Author: openjargon

• United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said ULCCs are "going out of business."
• Kirby criticized no-frills carriers like Spirit for prioritizing cheap costs over customer service.
• He poked fun at one ULCC for charging $99 for a carry-on and then giving the agent a commission.

Ultra-low-cost airlines are taking one out of left field.

In a candid interview with The Air Show podcast published on Monday, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said the carriers are "going out of business" due to bad business strategy and poor customer service.

"It's a fundamentally flawed business model," he said. "The customers hate it."

Kirby's comments point to no-frills carriers like Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines, which offer cheap tickets thanks to their unbundled fares and barebones planes. Usually, these lower fares are at the expense of passenger comfort.

In a bid to attract more customers, the ultra-low-cost carriers, or ULCCs, have improved their operations with more free and premium perks, like Spirit dropping change fees and Frontier adding an "UpFront Plus" seat that resembles European business class.

Kirby, however, argued this shift in focus from leisure to premium offerings suggests an "internal acknowledgment that the [ultra-low-cost] business model doesn't work."

But above all else, Kirby said one "fundamental issue" has cost ULCCs a lot of business: "They haven't treated customers right."

He gave an example of an unnamed competitor that he said "started charging $99 for your carry-on bag," noting a commission was then paid out for collecting the steep fee from the customer.

Kirby is likely referring to the viral interactions between Frontier customers and ticket agents that surfaced on TikTok last year. Customers were reportedly forced to pay $99 per piece of luggage that fit into the airline's bag checker, and Frontier later admitted it offered a bonus to those who caught oversize carry-ons.

"You can do it once, but you don't get to do it to them twice," Kirby said. "And those airlines grew big enough that they actually need repeat customers."

Kirby's stance is further expressed in his response to Frontier CEO Barry Biffle's reported comment that the "lowest cost always wins."

"He's dead wrong…Best service always wins," Kirby said.

Recent airline rankings by customer satisfaction scores back up Kirby's claims.

Regarding the economy experience, Frontier and Spirit ranked last and second to last, respectively, in JD Power's 2024 survey that examined 11 North American airlines.

According to the Department of Transportation, the pair also had the highest rate of customer complaints among US airlines in 2023.

Still, Kirby did give credit where it's due, saying the well-built "mousetrap" low-cost carriers use to lure in infrequent flyers who care about price over loyalty have forced United to adapt and create its own version of a cheap ticket.

"They want the lowest price, and they're willing to have a disaggregated price," he said. "So, we needed to build a basic economy cup."

United's stripped-down coach fare mirrors the basic ticket most US ULCCs offer, including no free carry-on, changes, or cancellations allowed, but still has the regular mainline coach perks.

To their credit, Spirit has recently dropped all change and cancellation fees, and Frontier has dropped the fees for all non-basic economy fares.

Spirit and Frontier did not respond to requests for comment.

• Walmart just announced a new slate of pay and benefits perks for US hourly associates.
• Some 700,000 workers are eligible for a new bonus that increases with their years with the company.
• The retailer is also expanding online training options, as well as piloting a trades career pathway.

Walmart wants more workers to stick with the company for longer.

The retailer just announced a new slate of pay and benefits perks for US hourly associates, including a new bonus that increases with their years with the company.

Around 700,000 part- and full-time workers are now eligible for annual bonuses that are tied to their store's performance, the Associated Press reported.

Walmart told AP that full-time workers who have been with the company between one and five years would be eligible for a maximum of $350, while a 20-year employee would be eligible for a maximum of $1,000.

The moves follow a 30% increase in average wages over the past five years to nearly $18 per hour, the company said.

More than two-thirds of hourly Walmart workers are full-time, meaning they work an average of at least 34 hours a week, and employees who work at least 30 hours a week are eligible to receive health benefits.

Walmart is also expanding online training options through its Live Better U certificate program, which now has 50 skills that associates can complete in four months.

The company also said it is piloting a trades career pathway with 100 hourly associates in the Dallas area, training workers in higher-paying technician jobs in areas like facilities maintenance, refrigeration, HVAC, and automation.

"These jobs make between $19 and $45 an hour and offer opportunities to build a meaningful career while meeting a business need for the company," Walmart US CEO John Furner said.

