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[McTraveller]

Sounds like a great market opportunity to provide a payment system without egregious fees, eh?

What's stopping you?

I'm only being semi-sarcastic; I have mountains of things I'd love to "fix" with an attempt at a disruptive business, but I don't have the connections or salesmanship to get funding, and I'm too young to suffer the stress of trying to do such things.

[femmelf]

Late stage capitalism .... Someone buys bricks to throw and break windows, then charges for window repair and claims to be building a better mousetrap/window repair system. They could just ... not throw the bricks through the windows. The solution was free and worked perfectly for well over 10 years.... It was free to take your own money and pay your utility bill without an extra junk fee. There are elderly and disabled people in the U.S. who have to actually eat cat food. They can't afford any type of junk fees at all for a free thing.

The answer isn't a "market opportunity," because demand is "willingness and ability" to pay, but for many there is no ability and there shouldn't have to be. The answer is to make it how it literally just was last month. Somebody somewhere is probably getting a kickback off this and they aren't interested in another payment system unless it gives them a bigger kickback. They don't care that any amount of money like this in junk fees is going to break some disabled/elderly people who are just trying to keep the heat on in the winter. Plus, there are tons of payment systems and they aren't going to be happy about another competitor "undercutting them" / they'll sabotage it if it hurts their wallet.

The answer is not to actively make things worse/more expensive, but that's a lot of what seems to be happening out there. Digital cable was supposed to save the world by spreading information and maybe it could have.... Except nope... Also, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISv-e9O5pYg

[Eric Blank]

There was the.... I forget what it's called. Monopoly prevention department in the US, getting back into shape recently, actually prosecuting people for shit like this. Maybe call and complain to them, explain they have a local monopoly and how this is hurting you financially.

[hector13]

You could also get in touch with local media.

[McTraveller]

It's not the utilities doing this though; it's the payment processing companies. It was never free - the utility companies (at least the ones in my area) used to eat the merchant fees, but now they don't. It's still free to the end consumer if you use EBT (direct payment from bank account) though.

That 3% of revenue or whatever is pretty significant for utilities.

The big payment processors are starting to draw the attention of the commerce department, now that we have an administration more willing to take on antitrust cases.

[Frumple]

It's not the utilities doing this though; it's the payment processing companies. It was never free - the utility companies (at least the ones in my area) used to eat the merchant fees, but now they don't. It's still free to the end consumer if you use EBT (direct payment from bank account) though.

Femm seemed to note that even direct transfer/autopay still had the fee in question, though. It pretty certainly varies by locality. Also wouldn't say with any certainty it isn't the utilities doing that; especially once they've solidified local control they tend to be perfectly happy to screw around like that and add fuckfuck fees basically for funsies. For profit utilities are a goddamn plague unless someone bigger than them is keeping them under pretty damn tight control.

Direct transfer isn't necessarily possible, in any case -- my local water/garbage literally doesn't allow for it or automatic payments, ferex (I do pay like an extra 2-3 bucks a month to not have to deal with going up the street and physically interacting with city hall or screwing around with mailing checks, ha). Didn't even have online as an option until relatively recently, wasn't that long ago (within the decade, though exactly when I couldn't tell you 'cause time hasn't consisted as a coherent entity since 2020) it was cash or check or gtfo.

[Great Order]

Why do I keep going back to Reddit? It's bad for me.

[Magmacube_tr]

Why do I keep going back to Reddit? It's bad for me.

Haha, ain't that the truth? I stay for the r/silksong.

[None]

Reddit wasn't great before the API change, but it's honestly shocking how much worse it's gotten since.

I'm discovering that it's possible that it may not be only garlic, but also onion that I may have an intolerance to. Can I just give up on food entirely? Subsist off air, or sunlight, or leech nutrition from the wall, lichen-style?

[Frumple]

I wish. Still, it's possible to cook without garlic or onion (I've actually been using a lot of garlic lately, but for most of my life I just didn't, and I loath onion in general), so you're not exactly out of options yet.

... out of options that don't involve you actually cooking something, though, maybe. Especially if you're stateside. I think the only thing in american food that's nearly as prevalent as murderous amounts of salt is garlic and onion, the stuff's in basically everything premade, be it restaurant or otherwise. If you actually have to avoid it, get used to reading ingredient lists because you're going to be reading a lot of them.

[nenjin]

Hey, there's the story out there of a guy in the 50s who was like 300 pounds. They fed him nothing but water and minerals for like a year. Not only did he drop like 150+ pounds....he survived and was healthy.

