I’d outlaw sauce bottles which make getting it all out harder, especially the ones which don’t have the opening at the bottom and make it impossible to put the bottle with the opening facing downwards.
Displaying any price other than the final price I have to pay inclusive of all fees and charges. I don’t care about a number that has some mathematical relationship to what’s going to come out of my bank account, just tell me the price. This always annoys me so much when I travel to the US but it’s probably like that in a few other places too.
And lying about why something is charged, although it’s not silly. A takeaway website I worked for adds “service charge” which is literally just a delivery charge, but hidden, because you only see it during finalization. It doesn’t apply to pick-up orders, only delivery. Many websites seem to had adopted it so they can lie about the free delivery.
In the USA, companies like Ticketmaster now have to show the full price upfront, including all taxes and fees. Airlines have had to do it for a little over 10 years, too. I really hope this is enforced for more industries in the future.
If I’m at a physical store, they know the tax rate, so the listed prices should include taxes! Same with a restaurant, more and more of which are hiding nonsense fees.
And the price per kilo written so small I need my glasses to decipher it.
And multiple different unit prices across brands. It’s easy when one product uses per kilo while another uses per 100g, but it’s more annoying in the US when one product shows unit pricing per pound while another shows it per ounce.
Came here to say this! At least if it was metric it’d be an easy conversion. But america still clings to it’s stupid units and I end up just not buying stuff rather than trying to do math in my head a hundred times in the grocery store.
Another European easy win 😎
So do you hunt and forage your food then?
(Good natured sarcasm 😁)
I’m grateful that US food/drink packaging at least has both American units and metric units. I’m an Australian living in the USA so I always just look at the metric units.
Also when print on extremely faint letters.
If it’s not significantly smaller than the cost it becomes confusing though.
That’s not even silly. That’s some real shit.
touch-sensitive controls in vehicles need to be outright illegal. All controls, regardless of how esoteric, should be operable by feel.
Also on stoves. “Oh, you wanna turn off a burner? Sorry, your fingers are too wet. Also, I hope you remembered to read the 300 page manual because we’ve never even heard of intuitive controls”
The controls on my stove are those weird flat buttons you’d see on a lot of late 90’s appliances? Like they don’t “press” at all but they do respond to pressure so I could preheat my oven with the end of a spoon or something. Those are superior to capacitive touch controls.
Also, every car should use standardized bays for things like the stereo. Like, seriously, why can’t I upgrade my car stereo anymore?
We’ve had that, it was called 1DIN/2DIN, kinda like the 19" racks but smaller
I have a Citroen Berlingo and everything except the Android Auto stuff is operated by buttons. What cars don’t use buttons? And for what features?
My dad’s Toyota Avalon has a touch screen for the infotainment center, and the climate controls are a touch-sensitive panel rather than mechanical switches. Which means if you go to wipe dust off the dashboard, you fuck up the air conditioner settings. I don’t know what’s worse, all the touch controls, or all the chrome on the dashboard scientifically aligned to glint sunlight into your eyes.
scientifically aligned to glint sunlight into your eyes.
Speaking of, the trend of absolutely blinding headlights should be outlawed. It’s especially bad for those of us who drive tiny sedans and live in the US, where seemingly every other car on the road is a lifted F350 with the headlights pointed straight at eye/side mirror/rearview mirror level. There have been more than a few times where a car coming towards me or sitting on the other side of an intersection at a red light has blinded me to the point where I literally can’t see anything else. Recently at a stop sign, I couldn’t tell if the truck across from me was about to go or not, and I was needing to turn left. They are SO fucking dangerous. And yet, cops will pu people over for having shit hanging from the rearview mirror, or for a big enough crack in a windshield?? We have our priorities so fucked up.
Also that type of reflective tint on back windows that makes the sun go straight into your eyes when driving behind someone who has it. Wtf is that and why. I had no idea that regular window tint needed to be “improved” / re-engineered.
Teslas and cars that are trying to copy Tesla (Mustang Mach-E for example.)
Literally every EV
My car is a EV so not every. So your saying Teslas don’t have buttons for example?
Tesla is the worst offender.
Well apparently some company had to try this on the vehicles 🤣
Billboards. Get them out of here! Everyone gets to put their name on the side of the building in at most 2m tall black or white Time New Roman.
There is so much unnecessary advertising in my country. Billboards, commercials on a screen at fuel stations, placards on park benches. None of it has any tangible benefit to regular people. None.
Fuck that. Banksy wrote:
Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.
The longer quote is here.
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Wow that’s really solid. I feel challenged at implementation but that’s a me problem.