A spokesperson told the AP the trades program is similar to a truck driver training program announced two years ago, which has since produced more than 500 new drivers.

If you are a Walmart employee who would like to share your perspective, please contact Dominick via email or text/call/Signal at 646.768.4750. Responses will be kept confidential, and Business Insider strongly recommends using a personal email and a non-work device when reaching out.

• Boeing launched its Starliner spacecraft carrying two astronauts to the International Space Station. 
• The launch went smoothly after the program was plagued by delays.
• Boeing's spacecraft would give NASA a second option for human transport to space. 

On Wednesday morning, Boeing's Starliner launched toward the International Space Station carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.

It was the first crewed mission for the commercial spacecraft, which has been plagued by delays due to technical concerns.

On May 6, a pressure relief valve in the Atlas 5 rocket led to the first scrub. Then on June 1, there was an issue with the three ground computers that orchestrate the final countdown, which led to another delay.

But Wednesday's launch went smoothly, with the astronauts lifting off at 10:52 am ET. The crew later reached orbit safely.

The successful launch will shake up the commercial spaceflight market.

Right now, SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft is NASA's main option for shuttling astronauts to and from space. The successful launch now gives NASA a second option, removing SpaceX's US-based monopoly on human-to-space transport.

Compared to SpaceX, Boeing has been slower to break into the commercial human-space transport business. In 2014, NASA selected both Boeing and SpaceX to build spacecraft to transport its astronauts to and from the ISS.

SpaceX began launching astronauts in 2020, but Boeing's effort was hit with costly delays. Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Boeing's issues were due to "too many non-technical managers."

Wednesday's launch isn't Wilmore's and Williams' first time in space. Both are seasoned astronauts and have each spent more than 150 days in space.

But this mission has been a long time coming for Wilmore and Williams. They've trained longer for this mission than Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins had for Apollo 11, The New York Times pointed out.

• Elon Musk's X has revamped its sensitive media policy to more explicitly allow adult content.
• The policy makes a robust ideological statement about not-safe-for-work content, welcomed by some.
• But Musk has a long way to go to make X a safe place to serve up porn, experts said.

Elon Musk's X overhauled its sensitive media policy this week, signaling an increasing coziness with the world of adult content.

While the platform has never formally forbidden porn, the new update is much clearer. It also includes a forthright ideological statement on the issue of smut.

"Sexual expression, whether visual or written, can be a legitimate form of artistic expression," the policy states.

It adds: "We believe in the autonomy of adults to engage with and create content that reflects their own beliefs, desires, and experiences, including those related to sexuality."

Prior to the update — first spotted by TechCrunch — X's "sensitive media" policy comprised a hodgepodge of rules around the posting of violent, sexual, or otherwise graphic material.

Now the site has separated its policy pages for "Adult" and "Violent" content.

This is clearly on brand for Musk.

Brooke Erin Duffy, associate professor of communication at Cornell University, told the Associated Press that the move "dovetails well with the company's post-Musk marketing strategy."

"X is unapologetically provocative and has sought to distinguish itself from 'brand safe' competitors," she added.

(Compare X's approach to Facebook's nudity policy, which only really acknowledges "awareness campaigns or artistic projects" as possible motivations for posting NSFW material.)

Harper Thornhill, a dominatrix and former representative of the UK's Sex Workers' Union, said the change isn't much more than a "PR stunt."

But the statement is a "great thing" in a world where sex workers are routinely stigmatized, she told BI. "It's a good thing that they are publicly taking pornography, commenting on it, and saying that we'll happily have it here — because that's life."

(Thornhill, whose working name is Countess Diamond, uses a pseudonym for professional purposes. Her real name is known to BI.)

But taking pornography on board so squarely ramps up concerns for X users.

Under the policy, someone posting adult material must label it as such, either on a post-by-post basis or across their whole account. This produces an age-restrictive content warning.

Meanwhile, a whole raft of awful stuff remains banned. The promotion or solicitation of sexual services is also banned under the policy.

But these measures are unlikely to satisfy regulators, Clare Daly, a solicitor working on child safety and data protection, told BI.

Multiple countries — including Ireland, where Daly practices — are weighing up sweeping measures that won't be satisfied with "age assurance measures based solely on self-declaration," she said.