So I guess just get really obese then you can cruise for a year on nothing but water and minerals, plant-style.

[hector13]

This is what you need.

Ignore all the nonsense about people dying, that’s just PepsiCo spreading falsehoods so you keep buying their poison.

[anewaname]

Focus on recognizing that one meal that is nutritious, simple, and not-upsetting, and eat it once a day. I ordered a large tin of steamed chicken+brocolli nearly every day for 6+ years and finished it in one of two meals. I never got tired of it and never added chemicals/flavors to it, and it tasted good and settled well, and for about 8 hours a day, that was the only thing that was in my stomach. For me, it stabilized my diet and I ate whatever the rest of the day.

When you have thoughts about how you would like something "different" or "more flavorful", dissect those thoughts to find what is appealing to you about them. You'll find you have good memories of family/friends, or maybe the food was a stable food when you were constantly near starving, or even that some advertising or addictive chemicals successfully implanted themselves in your mind.

Your feelings of "not wanting to eat" is the result of feedback from your digestive tract to your brain. Your million-year old digestive tract is telling your brain "this stuff isn't the food I/we need, so use those mobility features you control and seek out a better food source", and you are not listening because it is inconvenient to your daily schedule of work/entertainment. Your body is not actually trapped in a enclosure, but your mind probably is.

[nenjin]

I can agree with this.

The old adage is "everything tastes good when you're hungry."

I eat two meals a day. One provided by work usually, and then I eat very late at night.

It's been the same thing for years.

Kiwis for the vitamin C and fiber. Apples because they rock and it's another color of fruit to eat. Some lean roast beef for protein and meat-based goodness. A small bowl of unbuttered, salted popcorn for carbs. Almonds for fats. Whole milk for Vitamin D and fats and other good nutrients. A protein bar for extra protein and some extra fiber. I can put together over 1000 calories of only semi-processed, nutritionally complete food in less than 5 minutes. My biggest motivation, outside of not eating too much garbage, is that I just got tired of trying to figure out WHAT to eat and investing the time in making it.

It's the one meal of the day I can stand behind almost everything in it. (I know, Deli meat isn't good for you. But it's quick and ready protein that isn't pre-packaged lunchable meat.)

I've been doing that for years without getting bored. Why? Because when you're 12 hours between anything solid, you'll eat what's put in front of you. I'm not even working out atm. If I was I'd be RAVENOUS by that time, and I'd probably eat rocks if there was any caloric content to them.

Try fasting. Seriously. People eat when they're not really hungry these days and pack in so many additional calories and other nonsense that isn't great for them, then wonder why they feel like shit.

I know that's not your actual complaint, just food sensitivities. But any time I feel bloated or like crap, I just skip a meal or two because my body is still clearly working through something, and just piling more food on top of that doesn't help. People don't need three square meals a day unless they're an athlete or doing manual labor. They just don't. Most people need maybe two meals and some supplementary snacking at most.

It sucks for larger people because their BRAINS are telling them they need more food but their BODIES do not. Every time I try to suggest this as a means of weight control to some people, the reply I get is "what you want me to STARVE??!?!" Motherfucker, you're not starving. Starving is a very specific thing. You're HUNGRY but HUNGRY =! STARVING. But most people can't live through that ~hour window where their mind is screaming at them to eat. Guess what? It passes. And then it comes back. Riding out past that first initial hunger pang is what gets you to the next one. You ain't gonna die, and your blood sugar is fine. Lord knows overweight people are swimming in high blood sugar constantly, so much so they don't even know what low blood sugar feels like.

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant.

[None]

Eh, I'm still struggling to reach 130lbs. Eating less is something I need to do less of. It's the 'shitting my brains out at 6AM' that gets me, y'know, per the garlic/probably onion intolerance. And the poultry allergy. And the raw fruit/veggie intolerance. And tree nuts might kill me.

It's not that I'm tired of everything I have to eat, it's that I'm tired of eating and thereby gambling my wellbeing. Tired of reading labels looking for sneaky turkey or chicken broth. Tired of panicking over an iota of chocolate or a pastry someone's decided to sneak hazelnuts into. Tired of clutching my knees in a cold sweat. Yes, food is tasty, no I'm not food-motivated at all and it's both a goddamn chore and usually makes me feel bad. Yes, I have a couple staples I eat regularly. Yes, my abusive ex used to hold it against me that my diet was small. Yep, I'm still tweaking it so my guts get happier. No, I'm probably not done finding intolerances yet.

I need to go dump out my leftovers.