Huh it would be nice to walk around the city with less advertisements
In the US there are 4 states that have outlawed billboards: Vermont, Maine, Alaska, and Hawaii. I absolutely would not complain if it became nationwide.
Some states also seem to prohibit billboards on certain stretches of highway. There was a state highway I used to take daily in Connecticut and there were no billboards anywhere.
I will never understand the Pay Attention to the Road type billboards on some highways here
Broaden this to any ads on the streets. Billboards are the most egregious, but I’d actually kill for a society where I can get from my home to a grocery with nothing trying to sell me something.
I am okay with the business itself having signage on its property visible from far enough away for travelers to make navigational decisions. I’m also okay with those state-issued signs on large highways that point out things like lodging, fuel and food which must conform to certain guidelines. And in this case, I’d prefer using clear and distinctive logos which are recognizable by color and shape so that motorists can recognize them faster and spend more of their attention on the road.
I think those could be considered less ads and more just informational postings, particularly the food and fuel lines a la the signs at each interstate exit that tells you the amenities available near any given exit. Considering, as well, that they usually have several competitors on the same sign, and it feels even less ad-like
It’s closer to the scale of what “advertising” should be if it wasn’t the bloated cancerous mass that it is today. I want businesses to exist and I want interested customers to be able to find these businesses, but I don’t want to be told “I’m not a dish, I’m a man” nine times an hour. Signs along the interstate that say “Hey at this next exit there’s a McDonald’s and a Denny’s, an Exxon and a BP truck stop, and a Holiday Inn” are genuinely useful.
Times New Roman is my one disagreement here. That font is not my favorite.
Calibri supremacy
Liberation Sans supremacy
Though DIN 1451 would make an acceptable alternative.
I’m ambivalent on this one. If the ad on a building serves to keep the charges from tenants lower then I don’t mind (given the ad is somewhat tasteful). Ads for the sake of ads? Yea, fuck that.
If the ad on a building serves to keep the charges from tenants lower then I don’t mind
Lol. That’s just bonus money for the building owner and tenants will probably get a rent hike just because.
Funny joke, that. Passing on savings to the end user.
Passing savings on to the tenants, eh? What incentive does the business owner have to do so?
I disagree with the requirement for plain labels. Trademarks exist for consumer protection as well as business protection; I want Gatorade to hold a trademark on clear bottles with lightning bolts on the front and orange caps, because I don’t want to be fooled into buying Negligent Uncle Greg’s Geterade. If anything, I would force companies to use fewer of them; no hosing Amazon with 900,000 differently branded permutations of the same product.
Bottled water in every country where the tap water is safe to drink.
I’d shift that slightly.
Bottled water can be useful in emergencies and disaster situations, but they should be treated like other emergency items/rations. People should use reusable containers as much as possible, and the companies should NOT get to suck up all the water they want for free.
Good feedback!
Even in area where it’s slightly unsafe, you can get a water filter that installs onto your tap, or even a whole house water filter.
Asking for or even suggesting tips of any kind anywhere. Also gratuities, service fees, and any other kind of made up fee. Show a price, end of story.
Also outlaw not including taxes. Show full complete prices.
I agree. Pay the people a livable wage and price the product accordingly, with taxes included.
But I do want to still know how much of the cost is tax. Basically an all in cost, but as transparent as possible
Fine, but me personally, I don’t care how much is tax. Do it like gasoline. Tax is already part of it.
The last part is made more complicated by having different tax rates on different items in different places at different times.
You see a national ad for Walmart with a widget on sale. Depending on what city and state you buy it, the price will change because the tax rates are different between and even within jurisdictions.
Maybe the Walmart you go to has a development agreement where they pay higher local tax as a way to cover the infrastructure project the City has to complete to support the building. Or maybe it’s the opposite and Walmart built a bunch of streets an utilities they dedicated to the City and now they don’t pay sales tax to the local jurisdiction.
Or maybe on September 1st sales tax rates changed in the middle of an ad campaign. Or maybe there’s an additional tax exemption due to a Development Agreement.
Or maybe that kayak is no longer taxed at the time sale because you bought a trolling motor at the same time and now it’s classified as a motor boat and the customer pays state sales tax when they register it with the state?
It’s really, really difficult to predict taxes when you’ve for so many wacky jurisdictional issues that affect the tax rate.
I think if a company gets large enough to cover multiple jurisdictions, then you can expend the cost to figure that all out. If anything it might make it harder for these mega companies. Screw em. They make plenty of profit. They’ll adapt.
Separately, more consistent taxation would be nice.
Half of the scenarios you noted are not ones I have ever heard of (and I would bet are totally made up). Why would WalMart shoppers be exempt from sales tax?
