📬 Did someone forward this to you?Sign up here. Tomorrow: The government is fast-tracking AI chatbots that can diagnose you and prescribe medicine. It’s not great.
Settle into Sunday, friend.Somewhere between cartoons, homework and one more video, MrBeast became the king of YouTube mountain. Jimmy Donaldson hit 500 million subscribers, while 600,000 people watched live and briefly trolled him by unsubscribing at the finish line. Very normal internet behavior.
💸 Roughly how much does MrBeast make from YouTube ad revenue every month? A) $250,000, B) $1 million, C) $4 million or D) $10 million? Take your best guess, the answer’s waiting for you at the end.
Those high tip buttons are anchors, picked to make a normal 20% feel stingy. The no-tip option is buried on purpose.
The screen swiveling to face you while the worker watches isn’t an accident. That pressure is the product.
Tip generously where service is real, skip the guilt where it isn’t.
📖 Read time: 2 minutes
I always tip well. Always. I think it comes from my waitressing days. When you've carried trays for a living, you know the math. Most of a server's real pay walks in as tips, not the wage. So I tip like someone who remembers because I do.
So there I was at the nail salon last week. After a lovely manicure, I go to pay, and the little tablet spins around to face me. My choices? 25%, 35% or 50%. The lowest button was a number I save for an incredible dinner with full table service. For a manicure. I tipped. But come on.
That screen isn’t asking. It’s engineering you. And once you see the trick, you can’t unsee it.
🎯 Built to make you flinch
Those numbers aren’t random. They’re anchors. Flash 25, 35, 50 at someone, and suddenly 20% feels cheap, even though 20% is a generous tip.
The no-tip or custom button? Tiny. Buried. Sometimes hidden two taps deep. That’s on purpose. These prompts have crept into places where tipping never used to live: self-checkout kiosks, oil-change counters, the corner where you grab a bottled water. Mentions of “tipflation” on Yelp jumped 399% in a single year.
Then there’s the swivel.
The tablet rotates to face you while the worker stands right there, watching. No privacy, no time to think, you and a glowing screen and a person 3 feet away. That pressure is the whole product. Companies even have a name for it, “guilt tipping,” and we cave about four times a month, leaving roughly $283 a year in tips we never meant to give.
Oh, and that percentage is often calculated on your total, tax included. So they’ve got you tipping on the sales tax, too. Cute.
💸 Take the screen’s power back
You’re allowed to hit custom. You’re allowed to hit no tip.
Tip on what the service was, not what the button demands. A great stylist, real table service, your delivery driver out in the rain? Tip well, even generously. A counter where someone handed you a muffin and spun a screen? You owe nothing, and 63% of Americans say tipping has gone too far.
So next time that screen swivels around demanding 50%, take your time. The right number will come to you. It’s on the tip of your tongue.
Story time. Before I was a server, I was a hostess. Seating guests, taking reservations, answering phones, the whole front-of-house deal. One night a woman calls, sweet as can be, and asks me to page her friend in the bar. Happy to help. I grab the mic and announce in my most professional voice: "Paging Mr. Jack Mehoof. Mr. Jack Mehoof to the host stand, please." The place erupted. I stood there, mortified, as it slowly dawned on me. (Say it out loud. Yeah. That.) Pro tip: always read the name twice before it hits the loudspeaker.
📩 Send this to someone who freezes up every time that tablet swivels around and just taps the first button to make it stop.
Moda's viral launch hit 4.4 million views in two days. Tens of thousands of professionals signed up. Startups, agencies, forward-thinking brands and top firms are now using Moda to create brand-aligned slides, ad creative, reports, social carousels and more.
Most AI tools tend to create what we call "AI slop": repetitions of the same colors, layouts and fonts. And when you try to fix it, you get stuck in a loop of re-prompting.
Moda is different. Drop in your website URL, and Moda learns your brand from the ground up: your colors, your fonts, your visual language. Then it helps you generate pro-quality slides, docs, and marketing assets.
The best part? Every layer is fully editable on a real canvas, and exports to powerpoint, PDF and more.
Meet the first mini projector with Roku built in. Stream your favorites in full HD while Dolby Audio pumps theater-worthy sound. Expands from 40 to 150 inches. All Dad needs is a wall and a snack.
Image: Aurzen
📖 Memory keeper: This guided journal(40% off, $15) helps him write down stories and life lessons in his own words. Heirloom in the making, literally.
Fix-it favorite: Get him a multi-tool pocketknife(20% off, $15) with “Best Dad Ever” on the handle. Packs pliers, blades, screwdrivers and more.
🔥 BBQ-ready gear: Alpha Grillers’ stainless steel tool set(13% off, $40) comes with a spatula, tongs, fork and basting brush, in a gift-ready box.
Surprise inside: I love this Father’s Day card(29% off, $10) that pops into a full 3D scene as soon as he opens it. Way better than a boring drugstore card.
Prices and deals were accurate at the time of publication.
WEB WATERCOOLER
🐟 Phish got fancy: The scam email grew up, got clean grammar and learned where you bought dog food. Google warns that AI is making online fraud look painfully normal, with banks reporting a 1,210% jump in AI-powered scams last year. The crazy part? It can stitch together your real name, real bank and recent spending into a message that feels boringly legit. That’s the danger. Don’t click the panic link. Go to the site yourself like a suspicious adult. Phishy business, indeed.
Pikachu joins defense: I miss when games only ruined your sleep. DroneXL reports Niantic, the company behind Pokémon Go, used years of player movement and phone scans from streets, parks and landmarks to build mapping tech reportedly headed into Vantor’s military drone navigation work. Since launching in 2016, Pokémon Go has topped 1 billion downloads, making it a global street-scanning side hustle with Pikachu as mascot. Free apps, man. There’s always a receipt.