"It appears that X will need to take much more proactive steps" to verify the age of its users, she said.

It's also unclear how X vets material that is posted nonconsensually, Thornhill, who has advised UK lawmakers on porn regulation, said.

The platform would have to adopt the same level of documentation as sites like Pornhub or OnlyFans use to operate safely, she added, saying that making this move without robust safeguards is a "recipe for disaster."

"There's so much harm that could come from this that is unseen and that hasn't been evaluated or assessed," she said.

There's also the question of what signal it sends to users who — even with an opt-out — just don't see X as a source for adult content, and prefer it that way.

"This move might attract a niche user base and boost engagement," Nick Hajli, a professor of digital strategy at the UK's Loughborough University Business School, told BI. "However, it risks losing advertisers and mainstream users concerned about brand safety."

X did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment,
but Musk might be having this exact business calculation.

In October 2022, as Musk stood ready to take over Twitter, leaked internal research showed that the platform was hemorrhaging its most active users while seeing a growth in their interest in adult content, as Reuters reported.

Earlier this year, TechCrunch also reported that Musk was toying with the idea of revitalizing X's "communities" feature, with NSFW adult content.

But do those in the field even trust Musk to get it right?

"Oh God, no," Thornhill said. "He's just too reactionary. Too egotistical."

• Kevin Coughlin, the GOP nominee for a House seat in Ohio, once called himself a "homophobe."
• It was part of a broader controversy over alleged discrimination when he was student body president.
• Coughlin claimed he was merely mocking discrimination claims from the "outer fringes of society."

Kevin Coughlin, the Republican nominee to take on Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes in November, is one of his party's best hopes of flipping a House seat this year.

Coughlin has a long history of serving in elected office, including 10 years in the Ohio Senate, four years in the Ohio House, and even a two-year stint as student body president at Bowling Green State University.

It was during his college years that Coughlin — amid a controversy involving alleged discrimination against a fellow student who was seeking an appointment to the student senate — declared that he disagreed with "the lifestyles that homosexuals choose to lead."

He also labeled himself — at least ironically — as a homophobe.

"I'm homophobic, I admit it, I have a problem with it," the student newspaper quoted Coughlin as saying in 1991, citing two people who had heard him make the remarks. Coughlin later penned a guest column in the paper disputing the exact quote while claiming that he had made the comment in jest.

"I jokingly said this because I am sick and tired of hearing cries of discrimination from members of the outer fringes of society every time they are turned down for a position or they run into someone who has differing opinions," Coughlin wrote at the time.

"It is true that I do not agree with the lifestyles that homosexuals choose to lead. I do not shirk from that," Coughlin continued. "But that does not make me stupid, uneducated or homophobic and I'm rather tired of people being persecuted because they hold an opinion."

A spokesperson for Coughlin's campaign told Business Insider that his comments were indeed sarcastic, and that the purported quote "does not reflect his views then, or now."

'As much sarcasm as I could muster'

According to archives of The BG News, the university's student-run newspaper, the controversy began in January 1991, when a vacancy opened in the university's undergraduate student senate.

Coughlin, first elected student body president in 1989, had the power to appoint a new senator. But after the president of the school's Lesbian and Gay Alliance expressed interest in the seat, Coughlin chose someone else.

That led another student senator to accuse Coughlin of discriminating against the student on the basis of his sexuality, at which point the student paper quoted Coughlin in February as saying he was "homophobic."

In the guest column he wrote two weeks later, Coughlin sought to straighten things out, saying he had appoint another student because of his previous service in student government.

He also took on the "homophobic" quote directly.

"Knowing that charges from the outer fringes of discrimination were on the way, I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster, 'Well you know why I didn't appoint him, don't you? It's because I'm a homophobe and I need help,'" Coughlin wrote.

"My opinion does not, however, mean that I would ever discriminate against a homosexual," he later added. "To me, people are people and as an American, people are entitled to their having opinions without having them twisted into something they're not."

The future state lawmaker would go on to lose reelection as student body president that spring, owing in part to the controversy.

Though it's been over 30 years since those events took place, Coughlin has maintained a general opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, including voting for a bill to ban gay marriage in 2004, when he served in the state senate.

