It won't need to be cancelled, it won't charge $200 to unwilling customers, don't spread false rumors. They'll even pause whatever plan we already are on and paid for.
I don't get these negative comments for them giving free credits. Either it's "Not many people fit these criteria" or "A ploy for more customers". It can't be both, and I believe it's neither. It's a nice gesture, in line with Github Copilot and JetBrains. Disclosure: I have free Copilot and just applied for 20x Pro.
I mean, some people can have one of your quoted opinions, and some people can have the other. That's fine, people can not like this for their own reasons.
I applied for this, but it puts a bad taste in my mouth. I've been working on open source for over 20 years now, and while I don't expect any compensation, being offered something like this feels a little icky. If they really want to "thank" me, give it to me for free indefinitely. They've benefited immeasurably from all the open source code they've sucked in as training data. Their product literally would not exist without it.
In fact that's simply what the app does. It's just a handy way to have it on the phone as a shortcut and not having to remember the details of how to do it. Although with the sibling comments about Whatsapp itself allowing to do all this, the helper app seems less useful now.
The part you are quoting is being removed. The policy used to state "If you contribute un-reviewed LLM generated...", now simply states "If you use an LLM to make any kind of contribution then you will immediately be banned without recourse."
The devil in the details.
Pix allows you to give your account nb, but also email or phone to locate.
Vendors can produce a QR code which embeds the destinator as well as the amount to be paid.
Pix feels quicker than IBAN to IBAN.
Very importantly, Pix is available even without a bank account. Opening a bank account is quite challenging and expensive for non-residents, among others.
this may be a big angle, esp. for lots of poor people (which is a thing in brazil), as it gets them secure transfers.
getting cash remits from the gov was/is a huge challenge in india, for example. lots of people qualify but don't have a bank account or card or other basics.
Netherlands has implemented Tikkie on top of iDEAL, which is essentially the same outcome. You link your bank account, send a payment request URL or put up a QR if you're a business. That's good UX, and it's getting better adoption.
That's definitely closer to Pix, but the advantage of Pix is because since the Brazillian Central Bank forced adoption for almost every player (not just banks, but even things like PagSeguro that is the Brazil equivalent of PayPal), so you can just assume that everyone has a Pix account already.
Last time I went to Brazil I remember that at least twice I asked if the person seeling me something would accept Pix in place of cash since I generally don't carry any cash, and they happily accepted even if they didn't advertise this.
And iDeal is being expanded across Europe; the technology is now owned by the European Payments Industry and rebranded as Wero, which will replace iDeal in the Netherlands, Giropay in Germany, Paylib in France, and Payconiq in Belgium and Luxembourg.
This fragmentation of digital payment methods has had a... less than optimal effect on European payment traffic, with a lot of e-commerce going through American payment providers like credit cards (Visa, Mastercard mainly) and Paypal. A lot of internationally operating online outlets have added support for iDeal over time though, so hopefully Wero will be deployed very fast.
Depends on country I think. At least here in Norway, after the ban on smoking indoors at public places like restaurants and bars 20 years ago, smoking went way down.
When I visited New York a few years ago I was shocked about how much smoking there was everywhere.
Of course, people didn't quit nicotine entirely, many moving to snus[1] instead.
Interestingly, I haven't been able to find a single study that shows long-term use of snus leads to health complications -- at least, not where snus was split out from smoking and other forms of tobacco consumption.
I was shocked at the amount of smoking I saw in Copenhagen 3 years ago. And I live in Durham, North Carolina, a historically tobacco city, whose nickname (Bull Durham or the Bull City) literally comes from old tobacco ads.
Yea, then again Danes have been quite liberal with alcohol and such in comparison with Norway, perhaps a common theme there.
But yes, varies greatly between countries. Since it's "only" been 20 years since the ban here, I'm curious to see if the numbers diverge more in the coming decades, or not.
In FY2025, the U.S. federal deficit was $1.78 trillion, with total revenue at $5.23 trillion, so clearly it's a majority of revenue.
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