paying

The message is clear, if you use my data without paying, prepare your lawyers

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The Internet business model has been based on a tacit agreement for decades: If something is free, the product is probably us. For years, this logic was assumed without major shocks, but the emergence of artificial intelligence is changing the rules. Platforms that store human conversations have become gold mines for training models, and that has reopened old questions about the value of data. In the midst of this new scenario, Reddit has planted itself strongly. Although its millions of users do not receive any compensation for the content they generate, the company has made it clear that it will not tolerate others using it without paying for it. Reddit’s firmness has materialized in a new lawsuit filed before US justice. The company accuses Perplexity AI and three data scraping service providers of having circumvented its protection mechanisms to access copyrighted content. In its complaint, Reddit describes “scraping on an industrial scale” and maintains that the objective of these companies is to illicitly obtain the material that feeds artificial intelligence engines. It’s a new chapter in a strategy to control the use of your content. A rather particular case. At the center of the complaint are Perplexity AI and three mass data scraping intermediaries: SerpApi, Oxylabs and AWMProxy. Reddit describes them as “wannabe bank robbers,” a metaphor with which the company illustrates the attempt to access their content through indirect means. Instead of signing a licensing agreement, the lawsuit claims, these companies would have chosen to use third-party services to collect posts, comments and copyright-protected data. The conversational search engine is listed as a customer of “at least one” of those providers. The court document details a pattern of behavior that, according to Reddit, has been repeated for months. The accused companies would have used automated methods to extract information from the platform despite the restrictions imposed on their public file. The result, the company denounces, was a constant flow of publications that ended up integrated into the defendant’s artificial intelligence engine. For Reddit, it is scraping “on an industrial scale” and for clearly commercial purposes. The test that turned it all on. One of the most relevant episodes of the complaint is an experiment that Reddit considers key. In May 2024, the company ordered the defendant to stop collecting its data. However, shortly thereafter he saw an increase in Reddit mentions within the Perplexity answer engine. To verify this, he published an entry designed to be visible only by Google. According to the complaint, a few hours later the full text of that publication already appeared in the results generated by the accused company’s system. Perplexity does not hide. Perplexity noted on Reddit’s own platform. In that message, it explained that it is an “application layer” company and that “it does not train artificial intelligence models with Reddit content.” “He has never done it,” the text added. According to the company, this difference makes it impossible to sign a licensing agreement like those that Reddit has reached with other companies. “A year ago, after explaining this, Reddit insisted that we pay anyway. Giving in to these types of tactics is not the way we do business,” the statement concluded. When there is an agreement, there is money. Reddit’s position against Perplexity contrasts with the agreements it has signed with other technology companies. In February 2024 it expanded its collaboration with Google to allow access to its content through the data API, in a structured and licensed manner. Three months later, announced a similar alliance with OpenAI: ChatGPT and other company products can display recent Reddit posts in their responses. What we accept (many times) without reading. Behind all this debate there is an element that many users overlook: the Reddit Terms of Service. By creating an account, each person grants the platform a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable and sublicensable license to use their content. This license allows you to copy, modify, distribute or publish any contribution, including making it available to other associated companies. The text also specifies that Reddit can use this material to “train artificial intelligence and machine learning models.” In other words, permission is already granted. Something we have already seen, and what remains to be seen. Reddit has been drawing a clear pattern of action for some time. In 2023 it toughened its conditions for access to the APIwhich led to widespread protests and the temporary closure of thousands of communities. A year later, in May 2024, it sent a cease-and-desist letter to Perplexity for unauthorized use of its data and subsequently filed a lawsuit against Anthropic for similar reasons. The current litigation fits that same logic: protecting the value of your content and tightening your control over who can use it. The case between Reddit and Perplexity is still in its initial phase, but its implications are evident. What the courts decide could set a precedent for future disputes between platforms and artificial intelligence developers. On the one hand there is the defense of free access to information; on the other, the right of companies to protect the content generated in their communities. The result will define the extent to which platforms control the material that users share daily. Images | Reddit | Xataka with Gemini 2.5 | Perplexity In Xataka | The race to put a humanoid robot in our house has begun. It’s an absurd race