Additionally, on a conservative Christian organization's questionnaire completed earlier this year, Coughlin indicated that he "strongly agreed" with the notion that "no government has the authority to alter" the definition of marriage as a "God-ordained, sacred and legal union of one man and one woman."

His campaign spokesperson, Cierra Shehorn, argued that the survey referred specifically to religious institutions' definition of marriage, that Coughlin believes the issue is "settle law," and that he would "never support an effort to change that."

• For years, an Apple-Google deal has dominated America's internet.
• Apple is about to announce a new arrangement that could do the same for the AI era.
• Tim Cook is expected to announce a partnership with OpenAI at WWDC to bring ChatGPT to iPhones.

When Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone in 2007, it was a landmark moment in Apple's history that involved the CEO of another Silicon Valley company: Google.

Eric Schmidt, Google's then-leader, joined Jobs onstage as a symbol of the growing bond between their companies. Two years earlier, in 2005, Apple and Google struck a deal to make Mountain View's search engine the default on the Mac's Safari browser.

With the iPhone, Google was about to be placed front and center as the core search tool on the pocketable device Apple was betting its future on. It's a tie-up that has, arguably, determined who dominates America's internet ever since.

As iPhones have grown in popularity across the US — Apple smartphones have had a market share of more than 50% since 2022 — Google's reach has spread too, giving an already dominant search engine more exposure.

Though the deal is now at the heart of a US government lawsuit filed against Google in 2020, it's proven to be a powerful means of shaping the internet experience of Americans, and highly lucrative for Apple: Google paid $20 billion to maintain the deal in 2022.

Now, Apple is preparing to unveil its plans to dominate the internet again — with the help of another Silicon Valley company.

Apple's plan to dominate the internet, again

On Monday, when CEO Tim Cook kicks off Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), he's expected to reveal a new vision of artificial intelligence by announcing a partnership with OpenAI.

According to a report on Wednesday from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is all but set to announce that the ChatGPT maker's technology will be integrated into the iPhone operating system.

For Apple, the partnership would present a bold attempt to bring generative AI features to its devices after months of questions from investors, developers and others about its plans to get in on Silicon Valley's most talked-about technology.

Though Apple typically keeps its plans top secret, there had been a growing sense the company was falling behind on AI. Rivals like Google and Meta were charging ahead with their own AI models, while Microsoft partnered with OpenAI as early as January 2023.

But by bringing an incumbent AI player like the ChatGPT maker into its mix, Apple will hope that it can shape a new internet experience for iPhone users in the AI era.

In a research note, Wedbush analysts including Dan Ives wrote that the WWDC could be "the most important event for Apple in over a decade as the pressure to bring a generative AI stack of technology for developers and consumers" grows.

For OpenAI, the deal would give it a ticket to one of the most powerful distribution systems in the world: more than a billion active iPhones.

Time will tell if the deal is as powerful as Apple's search engine agreement with Google. While OpenAI has emerged as the face of the generative AI boom thanks to the early-mover advantage gained from ChatGPT's release, it's also been mired in controversy.

No done deal

Its AI has been criticized for making critical errors and being prone to hallucinations, bringing its reliability into question. The company itself has also been the subject of controversy as its CEO, Sam Altman, has come under fire from current and former employees over safety pledges.

It's worth noting that neither company has yet officially confirmed the deal. Apple had previously been reported to have been in discussions with Google over an AI partnership, but OpenAI appears to have earned its favor.

One thing is certain: Apple's about to pitch the world on its plans to dominate the internet in the AI age.

• Supercommuting is on the rise, with more workers traveling over 75 miles to their jobs.
• Hybrid work and rising urban housing costs have pushed workers to live farther from cities.
• New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, saw big increases in supercommuters since the pandemic.

Americans are on their way to work — and they probably still have a long way to go.

New research first reported by The Wall Street Journal shows that more workers are supercommuting, meaning they're traveling more than 75 miles each way for work. That can add up to nearly five hours a day spent commuting — a sacrifice more workers are willing to make as hybrid work expands the area they can call home.

