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U.S. President Donald Trump will appoint Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia to lead a team charged with remaking the governments digital services, according to two officials familiar with the matter, as part of his goal to transform federal agencies in the name of efficiency. Trump signed an executive order creating a National Design Studio to improve the usability and aesthetics of federal digital services. Trump named Gebbia the chief design officer. He will report to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, according to the order. Since taking office, Trump has remodeled federal agencies. Gebbia, who joined the administration earlier this year, is poised to help lead the next phase of that effort as chief design officer. Billionaire and former Trump adviser Elon Musk led the administration’s initial project, called DOGE, to remake government in the name of efficiency. The initiative involved slashing jobs, shuttering departments, and clawing back funding to achieve Trump’s political objectives. Former President Joe Biden in 2021 set a similar goal to make government websites easier to use. The Trump administration halted a few projects to accomplish that, including the IRSs free tool to file taxes directly to the agency. Former IRS Commissioner Billy Long said in July that the agency would wipe out that program. Long left the agency in August. Trumps National Design Studio will close in three years, according to the order. The studio will advise agencies on how to reduce duplicative design costs and use standardized design on sites where people interact with the government, according to the order. By Christian Martinez and Bhargav Acharya, Reuters
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E-Commerce
For years, some of the biggest airline companies in the U.S. have been increasingly relying on ancillary feeslike advanced seat assignments and carry-on bag coststo meet their bottom lines. Now, passengers are getting sick of it. On August 19, two separate lawsuits filed against Delta and United allege that both airlines have charged passengers an extra fee for window seats that didnt actually have windows. This class action seeks redress for Deltas intentional practice of charging passengers premium fees to obtain seats that Delta indicates have a window,’ but which are actually next to a blank wall, the Delta suit reads. The lawsuits come as airlines complicated ticketing processes have faced increased scrutiny for potentially using dark patterns to deceive customers and boost bottom lines. “Windowless” window seats The first lawsuit was filed against Delta by plaintiff Nicholas Meyer and his attorneys at the litigation firm Greenbaum Olbrantz, while the second suit against United was filed by two attorneys at the same firm. According to a report from The Washington Post, Meyer was flying to California on Delta Flight 826 in seat 23Fa spot hed paid extra to secure in order to sit next to a window. When he arrived at the flight, however, he found that his seat actually faced a bare wall. For many years, Delta has knowingly and routinely sold windowless ‘window’ seats to travelers, the suit reads. For instance, various models of Deltas Boeing 737, Boeing 757, and Airbus A321 aircraft are built with one or more seats that would traditionally have a window, but do not include one due to the placement of air conditioning ducts, electrical conduits, or other interior components. The document goes on to claim that Delta has likely sold over a million windowless window seats throughout the class period. The United suit flags the Boeing 737 and Airbus A321 as two aircrafts used by the company with the problem, providing the same estimate of over a million windowless seats sold. In an email to The Post, Meyers attorney, Casey Olbrantz, added, Many other airlines affirmatively disclose to consumers that the very same seats have no window view. United and Delta could easily do the same, but they conveniently omit this fact and accept substantial extra fees that consumers would not have otherwise paid. United declined Fast Companys request for comment on the lawsuit, and Delta did not respond by press time. A bigger problem The frustration over paying extra for an allegedly windowless window seat reflects a broader pattern among some of the largest players in the airline industry. According to a Senate report released late last year, between 2018 and 2023, the airlines American, Delta, United, Spirit, and Frontier netted $12.4 billion in revenue from ancillary fees like advanced seat assignments and carry-on bags. The report also posited that deceptive UX practices and dynamic pricing helped to drive up costs for passengers. Airline websites and mobile applications bury critical information, such as the cost of selecting a particular seat, at later stages of the booking process, the report alleged. At some airlines, proprietary algorithms use consumer data to help set the price of fees so that different people attempting to book the exact same flight at the exact same time may be charged different prices for checking a bag. Several airlines have abandoned elements of their unique branding to play into this game of additional add-ons: In 2024, Spirit Airlines moved further from its origins as a low-budget carrier by implementing a new seat class with extra add-ons, while Southwest scrapped its iconic bags fly free and open seating policies in favor of a tiered pricing system. And this July, Delta announced that it has begun using AI to institute dynamic pricing based on factors like seat availability, current news, weather conditions, and even fluctuating oil prices. The cumulative effect of these changes is that, over time, every airline is starting to behave similarlyand the passenger experience is suffering.
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E-Commerce
Apple announced Thursday that its hiking the price of a monthly subscription for its Apple TV+ streaming service by $3, to $12.99. This latest increase, the companys third in three years, means subscribers will now pay nearly double the amount to stream popular TV shows like Severance or The Studio as they did as recently as October 2023. Though Apple is moving in step with other streaming services that have similarly raised prices this year, its the first time the technology company has increased the rate for Apple TV+ since 2023. Unlike other streaming services, Apple TV+ doesnt have a lower-priced subscription tier thats supported by advertising, instead offering a one-price-for-all model that falls in the middle of the price tiers offered by both Netflix and Hulu. The new $12.99 rate is now in effect for new subscribers, following a free seven-day trial, while existing customers will see the price hike 30 days after their next renewal date. The cost of an annual subscription, currently $99, has not changed. APPLE STILL LAGS IN POPULARITY Apple may be banking that consumers will pay up, given the recent critical acclaim for its TV shows and popularity of its theatrical film F1: The Movie, starring Brad Pitt. Last month, Apple received a record-breaking 81 nominations for Primetime Emmy Awards, led by Severance with 27 nominations. But the Cupertino, California-based company is reportedly losing more than $1 billion annually on the streaming service, according to reporting earlier this year by The Information, and its marketing efforts have fallen flat. And while more than 80% of Americans use streaming services, according to a Pew Research Center survey released in July, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video continue to reign supreme. Apple TV+ ranked eighth in popularity, with only 25% of respondents saying they watch Apple TV+ programming. American households now spend an average of $69 per month on the cost of four paid streaming services combined, according to a report released by Deloitte in March. And consumers have become savvy about gaming the monthly subscription services to binge-watch shows they want to watch. Several people on Reddit noted that they routinely subscribe to Apple TV+ for a month or two before canceling and will continue to do so, even at the higher rate, while another noted that the size of the services catalog doesnt justify this new price.
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E-Commerce
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