BAH!

[throwaway0a5e]

Safety is a modern day god. Corporations are invoking its name to justify whatever they want the same way a medieval lord would invoke god in their justification for sending a dozen dudes to beat someone up.

"For your safety you need to swipe your credit card before your riding lawnmower will go into reverse."

edit: 'the' vs 'a', modern society's worship of abstract concepts is more akin to ancient polytheistic societies than medieval Christianity.

[sb057]

>Safety is the modern day god.

Modern day?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salus

Fun fact: the words "Salus" and "safety" are, in fact, cognate!

[api]

Running with a heavy wallet is dangerous. You're more likely to lose your balance and any fall would be that much worse due to the added weight. Peloton is helpfully making your wallet lighter to ensure a safe running experience.

Seriously though: if something doesn't really need it, any form of Internet-enabling is something I see as an anti-feature and now avoid at all costs. Internet enabled features or apps means "it spies on you, will change or break needlessly due to an update, or will find a way to extract rent." I will pay more for something without Wifi or (worse) a fucking cellular modem.

I'm worried about the ability to buy a non-Internet-enabled car though. I have a 2013 Nissan Leaf and am looking into upgrading its battery. The car is otherwise absolutely perfect. It just needs more range per charge.

[voakbasda]

Network enabled hardware is a plague. I am a senior embedded engineer doing consulting for companies around the world. It’s all utter crap, and no one should trust any of it. Ever. I am not exaggerating or joking in the slightest.

I will never buy appliances, cars, tools, vacuum cleaners, or any other device with any kind of networking functionality. This feature will be used in the future to lock you out of your own hardware, spy on you, serve as a vector for attacks, to restrict its functionality, and to steal that which you have already paid to own. Not if, when.

I drive an ‘83 Toyota pickup, and I will never give it up. Modern cars are trash on multiple levels.

[kvhdude]

Tesla would like to have a word with you. They are upgrading driving ML models on the fly and users seem to like it so far (anecdotal).

[cameldrv]

There is a pretty funny social psychology study [1] where someone asks to cut in line to use the copy machine at a library. If they request to cut in line, 61% of the time, the request is accepted. If they make the same request, but add "because I'm in a rush", the request is accepted 94% of the time. If they make the same request but instead say "because I have to make some copies", the request is accepted 93% of the time.

For some reason, the "fake because", even if it is nonsensical is an effective psychological hack.

[1] https://jamesclear.com/copy-machine-study

[schnebbau]

They do it because it works. There are more than enough idiots out there who will nod and keep giving them money to make up for those that won't.

"Vote with your wallet" doesn't work, because too much of the population are lemmings.

[rchaud]

Voting with your wallet also doesn't work in an economy where companies are either backed by VCs or can borrow at near-zero interest rates. Companies like WeWork and Uber can lose billions per quarter by undercutting competitors, yet stay afloat because of the SV money hose.

[LorenPechtel]

It doesn't work with a captive audience, either. People are going to pay rather than have their machine bricked.

[prepend]

It’s funny how much people believe corporate BS and will defend the company citing their stated reasoning. I used to think it’s astroturf, but it’s too pervasive.

For example, LLBean and REI recently revoked their lifetime warranty referencing “customer abuse” and on web forums people defend the companies. Like somehow after many decades, customer abuse skyrocketed. And there’s no data, of course. And the change went from lifetime to 1-2 years. And it makes them tons more money.

It seems people are less skeptical of corporate blargh.

[SavantIdiot]

> governments willing to take more of our money, spend less of theirs

One way to fix this is to vote for people who believe everyone (including corporations) should pay their fair share of taxes, rather than just the middle class, aka the overtaxed 90%.