The ads I get when I load up this submission's page and turn off my ad-blocker are, you guessed it, ads for AI products and services. Sigh.

The sad part is that people believe that they are not paying a 5% premium for that 3% reward.

That's sad indeed, but probably rare. The issue we're facing is that rational people are saying "I'd rather pay a 5% premium to get a 3% kickback, than pay a 5% premium and get 0 kickback." Rewards cards put you into a prisoners' dilemma with other purchasers. Stab 'em in back, and you only get ripped off for 2%. Don't stab (i.e. don't use a rewards card) and you get ripped off for 5%.

Only if you get everyone to cooperate (get nobody to use rewards cards), then the 5% premium goes away. But if anyone defects, the 5% inflated price has to remain because the vendors sure don't want to lose money.

So the only way this is a win for me is if prices globally reduce 2% after this change.

The cards caused the price to be inflated by a lower bound of at least 2%, didn't it? (Though I guess it could theoretically be exactly 2.0%, so you'd only break even.)

Then I'm a fool. It's my foolish belief that whenever you remove an expense and thereby increase a margin, you create a competitive pressure to undercut that margin.

I've been this brand of fool for about 250 years, and I'm not about to wise up now!

Back in my day we called 'em shills.

That sounds like a good thing for consumers. I currently use a rewards card but I damn well know that everything (whether I use that card or not) is more expensive as a result of rewards cards existing.

Rewards cards are a type of prisoner's game ripoff. If you defect (use a rewards card) you profit at the expense of everyone who doesn't also defect and use a card like that, but if everybody got the kickback then obviously the total amount of kickbacks will always be less than or equal to the total amount that merchants collect through increased prices. TANSTAAFL.

If this is the death blow to rewards cards, then everyone wins. Let's hope!

The kinds of foods that trash your LDL predate the FDA and the United States.

This likely violates fire code. I wouldn't be surprised if the practice abruptly ends.

It's a hard, if not impossible problem to solve for 100% of people 100% of the time.

On the other hand, if society is willing to live with "you will probably have to show ID if you seem anywhere close to the age limit" then the problem becomes a lot easier.

If the age limit is 12 and you have a 4-digit Slashdot ID, it's pretty safe to say either you are over 12 or the ID wasn't yours when it was created.

Likewise, if your overall "user behavior" is has been consistent with that of someone well over 25 for several years, the odds of you being under 18 are pretty slim.

As a real-world analog, most stores where I live demand ID to buy age-18-restricted products if you LOOK under 30.

It will cost the government more to process the return.

If everyone did this and they made it clear to their representatives WHY they were doing it this way, it might "move the needle."

Something which makes it easier and more convenient for people to file taxes cannot be tolerated.

Whatever it takes, you will pay. That is their goal.

>barescent skor motion

Nice.

"An hour of HD video streaming generates about 42 grams of [carbon dioxide], while a chatbot prompt is around 0.1 grams."

Basically, what this is saying is an hour of HD video is equivalent to 420 chatbot prompts, or 42 chatbot image-generation prompts.

How many chatbot prompts does a typical person give per hour in a typical session with a chatbot? 5 text prompts in 5 minutes? Yeah, it's less energy-hungry than watching an HD video. 5 image prompts in 5 minutes? The opposite. If it's a robot doing the prompting at full throttle, it will likely outpace video-watching by far.

Remember these?