The tip makes the employee poorer and customers end up paying their salary

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In Spain there are A debate above the table. In the country he had always looked at the “optional tip” of 10% as an exotic custom of the United States, but lately something seems be changing In the hospitality. On the contrary, in the United States someone has opened the melon of one of the great traditions of the sector. And anyone has said it. McDonald’s has put in question The American tips and system. Context. It We count A few weeks ago. In the United States, tips are not mandatory by law, but it is customary, we would almost say that “obligation”, leaving a tip between 15 and 20%. The logic behind the behavior has to do with the fact that the US minimum federal minimum wage for workers with tips is 2.13 dollars per houran amount that has not changed since 1991. Somehow, that very small amount that the waiter receives on duty has turned the “American” tip into a kind of help to the worker who has no other way to increase his income. In practice, more forced than the theory, when eating in the United States in groups of between a minimum of four and six people, most establishments impose a 18% tip (free) without giving option not to pay it. By the way, although the practice is so settled there, it has European origin. It is estimated that in England in the 16th century. McDonald’s opens the melon. And this is where the almighty company appears. The CEO of McDonald’s, Chris Kempczinski, has criticized A television interview The restaurant model that rely on tips to cover the salary of their workers, qualifying it as a system that “transfers the responsibility of payment of the workforce to the client.” According to explainedwhile McDonald’s does not allow tips and directly pays the salaries of its employees, other premises can pay only 2.13 dollars the time under federal law as long as the final income, adding tips, reaches the federal minimum wage of $ 7.25. With the recent approval of “Big Beautiful Bill” promoted by Trump, which exempts tips from taxes, that scheme It reinforces and generates (In Kempczinski’s opinion) a “inequality of conditions” in front of fast food chains that do not benefit from such practices. The background of the phenomenon. The system of “Tipped Wages” It has been extending beyond traditional restoration towards multiple sectors of precarious work and platform economy. They remembered In Insider That appos of apps such as Uber Eats or Dordash depend on tips to complement income, and the pressure on customers has intensified with notifications that suggest that the speed of the service can depend on the initial generosity of the order. Practices like The “Tip Baiting”in which a consumer promises a high tip to encourage rapid delivery and then withdraws, have generated conflicts and distrust. At the same time, recent surveys reveal A growing social fatigue towards the proliferation of tip requests in all types of establishments, which reopens the debate on whether this form of compensation remains sustainable and fair. The giant proposal. Kempczinski, on behalf of the multinational, suggested that the solution passes through force everyone restaurants to pay the same base minimum salary, regardless of the tips received. States such as California, Alaska or Minnesota already demand it, eliminating the figure of the “subminate by tips” and guaranteeing more stable direct salaries. According to the manager, extend this federal model It would reduce poverty and labor rotation without implying loss of jobs, while leveling competition between fast food chains and traditional restaurants. In his vision, the current disparity favors those who rely on a Externalized Compensation System In customers, while companies such as McDonald’s directly assume staff costs. The vision of a “double cheeking.” There is much more, since Kempczinski described The current American situation as a “two -level economy”, marked by the gap between high -income consumers, who continue to spend on premium products and home deliveries, and those of average and low income, which reduce their visits to restaurants, jump meals and choose to cook at home. From the inflationary wave of 2022, the chain has faced an increasing discomfort For the increase in their menus, which led to the combos exceeding ten dollars since whole strips of customers see fast food as an occasional luxury rather than as a daily option. Price readjustment as a strategy. To stop the traffic drop between these segments, McDonald’s He relaunched a package Five dollars and reinforced promotions in their main markets, relying on advertising campaigns focused on value. The strategy aims to maintain the brand as a reference for accessibility in an environment in which the smallest competition lacks the scale to absorb the costs of the reduction. However, franchisees (responsible for most premises in the United States) They show concern For the impact on margins in a context of wages, rentals and upward inputs, although Kempczinski assured that the consensus in favor of these measures was “almost unanimous.” A conflict between models. If you also want, the debate also contains a deep cultural shock: in the United States, tips have historically worked as salary complementbut the rise of digital platforms and inflationary pressure have intensified wear of this model. While the restoration industry defends its flexibility and ability to attract customers with lower apparent prices, critics They point That it is a undercover subsidy form in which consumers, and not employers, finance a good part of wages. The McDonald’s intervention It reflects how great global corporations see in this imbalance not only an ethical and social problem, but also a competitive disadvantage, reviving a debate that touches the essence of US labor policy and its relationship with salary justice. Image | Crusier, Tomwsulcer, Ramon Fvelasquez In Xataka | Spain had always looked at the “optional tip” of 10% as an exotic custom of the US. Until now In Xataka | The Trojan horse that the US “expats” are introducing in Spain: the culture of the … Read more

It is increasingly cheap, and we are increasingly paying more than ever to use it