You are right that advertising price with tax may be unreasonable. That does not preclude the store from putting the price with tax on the shelf. Out of all the scenarios you described, the only one that this would not cover is having an item be taxed differently if bought in conjunction with another item, but that can be noted in the same way that stores note a bundle or a bulk sales price ($1 each or 5 for $4).
There is difficulty in the case of a charge in tax rate (how often do those happen? Once every few years) or if there is a tax holiday (I see plenty of clothing stores have a sign for “15% off the marked price”). Those can be handled by having computer controlled shelf prices, which have existed for at least 20 years but never caught on much.
Tipping.
Just kidding. Tipping isn’t silly. It’s downright racist, sexist, and prevents fair working wages for many.
It also leads to worse service. US dining is fuckin tedious. Every 5 minutes someone harasses you, doing the fake smile thing, etc
In my country you just shout if you need something, or there’s just a bing-bong button on the table. they leave you alone unless you ask, and you pay only what’s on the bill
I do appreciate when a worker in a restaurant has a legitimate conversation and is social, if they can see when it’s appropriate and welcomed. And to add context, I’m not talking about the waiter hovering like you’re describing, I’m talking about something I’ve only ever seen from immigrant family restaurants where they’ve come from a culture where eating is still a social community activity, or possibly when a chef takes pleasure in knowing you’re enjoying their experience. The always transactional nature of eating in society has started to annoy me. But it’s very different to when someone is being paid to try and make your experience good, that’s inevitably plastic and coerced.
It’s a fair point that it can be racist and sexist. I’m sure the attractive get paid more. After all, strippers are the ultimate in tipped workers. They have to pay for the opportunity to work for tips.
We do need to get over this “poor tipped workers”, though.
There’s a reason why no tipping restaurants end up failing and returning to tips.
It’s because you make much more in tips than you’d make otherwise.
It’s like no one has ever worked for tips and honestly calculated what they made.
I worked for tips in high school. I didn’t make that much money again until people started calling me doctor.
Yeah, you can’t have tipping and no tipping side by side. Customers will like the appearance of lower prices and many front house workers will make bank. I’ve worked back of house and front and worked twice as hard and actually used culinary skills in the back and made less than I did receiving tips in the front. I think that’s pretty messed up. The post was about making things illegal. I think most forms of tipping should be. That levels the playing field.
Illegal?
This place is so toxic.
so toxic
*This place is so different to my outdated opinions ftfy
There’s a reason
That article says the workers are unhappy with their $30 per hour because the restaurant is only open part-time so they’re not getting the hours they need to make a good wage. The restaurant plans to open full time though
It doesn’t support your argument in any way whatsoever
How do restaurants in every single other country survive then, according to your theory?
So what you’re saying is that they would get more money by being tipped?
Because there is not a tipping culture in those countries, and they wouldn’t make more money from tips?
I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand.
There’s a reason why no tipping restaurants end up failing and returning to tips.
Yeah, we have 0 restaurants here in western Europe. It’s a bummer. Should have adopted tipping culture.
As there is no culture of tipping there, potential employees don’t have the same opportunity.
In North America, wait staff have two options. Restaurants where they work for tips and restaurants where they don’t. Logically, they’ll choose the ones that pay more, which are invariably the ones that work for tips.
This is why European wait staff make an average of 12 euros and North American wait staff make vastly more.
I don’t recall a recent meal where I haven’t tipped more than that, and the staff will have several tables.
Wage overall are higher in the us, you can’t directly compare because you don’t have social srcurity, work security and number or other benefits.
I never went to the us, but in canada where people tip there’s very few small restorants and they’re expensive in general. Compared to france, there’s no tipping and a shit ton of small restaurant where the food is easily 3x less than in canada.
Also I think they were refering to the origins of tipping culture in the us, which was a way to continue slavery by not paying a wage to the black workers.
Smokers smoking near non-smokers. Even outside. Go pollute your own air, not everyone’s.
I’m on board with that as soon as we ban scented laundry detergent, dryer sheets and perfume.
You’re probably not serious, but I wrote this it out, so I’ll post it:
The difference is that smokers actively blow smelly air out, whereas perfume is just a passive (if smelly) thing on one’s body. To ban perfume would be more similar to banning people who smoke (even if they’re not actively smoking) because the smoke lingers in their hair and clothes, and that opens up the door to banning construction workers because they might smell sweaty, farmers because they might smell like manure, or preschool teachers because they might smell like baby spit/vomit. Let’s just ban smoking as an activity.
