• kameecoding@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    as a European I have to say both the Tipping culture and the not showing the full price in stores with VAT included is just mindblowing.

    It’s literally a culture of hiding true costs, weird af.

    • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      It’s literally a culture of hiding true costs, weird af.

      Makes me happy though in this day and age that people are waking up to this fact, and are starting to push back on it.

      In the past corporations/governments thought people were a lot more unaware, than they are today.

    • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Hotels too. The advertised price is never accurate because their stupid resort fees.

        • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Again, it’s prevalent in the US market, not sure about others. They advertise say $199 / night, but when you go to check out, there’s something like a ~$35- $50 /night resort fee to “pay for amenities like WiFi/ gym /pool”. You can’t reject paying the fee, so your hotel room is actually like 25% higher than advertised.

    • wolfpack86@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Have lived in both eu and us.

      Agree, but the challenge on tax is that it’s not harmonized across municipalities. This means that stores that are across the street from each other may have identical prices/profit margin and a different net price to the consumer. This would lead to consumer preferences biased by physical location and have lots of other weird side effects. You can see this in areas that border state lines when the tax is appreciably different.

      Step one is a harmonized tax rate, but that’s easier said than done.

      • Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca
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        10 months ago

        The true cost is different no matter how it’s advertised, no? Harmonized tax is great and all, but lying about price is still bad, irrelevant of the actual price.