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Every time Chatgpt generates a word, that costs money. But the price of that word generated has not stopped falling since the launch of that model, and the same goes for its rivals. Today we have AI models that are not only more powerful, but also They are cheaper than everand the funny thing is that we are paying more and more to use them. What is happening? Tokens. OpenAI define Tokens as “common character sequences found in a text set.” That “basic unit” of information It is what these models use to understand what we are saying and then process those texts to answer. Every time we use ChatgPT we have on the one hand the request with the text we introduce (input tokens) and on the other the text generated by the chatbot (output tokens). Price per million tokens (dollars) Entrance Exit GPT-5 1.10 10 GPT-4O 2.5 10 O1 15 60 Gemini 2.5 Pro ( 200ktokens) 2.5 15 Claude Opus 4.1 15 75 Claude sonnet 4 ( 200k Tokens) 6 22.5 Price per million tokens. And when we use an AI model, the price of using it is precisely measured how much it costs every million input tokens and every million output tokens. The more powerful a model is, the higher the price of those tokens, and to get an idea these are the prices of some current models. The prices of the output tokens (those generated by the machines) are remarkably higher than those of entry: it costs much more to generate text than “to receive and understand it.” AI models are getting better and getting cheaper. At least, in terms of cost per million tokens. Source: Epoch AI. But prices have not stopped down. Those prices per million input or output tokens, however, have fallen remarkably since ChatgPT (at that time based on GPT-3.5) appeared on the scene. An Epoch AI study March 2025 revealed how the price of inference – generating text, as they do chatgpt, gemini or Claude – has not stopped falling. In some cases the models are smaller and efficient, and also the hardware is also now more profitable, which favors that price drop. And we still pay more and more for using the AI. However, developers who use these AI models to program are realizing that their invoices are increasingly high. These types of professionals have been the ones who have taken advantage of the advantages of this technology, but in doing so they have realized that contradiction. Actually the explanation is simple. Reason spends many tokens. The problem is that reasoning models consume many tokens. This type of technology improves the precision of the answers, but to achieve it the models do not stop “thinking” and generating different theories and then analyzing them and keeping the solution they consider more likely or better. The models that “do not think” and generate text “only once” consume few tokens, but those who “reason” multiply that cost remarkably. The Vibe Coding comes out expensive. The most expensive example of those high costs of AI have it in the “Vibe Coding” platforms. With them it is possible to program almost without knowing how to program, but these tools make an extensive use of the AI ​​models, and there the consumption of tokens (especially those of exit, which are the most expensive) shoot. Several companies in this segment, such as Windsurf or Cursorthey have realized how difficult it is to make money with AIand there are also various users They are warning of those Shot costs In Reddit, for example. And AI agents promise to be very expensive. IA agents are expected to be able to do many things for usbut these systems will be expensive because they will also consume many tokens to understand, “reason” and reach the desired solution. Solution: Use you that do not think so much. Faced with those IAS that “reason” and consume many costs, the alternative is clear: not to resort to the reasoning models and instead opt for models that “do not reason” to reduce costs. These models are much cheaper to use and can be useful for many scenarios. Fortunately, models of efficient and increasingly cheap that reason are also appeared: Deepseek R1 is a good proof of this. The famous router may not be a bad idea. When OpenAI GPT-5 launched He did it with his famous “router” or “router” that analyzed the request and decided on its own what variant of the model (more or less powerful) had to answer the question. As we saw, That router tends to choose to use the “cheap” modelbut that is not a bad idea. Neither for OpenAI (who costs much less processing the answer) nor for users (who also consume less resources and have more free fee for other questions that perhaps need “reasoning”). Image | Levart Photography | IGAL Ness In Xataka | AI agents are promising. But as in Tesla’s FSD, you better not take your hands from the steering wheel

The self -employed cars promised to get rid of paying attention to them. At the moment they only achieve it every 9 minutes

