Policy Updates
Costco sells membership by the household, but for decades, enforcement at checkout amounted to a cashier glancing at whatever card got handed over. Starting in 2023, that changed — first with photo-ID checks at self-checkout, then with card scanners installed at the warehouse entrance itself, meaning members now get
Under Review
Waze lets drivers crowdsource the location of speed traps and parked patrol cars, which is either a helpful public service or an officer-safety threat depending entirely on which side of the windshield you're on. In January 2015, the National Sheriffs' Association publicly asked Google to turn
Investigations
On October 29, 2011, a gas explosion tore through the Xialiuchong coal mine in Hengyang, Hunan province, with 35 miners underground. Six were pulled out alive. Xinhua's first report put the dead at 28. State television revised it upward the next day, to 29. There it stopped.
Investigations
Black Friday doorbusters exist to create exactly one feeling: get here first or lose out. On November 28, 2008, a crowd at a Walmart in Valley Stream, New York, took that feeling literally, breaking down the store's glass doors before opening time. Jdimytai Damour, a 34-year-old
Policy Updates
For years, Bed Bath & Beyond and Bath & Body Works ran two of retail's most generous return policies: full refunds with no receipt, no time limit, no real questions asked. Bath & Body Works called it "100% Satisfaction." Both chains tightened those policies dramatically — not
Corporate Memo
Battlefield 6 sold seven million copies in three days. It was the biggest launch in the franchise's history, the best-selling premium video game of 2025, and by every metric EA uses to justify a bonus, an unambiguous win. Four months later, EA laid off staff across all four studios that built it.
Investigations
In December 1983, adults broke down doors, threw boxes at each other, and got trampled in department stores over a soft-bodied doll with yarn hair that retailed for $21. Coleco's Cabbage Patch Kids were the must-have gift of the season, supply couldn't come close
Investigations
In December 1996, America Online did something customers had been begging for: it stopped charging by the hour and offered unlimited access for a flat $19.95 a month. Customers responded by logging on and never logging off. Within weeks, AOL's modem banks couldn't handle the
Corporate Memo
Bolt, a San Francisco checkout fintech, offered its roughly 130 remote employees unlimited paid time off from the company's 2014 founding — no accrual, no cap, take what you need. Eleven years later, CEO Ryan Breslow killed it, and his explanation doubled as a confession: the policy hadn'
Obituaries
For about two years, every song ever recorded was free, instant, and one search bar away. Napster launched on June 1, 1999, built by an 18-year-old college freshman who thought sharing MP3s should be as easy as saving a file, and by early 2000 it had roughly 80
Industry Paid
Underneath the glossy "MyPlate" graphics lies a paper trail of sugar cartels buying off Harvard researchers, the cattle and dairy lobbies throwing million-dollar tantrums to redesign government graphics, and politicians frantically redlining their own reports to appease the meat industry.
Discontinued
A discount so fair it worked on every age group at once — which is exactly why the stores couldn't handle it.