📘AI isn’t just for tech giants anymore: There’s a lot of hype out there, but I only care about what saves you time and money. If you’re jumping between QuickBooks, spreadsheets and month-old progress reports, you need to see how modern automation handles the busywork you’re currently paying humans to do. NetSuite’s free “Demystifying AI” guide skips the fluff and gives you the real-world math on how this tech boosts your bottom line. Get your copy for zero dollars.*
Grimm tidings: Imagine your favorite app vanishing overnight because of a government letter. On Friday, the US government ordered Anthropic to cut off access to its most powerful tools, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, citing national security and a possible "jailbreak." To comply, Anthropic had to switch them off for every customer, hundreds of millions of people. The company says it disagrees, calls it a misunderstanding, and is scrambling to restore access. Its other AI models still work fine. Looks like this Fable lost its happy ending.
👓 Sight for sore eyes: Hold on, is Mark Zuckerberg growing up? Meta, the company famous for tracking your every click, is about to hand out free AI glasses to blind and low-vision U.S. veterans. The specs read text aloud, describe a room and identify objects, which means a lot less mystery-can roulette at dinner. They normally start around $299, and more than 130,000 legally blind vets could benefit. Hit this link to learn more. Credit where it’s due. Meta finally found a use for our faces we can get behind.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
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Earlier this year, a database exposing 149 million passwords from accounts tied to services like Gmail and Netflix was found online. Think about that. Those aren’t just numbers, that’s real people, real accounts and real risk! And breaches like this are happening more than ever.
Here’s the problem; most people reuse passwords, so when one account is exposed, others can fall like dominos. I see it all the time, and it’s one of the easiest ways hackers get in.
That’s why I personally use and recommend NordPass. It creates strong, unique passwords for every account and stores them securely. It even autofills your logins, so staying safe is easy. If you’re still managing passwords on your own, it’s time to stop taking that risk.
Thank you for supporting our sponsors, who keep this newsletter free.
DEVICE ADVICE
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Work apps, personal folders and 10 random files don’t have to sit on one messy desktop. Separate the chaos. On Windows, press Win + Tab and choose New desktop. Use the same shortcut to switch. On Mac, enter Mission Control and click Add in the Spaces bar. Move with Control + left or right arrow.
🍎Mac people, listen up: “Macs don’t get viruses.” Bull. They always have. Criminals figure out how to target every device you own, including your iPhone. I protect everything with Webroot. One subscription covers my Mac, my phone, my husband’s PC, everything. It runs in the background without slowing anything down. Get 62% off my exclusive Webroot deal now.*
📸 Fix the awkward crop: Shot a video on your iPhone too wide, too close or with something weird in the corner? Open it in Photos, pinch slightly to zoom, then tap Crop in the upper right. Hit the aspect ratio button and choose freeform, square, portrait or landscape. Save it when it looks right.
📺 Smart TV acting dumb? If Netflix or YouTube is crawling, start with updates. Open your TV’s app hub or app settings and turn on Auto Update. Then check Settings > System > Software Update for the TV itself. Still glitchy? Turn it off, unplug it, hold the power button for 30 seconds, then plug it back in. Drama rebooted.
🍏 iPad, stay awake: Your iPad locks after two minutes by default, which is useful until you’re following a recipe with sticky fingers. Go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock, and choose something like 10 or 15 minutes instead. Enough time to read, watch or cook without the screen ghosting you.
🤧 Forecast for your sinuses: Summer pollen making you sneeze and itchy-eyed? The Weather Channel app can help. In the Health & Wellness section, it forecasts bad allergy days, including when pollen may peak and when weather conditions could aggravate symptoms. You’ll know when to take meds or keep the windows shut. Free on iPhone and Android.
WHAT THE TECH?
Image: @innomoto via YouTube
✈️ The Jetsons and surge pricing
Flying taxis are back, because apparently, traffic has people asking for a sky lane.
Beta Technologies’ Alia 250 is an electric air taxi built to lift off vertically, then cruise like a plane. It has five motors, five battery packs, room for a pilot and five passengers and a roughly 290-mile range.
One hour of flying uses about $28 in electricity. Airports could run quieter and cheaper than helicopters. Why white-knuckle it in rush hour when you can white-knuckle it in a flying toaster?
LOGGING OUT …
🔜 Tomorrow: Before you ask AI about that weird ache, read this. A major study found people using chatbots did worse than people using Google for medical advice. The results are scary, and I’ll break down what you need to know.
Coming up in tomorrow’s trivia, your smart speaker’s “oops, delete that” trick is easier than digging through settings.
💸 The answer: C) $4 million a month. And that’s from YouTube ads alone. Sounds huge, right? Here’s the twist: Most outlets peg his total monthly income, including Feastables, brand deals and his shows, north of $50 million. He reinvests nearly all of it into bigger videos.
And the subscriber number? 500 million is more people than live in any country on Earth except India and China. One guy. One channel. Bigger than the United States.
When do YouTubers know it’s time to retire? When they get 401k likes. (lol)
🔓 Domino effect: A database exposing 149 million passwords from Gmail, Netflix and dozens of other services turned up online this year. Most people reuse passwords, so when one falls, the rest follow. NordPass generates a unique password for every account, stores them securely and autofills your logins. You remember one. It handles the rest. Get 36% off at NordPass.com/Kim. That is $1.91 a month.*
🚶🏼♀️ Take me on a walk: Click to listen to my latest show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I also make chores go by faster!
📵 The best gift you can give someone today is your full attention. Phone down, eyes up. — Kim
Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily
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Photo credit(s):ChatGPT/Kim Komando, Aurzen, @innomoto via YouTube
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Keep a civil tongue.