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The Advanced driving assistance systemsor Adas, they have become an argument of Key sale for many car manufacturers. Functions such as Adaptive Cruise Controlmaintenance within the lane and Assistants for traffic jams They promise to relieve driving load, especially in dense traffic situations. However, A recent study by the American Automobile Association (AAA) returns us to reality: technology is useful, but the attention of the duct remains indispensable. A test in extreme conditions. The AAA chose one of the worst possible scenarios: Los Angeles highways in rush hour. For more than 16 hours, over 550 kilometers, five vehicles equipped with different level 2 ADAS systems (Those who attend, but do not assume total control) face the real world. The cars were instrumented with cameras and GPS to record every detail of their behavior. Less than 10 minutes of tranquility. Although these systems promise us to have great tranquility at the wheel (even if they are not self -employed at all), the reality is very different. On average, in this study it has been seen that every 9.1 minutes (or every 5.1 kilometers) a notable event was recorded that requires driver’s intervention. There are situations that are very frequent. Among these events that require a person to take control of the vehicle, the lane invasion stands out above all. This happens when another car gets into the lane in front of the vehicle, forcing the driver to intervene to adjust the appropriate safety distance to avoid collision in the face of speed decrease. But they stay here. Secondly, there is the inability of the car to stay perfectly focused on the lane, needing driver intervention in 72% of the occasions. This is very typical, especially when it comes to curves. But in addition to these, 71 more cases have been recorded in which the car did not resume the march after a total stop or 43 moments in which the car did not stop enough, being able to have caused an accident. There are differences between proven systems. One of the most interesting comparisons that was carried out in this regard was among the systems that require the driver to keep his hands in the steering wheel and the most advanced that allow them to remove them. Surprisingly, systems that do not require having their hands on the steering wheel are more reliable when requiring a driver intervention every 20.1 minutes. Instead, the most basic systems need human help with a frequency three times higher: every 6.7 minutes. Of course, the “hands -free” systems also asked the driver to take control every 15 minutes for security. The best security recommendation: to have common sense. Given these results, the AAA has launched a series of recommendations in the face of the proliferation of these driving aid systems and trust that can be deposited in them. They point to that the alert must always be maintained, since ADAS does not replace the driverdistraction must be avoided and above all know the car and how each system works before starting it actively. Right now, the goal ahead is to press manufacturers to make driving aid systems that are more reliable. And although driving technology advances by leaps and bounds, the human factor is still essential to guarantee security. The ADAS are already mandatory. Little by little, these systems are increasingly present in our day to day and without having to pay an extra in the car settings. Since 2022 all new approved vehicles They must include Smart Speed Assistant, Integrated breathalyzer or lane involuntary change alert. Images | Charlie Deets In Xataka | The new Mazda CX-5 has taken the physical buttons ahead. According to Mazda, it’s what we want

After the hair industry, Türkiye is becoming a power of something much more extreme: paying to grow

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In a hotel on the outskirts of Istanbul, a man listens to the alarm of his phone and smiles. It is time to turn the key that separates the metal rods embedded in their femards. The procedure seems taken from a medieval dungeon, but for Frank – 38 -year -old patient – it means approaching, millimeter to millimeter, to his dream: stop feeling low. According to The Guardianeach turn causes intense pain and, nevertheless, insists on doing it more times than recommended to win a few extra centimeters. Türkiye, the new Mecca of the centimeters. The country was already famous for Medical tourism of capillary grafts. Now adds something much more extreme: leg elongation surgery for aesthetic purposes. What was born as a technique to correct bone deformities today attracts patients from Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia and all of Europe. According to the Wanna Be workshop clinicThey come willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the promise of growing. In an extensive report for The Guardian They quoted an Indian consultant who projects that the global market will reach 8,600 million dollars within five years. Türkiye’s appeal lies in its price, since with $ 32,000, it includes hospitalization and months of physiotherapy, compared to $ 50,000 to $ 150,000 that can cost in the United Kingdom or the United States. Dr. Kevin Debiparshad, founder of the Limbplastx Clinic in Las Vegas, I told GQ that the business has shot from the pandemic, with up to 50 new patients a month. Its customers include Google, Amazon and Microsoft engineers, in addition to executives, doctors and even celebrities. The last acceptable prejudice: be low. Why risk everything for a few centimeters? The testimonies collected by different media always point to the same direction: height remains a social stigma. In an article for vice, A 17 -year -old summed up without surroundings: “The only reason why someone would lengthen their legs is for women.” Another patient assured in The Guardian that “being low is the last acceptable prejudice in modern society.” Evidence supports these sensations. An Australian study of 2009 collected by GQ He showed that low men earn less than their high classmates and have less job promotion options. In the Netherlands, another investigation revealed that only 7.5% of couples the woman exceeds the man. Even Tinder came to try filters of height, According to The Guardian. And it is that obsession can become pathology. Elaine Foo, Interviewed by the BBChe confessed that since adolescence he suffered a fixation: “Being higher means more beautiful, more opportunities.” Psychiatrists call it body dysmorphia: a fixation with defects imagined in appearance. A brutal procedure itself. Although today it is sold as an aesthetic procedure, the technique originated in the 50s in the Soviet Union. The surgeon Gavriil Ilizarov devised a method to repair fractures and correct deformities. The beginning, As Mayic explainsis the osteogenesis by distraction: cut a bone and gradually separate it so that the organism generates new tissue that fills the void. The process begins with an osteotomy, the surgical cut of the bone, generally femur or warm. Then, the surgeon places an elongation device: an external fixative (a visible frame subject with bone nails) or an internal magnetic nail (inserted into the bone and controlled by a control). From there, the daily routine is to extend the device around one millimeter per day. The body responds by filling that space with new bone. The hard lengthening phase of two to three months. Then comes the consolidation phase, when the bone hardens, which can take another three. In total, complete recovery easily exceeds a year. During all that time, patients should use crutches or wheelchairs, undergo intensive physiotherapy and support constant pain. When growing almost costs life. Not everyone achieves their goal. How do you collect in The GuardianFrank’s case that traveled in the hope of moving from 1.70 to 1.75 meters. In the process he suffered a pulmonary embolism caused by a blood clot and was about to die. In the end he had to stop the elongation in 7.3 centimeters, without reaching his goal. The same medium reported the death of a Saudi patient at 16 days of the operation, also for a clot. However, Elaine Foo’s story is even more extreme. According to BBC, After paying 50,000 pounds to a private clinic in London, he suffered successive complications: a metallic nail crossed his femur, the bones did not consolidate and ended up undergoing eight surgeries in different countries. Eight years later, drag mobility problems, permanent scars and a post -traumatic stress disorder. Complications are not rare. Risks include infections in nails or incisions, nerve injuries, joint stiffness, chronic pain and insufficient bone consolidation, According to Cleveland Clinic. Self -esteem, the most fragile bone. Beyond the operating rooms, the question is what pushes so many men – and some women – to undergo such brutal surgery. Dr. Dorr Paley, pioneer in this field, He summarized it for vice: “It took us a long time to discover what plastic surgeons always knew: they were dealing with body image problems.” The background is really a crisis of self -esteem. The Guardian He recounts How Frank felt “almost damn” for his low stature, convinced that society favors the highs. In GQ, John Lovedale explains that he did it because “the highest people seem to have the world at their feet.” Most patients are men, crossed by an idea of masculinity associated with size. However, As the British media remembersthere are also women who resort to the procedure: some to lengthen and others, in very rare cases, to shorten their legs. Between secret and status. Interestingly, despite sacrifice and spending, many patients prefer to hide it. According to GQ90% does not reveal anyone who operated. Invent stories: a ski accident, a fall in the bathtub, a hip fracture. But others begin to exhibit it as a sign of status: an Asian youtuber paid for the operation with Bitcoins and documented the process … Read more

