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Companies have several ways to increase their bottom lines. The first way is to raise the prices of products. But doing so can lead to fewer sales. Instead, some companies reduce the amount of product inside a package (or increase the size of the package without increasing the amount of product) while keeping the price the same, which helps reduce upfront costs. This practice is known as shinkflation, and its one that frequently annoys customers. But customers occasionally fight back. A group of California consumers brought a shrinkflation-related class action lawsuit against Amazon-owned Whole Foods Market, and the grocery store chain’s local subsidiary has agreed to settle, offering cash payments to those affected. Heres what you need to know. Whats happened? Whole Foods Market was hit with a class action lawsuit in California alleging that the company misled customers by selling two items that contained less product inside the packaging than the customers were led to believe based on the packagings size. Those two products were: 12 oz cannister of 365 Organic Hot Cocoa Rich Chocolate Flavor Mix 12 oz cannister of 365 Everyday Value Organic Hot Cocoa Rich Chocolate Flavor Mix The products were sold under Whole Foods 365 Organic brand. According to a website run by the settlement administrator, the claimants allege that Whole Foods mislabeled the Product by selling the cocoa mix in large and opaque cannisters that contained non-functional empty space and that California consumers, in reliance on the size of the cannister, believed they were purchasing more cocoa powder than they got for the price they paid.” Whole Foods Market in California has opted to settle the lawsuit. Fast Company reached out to the grocery chain for comment. Slack-fill and shrinkflation The class action lawsuit refers to “slack-fill,” which is essentially the empty space inside a package of product. Companies sometimes use this space in ways that lead consumers to believe that the package contains more product than it actually does. Slack-fill misuse is more commonly known as shrinkflation by the general public. While companies have no doubt engaged in shrinkflation for decades, the practice has gained significant attention in the last 10 to 15 years, largely due to the rise of social media. Consumers could finally share their shirnkflation findings and grievances with the wider populationand post photos of shirnkflation in action. And its not just consumers who despise shirnkflation. The previous Biden administration called the practice out as companies engaged in it during times of inflationary pressures. Many fear shrinkflation will rear its ugly head again in full force as companies look for ways to recoup costs incurred by President Trumps tariffs. Of course, manufacturers are not alone in engaging in shrinkflation. Restaurants, for example, have been caught putting less food on plates. Given the disdain that consumers have for shirnkflation, its little surprise that the alleged practice would result in legal action. The Whole Foods shrinkflation settlement In settling the class action lawsuit brought against it, Whole Foods has agreed to pay $650,000 while admitting no wrongdoing (something that is common for class action settlements). However, the class action lawsuit settlement only covers people in California who bought the affected products between November 3, 2017, and March 13, 2025. And while $650,000 might sound like a lot, the actual amount the average claimant is expected to get is just a few bucks. According to the class action website, the prorated settlement check amount will be approximately $2.90 for members of the settlement class. You can find full details on the settlement and whether you are entitled to part of it on the class action settlement website here. All claim forms must be submitted by October 14, 2025.
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E-Commerce
Hello, everyone, and thanks once again for reading Fast Companys Plugged In. For years, some of the worlds most productive web searches have had something in common: They begin at Google and end at Reddit. In some cases, thats because the person doing the searching has added reddit to their query, deliberately pushing material from the internets biggest, most indispensable hub of conversations to the top of Google results. But even if you havent expressed an explicit preference for Reddit links, Google often emphasizes them. They can feel like islands of quality information floating in a river of links to sites that are spammy or just not very good. Now Reddit sees an opportunity to become, in CEO Steve Huffmans words during its most recent quarterly investor call, a true search destination unto itself. That aspiration is reflected in Reddit Answers, an AI-infused information retrieval feature that debuted last December. Huffman says the company plans to merge the tool with Reddits existing search and redesign its homepage around them. If Reddit can use its new search interface to answer questions quickly and accurately on its own, it might make googling less of a reflexive habit. It would also position the sites human expertise even more clearly as an alternative to ChatGPT and other bots that dispense eerily human-sounding advice but often behave like broken robots. In its current form, Reddit Answers is just a beta that reflects only part of this bigger vision. It lets you seek information by entering search-like queries. Then it uses AI to weave together material from multiple Reddit discussions into one coherent, bullet-pointed response that quotes individual Redditors and links back to their original posts. The sample queries it suggestsfrom best coffee maker to highest salary part time jobs to tips for flying with a baby for the first timeconvey Reddits remarkable breadth of topics. Interface-wise, Reddit Answers feels familiarsomething of a hybrid of Google in its classic form and a generative-AI chatbot. And yet it couldnt exist without the Reddit communitys knowledge and opinion, which provide all its value. Lest others build anything similar without permission, the company has grown increasingly protective of its brain trust: Its signed licensing deals with Google and OpenAI and has been blocking others from trawling its pageseven the eminently laudable Internet Archive. Like the responses from AI bots, Reddit Answers replies can feel more like data dumps than anything succinct and definitive: For best coffee maker, it comes up with 10 models that at least one Reddit user has owned and likeduseful data points, but not a substitute for further research. But in many cases, a somewhat scattershot summary of Reddit chatter may be more reliable than a pure-AI answer that could be incomplete or even hallucinatory. For example, when I asked ChatGPT for advice on bicycle locks, its advice read well but didnt mention the handful