I’m quite serious. I have allergic reactions to perfumes and scents that are in many products - at first it’s uncomfortable, and with continued exposure, my eyes turn red, nose clogs, my lips swell and I start sneezing. For some reason it’s okay for people to blow huge amounts of these scents from dryer vents, and wear them and clothing exuding the fragrances in public. It’s not about the odor or some judgement about which fragrance people use. Like cigarettes, it’s chemicals in the air which cause problems for me and many other people. In many areas workplaces have adopted fragrance-free policies. It’s not something I can control in public, though, such as on airplanes or stores, and as your post illustrates, most people don’t understand or take it seriously.
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Anything that exudes a fragrance, which includes roll-ons or sticks. Body spray is worse, probably because it ends up covering more area. I had a GF who used Secret brand literally in secret after she went to work. I’d tried to replace it with half a dozen scent-free ones and she was worried it wasn’t enough. So, she’d come home and I’d be like hmm, you smell odd… it’s an very inconvenient thing to have because I have to ask people close to me to use fragrance free things too, so I can stand being near them.
Got it. I really did think it was just a judgement of those who wish to hide their body odor. I’m sorry it affects you. Maybe both really should be banned.
Perfume designers should design hypoallergenic perfumes.
Oh, right on. I do understand the body odor thing - my problem is I can use antiperspirant but not fragrances. Probably some people think I’m a heathen. I’m sure more people hate BO than are bothered by perfumes. One thing that gets me is people have scented shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, hair spray, laundry detergent, fabric softener, even hand lotion, and they all have different scents, so they end up smelling like 10 different fragrances at once. I have issues with things like scented dish or dishwasher detergent too, and fragrance free ones - no problem at all.
Essential oils are easier for me to deal with, but they still get me after a while. Makes sense since lavender essential oil is not just one thing but actually 100 different chemicals. Natural scents are easier to deal with than synthetic (‘fragrance’ and ‘parfum’ in ingredients), for some reason, maybe because synthetic scent products often have a carrier like pthalates. I’d love to figure out what it actually is.
They actively apply it to attack me all day. The fuck are you smoking? It’s made to constantly perfume the air.
Counter-point… sweat, manure, and baby spit don’t mess with my allergies like perfumes do. Perfumes should be banned (and I also wouldn’t cry if smokers smelling like smoke were banned too).
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And coffee. Seriously, I don’t like the smell.
Make it illegal in all public spaces. Do that shit at home.
Please don’t. I live in an apartment building and my neighbor loves to smoke in his flat which blows into my flat. During the summer I have the choise between being baked alive or second hand smoking two packs a day. Take that shit outside, away from people
Sirens and emergency vehicle noise in songs or advertising on radio.
I’m not advocating for capital punishment, I’m just saying that if we lynch a couple of daytime pop radio hosts for siren-like noises then it will probably go away pretty quickly.
The other day I had a song come on Spotify in which a part of the beat sounded like the cars warning beep. But it was not the right speed to be door or seat belt alarm, so I figured it had to be some else like tire pressure or engine warning… Mother fucker was part of a song and kept me looking for warning lamps blinking for a good minute or so.
I feel that lost minute in my soul my brother in suffering.
I want to throw in doorbells with this (but only as a misdemeanor)
I use Pluto.tv for background noise at night. Amazon is now running some ‘Prime Deal Days’ ads and one of them has a very prominent doorbell sound that wakes my ass up everytime.
Christmas creping into October. Like it already dominates all of December and November, leave Halloween alone.
People at work were talking about going to a store that already has Christmas stuff set up. It’s getting ridiculous…
I feel like Halloween sections of stores are smaller this year to make room for Christmas stuff
I was in Walmart yesterday and they had kids holiday clothes on the racks just down the aisle from the Halloween costumes. WTF?!
Oh yea, I was at the store today to replenish refrigerator and there were December stuff being sold already. Bit odd. ^ ^’
A popular hardware store put up Halloween lawn decorations in Sept and just swapped them for Christmas lawn decorations this past weekend.
All of them make noise. Can I just get soil in peace?
Dude, the local Costco had Xmas stuff up ON MOTHERFUCKING LABOR DAY WEEKEND.
I also thought infringing on Halloween’s sovereign retail space was going to far, but this is literal insanity.
Winter is coming
Or just xmas in general. Perfect shitstorm of bullshit religion and runaway, dangerous capitalism.
All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey
OP said inconvenience, not acts of terrorism.
That song should be ruled llegal torture under the Geneva Conventions
So you’re neither singing nor hearing those sleigh bells ringing?
🤣 classic trolling
Bluetooth speakers on hiking trails.