I’ve been paying Youtube Premium for years and I don’t regret it. The problem is that going back is impossible

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I do not know since when I have Premium YouTube, but the first track in my mail is a cancellation notice of September 2018. Spoiler: At two months I went back to discharge. There is something uncomfortable for many people to admit that you pay for Youtube premium. It is like confessing that you have gone to a sophisticated blackmail. But here I am. I keep paying, and I don’t regret it. I took the step after an annoying epiphany: I was watching a long video and interrupted me for the fifth time with an ad. It was not just the discomfort, but The feeling of being manipulated by an algorithm that had calculated exactly how much I could torture me before he left the platform. Google knows that YouTube is a de facto monopoly and acts as such. Youtube premium changed how consumption content. Without interruptions, I can follow long documentaries without losing the thread. The platform was a library of knowledge again, not a sequence of advertising cuts. The creators who continue to charge more with my subscription than with ads. And as a gift comes YouTube Musickilling two birds of a shot: perfect to solve The Garminoblivious to Apple Music. The model is perverse but effective: degrade the free experience to make it annoying and then sell the solution. It works because YouTube has trained a whole generation to tolerate constant interruptions. We have normalized to cut our thought Every three minutes. But here comes the most insidious: Premium is an entrance drug to an interruption without interruptions. Once that experience tests, go back it becomes impossible. Google knows it. They have hooked not only to their content, but to their version of digital comfort. That accumulated time and constant interruptions are worth more than what the subscription costs. Each announcement avoided is time that I dedicate to something that really interests me. Pure self -defense in an economy that monetizes our attention. I’ve been paying for years and I will continue to do so. Not because the system seems fair to me, but because I have decided that my mental tranquility is worth more than my resistance. In the era of digital monopolies, this is the closest thing to freely choosing that we are going to get. In Xataka | Arc, I apologize for what I said about you, you are the best browser in the world Outstanding image | Omar al-Ghosson

In Spain more and more restaurants are declaring war on an old custom: paying accounts separately