of models that are tough enough to resist sustained attack by a thief equipped with an axle grindera reminder that AI merely simulates expertise rather than achieving it. Reddit Answers bike-lock response was just as easy to digest, and far more authoritative. [Screenshot: Reddit] When Reddit Answers doesnt entirely address your question on its first try, the fact its Reddit gives it a critical advantage. Its humanity is all on the surface. You can click through from Reddit Answers citations and continue the conversation with real people! You might even find yourself becoming part of a community, which is not something that happens with Google search or ChatGPT. The current AI wave has led to widespread fascination with the Dead Internet Theorythe possibility that people are being squeezed out of online discourse by inauthentic, machine-generated slop. I worry about that, too. But at the moment, Reddit provides happy evidence that doubling down on humans can be a viable business. The company, which went public in March 2024, beat analyst expectations for its most recent quarter, propelling its stock to record heights. In its most recent quarter, daily visitors averaged 110.4 million, an increase of 21% year-over-year. It managed to sell $465 million in advertising during the quarter while maintaining a surprisingly distraction-free reading experience. I find Reddits apparent health encouragingnot because I care about its stock price, ad business, or traffic per se, but because the helpful humans its assembled are our single biggest bulwark against the Dead Internet Theory becoming undeniable, irreversible reality. If the company were to suddenly vanish, or even just begin a slow decline, it would be catastrophic. And if Huffman gets anywhere with his goal of making it more of a self-sustaining destination rather than a Google appendage, well all benefit. Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on FastCompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping e at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company OpenAI gave GPT-5 an emotional lobotomy, and it crippled the modelThe AI’s inability to understand human feelings is its fatal flaw.Read More Biden-era AI safety promises aren’t holding up, and Apple’s the weakest linkOnly half of the voluntary commitments on AI made in 2023 made by 16 large AI companies are being followed, a new analysis suggests.Read More Teenage Engineering’s first free product buys it new customers for under $9Yes, free. You only have to pay for shipping. It’s out of stock now, but more are coming soon.Read More Spotify just turned your phone into a DJ boothSpotify’s new ‘Mix’ mode lets listeners turn on auto-transitions between songs or make their own custom mixes to share with friends.Read More Beauty publishing was always a lie. But AI just broke itAI-generated people are making it to editorial pages in magazines. This will become the new normal.Read More Why Apple is taking this controversial symbol off its packagingApple isn’t backing down from its work to cut emissions, but a new law is forcing the brand to talk about it differently.Read More
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E-Commerce
Waymo has the green light to start testing its self-driving cars in New York City. Mayor Eric Adams announced Friday that the city has granted Waymo a permit to start testing a small fleet of autonomous vehicles on the streets of New York. The pilot program will be limited to some of Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn and will put eight approved autonomous vehicles into action for testing. The cars might drive themselves but an AV specialist will still be behind the wheel during the testing period, which will be in place until late September. After the initial testing phase ends, Waymo can apply for an extension with the city to continue exploring how its self-driving cars fare in some of the countrys most congested, challenging driving conditions. Were a tech-friendly administration and were always looking for innovative ways to safely move our city forward, Adams said. New York City is proud to welcome Waymo to test this new technology in Manhattan and Brooklyn, as we know this testing is only the first step in moving our city further into the 21st century. New York City DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez assured New Yorkers that the agency has robust safety guidelines in place for the Waymo trial. These requirements will help ensure that the development of this technology is focused, first and foremost, on the safety of everyone who shares our busy city streets, Rodriguez said. Waymos permit will only allow the company to test its autonomous driving technology, not operate a robotaxi service that can ferry paying riders around. Unlike in San Francisco, Austin and a handful of other major U.S. cities, robotaxis arent yet legal in New York. To really open up New York City as a market, Waymo will need to secure a license from the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, which currently prohibits using autonomous vehicles for taxi services. Given the citys complex, corruption-ridden taxi business and its entrenched power players, overcoming New Yorks regulatory hurdles could prove just as challenging as some of the technological problems that Waymo has faced. Waymo leads the pack Waymo currently leads the pack in the robotaxi business, but competitors are keen to catch up. By spring of this year, Waymo reported 250,000 paid robotaxi rides each week across the cities where its driverless cars operate. The company is now up and running in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta. When Waymo entered the Atlanta market earlier this summer through Uber, some riders eager to try the technology canceled their rides with human drivers while they sifted through the system to hunt down the autonomous vehicles. Waymos Atlanta fleet is expected to grow to hundreds of cars within the next few years and the company is steadily pursuing plans to branch into other major cities, with Dallas, Miami and Washington D.C. in the works. So far, the competition has struggled to keep up. Amazon-owned Zoox was mired in a federal investigation and red tape, but the company won a regulatory exemption from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration earlier this month. The precedent could help other autonomous vehicle makers get more cars on the road in the U.S. quickly. Tesla launched its first robotaxi pilot program in Austin in June after a decade of lofty promises about the transformational business of self-driving Teslas. In July, the company launched a ridehailing service in San Francisco, but those rides are supervised by a human in the passenger seat after Tesla failed to secure necessary permits for robotaxi rides.
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E-Commerce
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