That crime should be punishable by caning.
Is it that bad? I mean, whats wrong with loose calm music?
Plenty of time, it’s not calm music. You’ll have people blasting TikTok pop, rap, hardcore techno, or other attacks against ears. In a place where the whole point to go there is to be in nature.
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Headphones are a pretty cool way to listen to music without disturbing others.
I’d make it illegal to park in no parking zones, bike lanes, and turning lanes…
radio chatter from an inexplicable earpiece
What do you mean that’s already fucking illegal??
Up the ante:
Create a legal mechanism that legalizes vandalism on illegally parked vehicles.
So if you wanna park illegally, go for it. The odds of a cop seeing you and stopping to cite you may well be in your favor.
But now anyone you inconvenience can, legally, key the shit out of your car, bust out your windows, and knock off your side mirrors.
I heavily disagree, because it puts judgement into the hands of the masses.
But a photo should be proof enough and if the government (whoever is responsible for issuing fines) confirms it is illegal then the owner of the vehicle gets a fine - and whoever reported it gets 10% of it! Imagine how much money could be raised that way to improve schools and stuff!
Also parking too close to a street corner. Technically illegal but very rarely enforced. It is a real safety hazard since, instead of being able to stop at the stop line and see perpendicular traffic, and driver has to enter the intersection to see (and then have their line of sight blocked by a parked vehicle in the perpendicular direction).
It also makes large vehicles like large trucks and busses take turns very wide.
So many people are unaware of this rule. I would that all no parking areas like this and for hydrants have the curb painted a bright colored with the words “no parking”. Why make people guess?
Paywall logins that don’t load until you’ve already started reading the article and scrolled down a bit. Show the paywall IMMEDIATELY or don’t have one at all.
Same goes for ads that appear and block the text.
In Firefox, switch to reader mode. THEN refresh the page. You get all the text, but the JavaScript to yank it away doesn’t run.
Ah. Thanks!
Car locks that trigger the horn and lights. Whatever asshole engineer decided that was a good idea (instead of just making the key fob blink or something) clearly has never had neighbors.
The keyfob doesn’t actually know if the car received the signal or not, which is why the car has to react in some way.
That seems like a solvable issue
Yeah there could probably be some two-way comms between the fob and the car, which would make it more secure too (since it could use a challenge-response protocol) but it’d increase the cost of the keys and the car manufacturers probably don’t see a reason for doing to.
They already charge like $90 for a keyfob. I can buy a basic smartphone for that price which is essentially a little all-purpose computer with 9 antennas.
The keyfob already has two way communication for the challenge-response protocol, so it is perfectly possible for the car to send a signal back saying it was actioned.
Huh, TIL. I didn’t know this!
Or the stupidly sensitive car alarms that react to the slightest movement (ahem BWM and Audi and Mercedes)
Everytime I take a ferry those vehicles are blaring their alarms for the entire trip and they need to announce on the P.A for the owner to come back and turn the alarm off.
Life pro tip, if you leave your car on the ferry, don’t turn your alarm on!
This can be turned off on every car I have ever interacted with by holding specific buttons on the key fob
You and I may be the only two people in the world who do that.
Most cars I’ve experienced announce it only visually, using the blinkers.
It doesn’t trigger the horn on UK cars, which I definitely appreciate. Although it was amusing to watch my partner jump every time I locked our hire car in the USA, the noise pollution is unnecessary.
Ha, I was thinking that I never recalled the sound going off on any car in the UK, but regularly and obnoxiously goes off in China. But nobody gives a shit about noise in China.
I used a great app along with an ODB2 adapter to turn that off. No more honking of the horn, but the lights do give a quick blink.
This also turns off the headlight auto timer for when you park. Quick click and my aux lights give a blink and turn off.
Works great, though the only time I really drive is the one day a month into my offices and occasionally to the food store.
Plastic fasteners on socks. They are too short to use scrisors and often damage socks if you don’t. Too many times I ended up with damaged brand new socks because getting them out od that plastic trap is too hard for me.
I always choose socks held by cardboard only if available.
Try nail clippers for it
I LOVE my Flush Cutters. I got them for vape stuff (making coils and cutting cotton) and now I use them for everything. I have four of them. I don’t know why.
As the joke goes, I got a free 3d printer with my purchase of flush cutters. Good stuff.
Gawd I need to get off my bum and get an Ender…
If you like tinkering, go for it! If you expect hassle free setup the first time, might want to look elsewhere. I’ve got mine dialed in so that I only need to wipe the bed clean with a cotton pad and some rubbing alcohol. Took a while and some upgrades, though. ;)