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You probably lived it a thousand times. You stay with your friends for dinner in a restaurant and after the first, the second, the dessert, coffees and chupitos arrives the test of fire: the great Huge dilemma of how Devils foot the bill. Together or separate? Does each one pay your own or the bill is fractionated in equal parts? Card, metallic or a mixture of both? And in case someone forward money, especially if the minute is high, who does it and how the rest of the guests are organized to pay you? In Spain increasingly Bars save those headaches to their customers by applying a very simple standard: no divided payments. A table, an account. If you go together, you pay together. There are no official figures and from Facu increasingly Bars and restaurants in Spain embrace a rule when they have to charge guest groups: nothing to divide accounts between different customers sitting at the same table. At least if they intend to pay by card. A group, a payment. So simple. Lasxta revealed recently that the custom is spreading through the Malaga hospitality, but similar news (and more or less recent) about restaurants from Aragon either Catalonia. There is also a good handful of references in Xeither Tiktok or even Reddit threads in which the pros and cons are discussed and whether it is legal or that a restaurant refuses to fraction an account. Click on the image to go to Tweet. The big question: why? Like more or less, the undeniable thing is that the norm generates debate and Not everyone He feels comfortable with her. So … why are the hoteliers apply, even at the risk of angry at their clientele? The reason is simple: efficiency. A waiter is more comfortable and quick to manage a single charge to repeat that operation five, seven, ten or more times, depending on how many diners they have sat at the table. “It is super complicated to charge separately and more when they are large groups,” Recognize A waiter from Malaga to Lasexta. “Sometimes groups of fifteen or twenty people are made and each one wants to pay their convenience,” confesses Another hotelier from Barcelona. When that happens, work is slowed down in the room and the business risks that the box ends up disabled. There are times when the situation is further complicated and customers no longer ask for the payment, but each one is charged. It may seem a minor issue if the account is from a table with few customers, but the thing is complicated when we talk about broad groups and minutes of several hundred euros, as reported Two years ago In Tiktok a waiter. But … Is it legal? The million dollar question. “There is really nothing regulated. The solution is to say no, that each diner will pay their part. The establishment has two options: accept or not collect,” he says Rubén Sánchezof Facua. “If at the door he indicates that he accepts card payments cannot reject that means of payment in half. “There is no law that determines that customers have the right to fraction the account to pay it at once. It is an aspect in which the law does not deepen so much. You have to apply common sense,” agrees Enrique García, spokesman for the OCU. “The logical thing is to inform the company that provides the service and customers to attend these circumstances.” @xavi_abat Have you found in this situation? #Elabogadodetiktok ♬ Original sound – 🙋‍♂️ #Elabogadodetiktok A supplement to fraction? At the end of 2024 Xavi Abat, “Tiktok’s lawyer”, He warned of another practice to which more and more bars and restaurants are being accepted: the collection of “separate accounts supplements” to those customers who ask for the payment of payment. In Your video Abat in fact showed the poster of a bar that applies different “management” positions depending on the size of the table and how many payments should process: one to eight diners, one euro; from eight to 12, two euros; And in the case of tables of more than 12 clients, three euros. Those sums, says the place, cover “the resources” invested and the use of TPV. The key: Information and visibility. The question is the same … are that kind of supplements legal? The key, ABAT revealsis in the information available to the client when he sits at the table. “There is no law, nothing is said in the Civil Code. The contractual relations between the parties are free. Each establishment can establish what they want,” reason The expert. “Therefore, if the restaurant warns of this charge, there is a contractual offer and you and you accept, you have to eat it.” “Contrary, if you go to a restaurant, you are seven or eight and at the end of the food they do not let you pay separately, as you have not been warned, as you have not had the option to negotiate it, you can oppose and demand that you want to pay separately. You could file a complaint or plant yourself there until they let you charge separately,” adds ABAT. Argument shock. The reality is that both parties, hoteliers and customers, have arguments to be in favor or against collection subdivisions. Business They allege What dividing the accounts demands more time, slows down their work, you can unravel the box and carry an expenditure of time and extra resources. After all, there are payment systems that generate extra commissions when several operations are carried out. The truth is that the unique payment in groups is a common practice in other countries in Europe. As for customers, the main complaint is the discomfort and headaches that can lead not to divide the accounts. Without counting that someone must pay the full amount of the invoice. “Why do I have to fight with the people of a group to make me the bizum of what they have consumed?” Question A user … Read more

The Japan telepeage system had a 38 -hour blackout. Japanese drivers chose to continue paying equally

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Japan is a Country of contrasts. On the one hand, it is a society in which the Machines of vending With used pantieslabor situations close to slavery wave extreme surveillance. On the other, they are obsessed with cleanliness and they have a strong value system in which the norms are not contemplated to skip. But what happens if you go with your car on a highway, the Toll system It doesn’t work and the barrier is raised? Would you pay? Well, the same thing happened recently and thousands of people opted for what seemed most correct: pay. Short. It was on April 8 when the company’s electronic toll collection system NIPPON EXPRESSWAY CENT. (Nexco Central) He stopped working. This implies that cars with telepeaje could not carry out the payment automatically in those positions in which there is no personnel -something that Do not abound at this time in Japan– And obviously the barrier did not get up. As you can imagine, it was an important problem because They generated great traffic jams. The problem began at night, but was expanding for 38 hours in which 106 tolls were unusable, causing chaos on 17 routes, including those that go to Economic heart of the country, Tokyo. Huh, pay. The company acted by sending personnel to the toll stalls in which charges could be made manually, but between others it was impossible for the infrastructure and that they could not send operators to all the points, they made the decision to raise the barriers in the affected points. It was the first time that the system failed at this scale from the privatization of Nexco Central in 2005. Vehicles could pass freely and was the best decision to Avoid bottling during the peak of the next day. What else did Nexco do? Tell the drivers that they will use a form on their website to pay deferred. Interestingly, the drivers who aimed how much they had to pay based on the sections traveled that day and sent the relevant applications are counted by thousands. The calculations. They were not all, much less. It is estimated that about 960,000 vehicles passed through those tolls during the 38 hours of fault and 3.8% of them They requested Deferred payment. It may seem like a ridiculous figure, but we are talking about some 36,000 drivers who, voluntarily and without any duty, decided to request the option to pay for the “service consumed” that day. Absolution. All this showed that the TV system It is vulnerable because, when a failure occurs on a scale like this occasion, it could not be react and the only solution was to lift the barriers to avoid major evils. The president of the company, in a very Japanese way, apologized Publicly and promised something: reimbursements and a total of 1,200 million yen, about seven million euros, which stopped entering during error time. All those who paid would receive the reimbursement of their money in a cordial gesture from the company to ensure equity with those who decided not to pay, but a thing was also remembered from Nexco: although the system fails, drivers They should pay. And there is the most questionable side in history. The error was due to a Failure in a software update of the teleping system that caused traffic jams and delays at first and, despite being the fault of the company, they wanted users to pay equally. Images | The Japan Faq In Xataka | Japan’s economy depends more and more on a very Japanese phenomenon: fans absolutely delivered to its idols

Temu already shows the extra cost of the products in the US for tariffs and no, China is not paying as Trump said

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Donald Trump defended his tariff plan during the presidential campaign with overwhelming phrases that they were among their followers: “It is not a middle class tax. It is a tax to another country” or “it will not cost you, it will cost another country.” The message was clear: Americans would not pay the price of their commercial war. And after his victory and arrival at the White House, that speech remained. Reality, however, is being quite different. The tariff war has already begins to move directly to the prices paid by Americans. And one of the most visible cases is that of Temu. The Chinese electronic commerce platform, which had earned a hole among the most popular applications in the country for its very low prices, has begun to apply “Import positions”Which exceed in some cases 100% of the original value of the product. Pay for the same. A concrete example helps to understand to what extent the situation has changed. According to NBC dataa pack of three sports shorts for men, which was offered for $ 23.61 with free shipping from China, ends up costing $ 56.36 once applied 32.75 dollars of import surcharge. That is, the customer pays more on tariffs than for the product itself. Bloomberg was a step further and analyzed the 14 most popular articles sent from China. The result was clear: in all cases, import taxes applied in the United States were higher than the original price of products. Temu begins to warn. Given this new reality, the platform has incorporated informative messages to alert users before finishing their purchases. “Imported articles to the United States may be subject to import positions. These charges cover all customs processes and costs, including tariffs paid to the authorities in your name,” can be read on their website. The ‘local warehouse’ label wins prominence. In response to the price increase, Temu has begun to boost the products that are already stored within the US territory. The company groups them under a specific category: “Local warehouse”. Although many of these articles are also manufactured in China, the fact that they are physically in the United States exempts them from new customs charges. Of course, this advantage has its nuances. As NBC itself has verified, some of these products marked as premises have higher prices than before, despite not being subject to surcharges. In other words, dodging the tariff does not guarantee finding a bargain. The context has changed, and that is also noticed in the local stock. The domino effect of tariffs. The price increase comes after a series of decisions that have completely changed the rules of the game. At the beginning of the month, the Trump administration raised up to 145% Tariffs at certain imports from China. Besides, has announced That as of May 2 will eliminate the exemption known as “de minimis”, which allowed most packages with less than $ 800 to enter the United States without paying taxes. Temu, between success and uncertainty. Since his arrival in the United States in 2022, Temu has conquered millions of users with a simple formula: ridiculous prices in clothing, technology and household items. Although the shipping times were long, many consumers were willing to wait if that meant paying less. That strategy, however, staggers now that the costs are rising and the tax advantage disappears. Complaints flood forums. Reddit has become one of the thermometers of discontent. Temu users Share screenshots of its shopping baskets to show the new prices, visibly inflated by import positions. Many express their frustration And they question if it will remain worth buying on the platform. Change seems to be caught by many by surprise. One of the shared captures in Reddit An increasingly uncertain commercial future. Today it is not clear how long the current tariff barriers will remain. China has responded by raising its own tariffs on certain American products Up to 125%and has described “joke” the possibility of continuing to climb. The tension not only affects companies, but also consumers who, little by little, see how the cheapest options are exhausted. For now, the products stored locally would be offering some respite. But if the situation continues, stocks could be exhausted and consumers would end up having to resort to more expensive articles, directly affected by new tariffs. The White House points to Amazon. In the midst of this pressure climate, the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, accused the giant of electronic commerce to be “hostile and political.” The reason? An article by PunchBowl News suggested that Amazon was exploring the possibility of showing the exact cost of tariffs at the price of their products. The answer soon arrived: Amazon clarified that this idea was only considered for a specific section of its website, Amazon Haul, which competes directly with Temu, and that it was never contemplated for the main page. Showing tariffs can be seen as a challenge. The idea of ​​detailing these costs is not less: it would allow users to clearly see that, contrary to what Trump stated, the economic impact is falling on them. A warning for all players in the sector. The message to Amazon can also be understood as a signal to other electronic commerce companies. Explicit explicitly the impact of tariff policies could be interpreted as an uncomfortable political position for the White House. Images | Freepik | Theme | The White House In Xataka | Chinese companies have found a “shortcut” to dodge US tariffs: re -estate in South Korea

Europe is caught in gas contracts with Russia. Now look for a way to break them without paying the price

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This winter has ended with an alarming fact for gas in Europe: German reserves are practically empty, 7% of their capacity. Energy expert Javier Blas He explained That the winter of 2024-25 has left the very low gas inventories, and the cost to fill the natural reservoir of Rehden amounts to almost 2,000 million euros. In addition, the continent has entered the discount timesince the European Union has demanded that the deposits be filled at 90% before November 1. However, the European Union has made a decision to close the door forever to the dependence of Russian gas. Close the tap to Russia. From Brussels different legal routes are being explored so that European companies can terminate long -term Russian gas contracts without paying large fines to Moscow. According to Financial Timesthe European Commission has been studying the possibility of declaring force majeure to terminate contractual obligations and not have to pay additional rates. The Russian supply. After three years of war that still persists, this situation has caused a great energy crisis in Europe, reducing its dependence on Russian gas. Currently, the Kremlin supply represents 11% of the block compared to almost two fifths at the beginning of the conflict, such as They have detailed in the British environment. From a more economical vision, the EU paid 21.9 billion euros Russia for oil and gas between February 2024 and February 2025, According to the Clean Energy and Air Research Center. And they continue to depend. Russian liquefied natural gas volumes (LNG) They have increased significantly In the last three years. In addition, Russia has continued to export gas disguised under azeri flag or through relations with two member countries, Hungary and Slovakiawhich has generated tensions within the EU. As He has pointed out The Financial Times, there are important ports such as those of France, Spain and Belgium that continue to receive loads of Russian LNG, showing the complexity of cutting energy ties immediately. Until two years. The European Commission has promised a final roadmap to completely cut energy ties with Russia before 2027. Although its publication has already been delayed twice, the document is expected for May 6, According to Reuters. This delay responds to the conversations reactivated by the United States about the future of the Nordstream gas pipeline, which connects Germany and Russia. The project has gained importance amid the efforts of the Trump administration, since they want look for an approach that implies them in gas transmission. Exploring alternatives … The commission, that He has denied To comment to the Financial Times, you are looking for new supplies. United States, which It takes time exporting LNG to Europehas been profiled as the largest supplier and is seen as a viable replacement. However, with the tariff war in dispute Everything will be to see. But there is an unexpected exit. Continuing with the tariffs, which have been intensified in A bilateral war Between China and the United States. The Asian giant He has found A strategic opportunity: take advantage of contracts signed with American gas to resell it to Europe. This phenomenon has exposed how the global mechanisms of energy trade do not respond to political strategies, but to market logics. An uncertain future. Although the date is marked in 2027, the road map has already suffered several delays and remains surrounded by political and commercial unknowns. In addition, the growing tension with the United States and The lack of a really solid energy plan they leave a European Union corrula, reacting too late before the agency with Russia. Image | Brian Cantoni Xataka | The price of gas has already reached 2022 levels. Now the European industry depends on one thing: that the cold does not return

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