The number of Americans making this long trek to work has skyrocketed since the pandemic. Using GPS data from car data software company INRIX including about 200,000 trips per city among big US metros, Stanford University economists Nick Bloom and Alex Finan determined that the share of supercommutes of at least 75 miles each way increased by 32% post-pandemic — representing 2.9% of total trips. Some trips, they found, are as long as five hours each way, with some starting their commutes at 3 a.m.

They further found that across the country's 10 largest cities, the share of commutes over 40 miles each way increased over the last few years, representing 18.5% of trips. That trend was consistent across each weekday.

Bloom and Finan compared data from between November 2019 and February 2020 to November 2023 to February 2024. They defined commute trips as starting outside downtown and ending in the downtown area between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m.

Bloom and Finan noted that because people are going into the office less — with many having moved out of cities to the suburbs — supercommuting has become more popular. The Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, created by WFH Research, determined that working from home increased about fivefold from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic.

One silver lining of longer commutes is that trips are often faster than a comparable pre-pandemic trip, as working from home indirectly lessens traffic. Traffic speeds increased about 10% over this time period, Bloom and Finan found.

Some cities have more supercommuters than others. New York City experienced an 89% surge in supercommuting, from 1.9% to 3.6% of all trips. Los Angeles has seen a 20% increase in commutes at least 35 miles long, while Washington, DC, has seen a 100% surge in supercommuters. Phoenix, Arizona — a city that's seen a surge of new residents in recent years and, as a result, soaring housing costs — has also seen supercommuting increase by 57%.

The spike in supercommuting in some of the country's most expensive cities is in part due to the rise of remote work and the demand for more space. When COVID-19 shut down much of the country, millions of people were suddenly living their entire lives in their cramped apartments, and demand for larger homes shot up.

And since there aren't enough family-sized apartments in urban areas to keep up with demand, many families with younger kids fled big cities during the pandemic, according to a report from the Economic Innovation Group. Previous data from Bloom and payroll company Gusto found that workers ages 30 to 34 had more than doubled their distance from work compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Bloom told BI that they don't have a direct demographic breakdown of supercommuters, but noted people working from home — which is driving the trend — tend "to be professionals and managers." That means higher-income workers in their late 20s to early 50s and people with kids.

"So have in mind a college graduate with two young kids that wants to leave NY apartment to move out to the suburbs 1.5 hours away to get a back-yard and local schools," Bloom said.

Rising housing costs in the urban core are also pushing many households to the farther reaches of the suburbs. Some of the former city dwellers who decamped for the suburbs when the pandemic hit have come to regret their move as their employers have begun calling them back to the office.

But others are pleased with their supercommuting lifestyles. Kyle Rice, a 38-year-old EMS provider who lives in Willmington, Delaware, supercommutes two hours each way to New York City, costing him $1,510 each month. Still, he told BI the lower cost of living in Delaware is worth the hassle, as he makes six figures at his New York job.

Are you a supercommuter or considering becoming one? Contact these reporters at nsheidlower@businessinsider.com, jkaplan@businessinsider.com, and erelman@businessinsider.com.

• Agata Pona and her husband left the Bay Area and moved to Poland in 2015.
• She says that she felt immediate stress relief living in Poland.
• Pona was able to easily get an entry-level tech job, longer sick days, and two-week vacations.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Agata Pona, a 43-year-old employee at SEO agency SUSO Digital, who moved from the Bay Area to Poland. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I moved out of the San Francisco Bay Area and relocated to Poznań, Poland, in 2015, when I was 35 years old. I grew up in Silicon Valley, but my husband and I felt that we needed to leave the Bay Area to achieve a higher standard of living.

We're both originally from Poland — my family immigrated to California when I was nine.

If we'd decided to move to Portland, Arizona, or Texas — where everyone else seemed to be moving — we would've been stuck with no friends or family. We had some friends in Poland, and I still had some family, so we wouldn't be alone.

I didn't work in tech when I lived in the Bay Area, but I do now 

In the Bay Area, I worked in marketing and graphic design and did off-and-on work in café management and the brewing industry. 

My husband is a sociologist by education but a motorcycle specialist by passion. He never had a specific career path but always worked and focused on the motorcycle industry. The Bay Area didn't fit into his free-spirit mentality, and he also needed a change. 

When I started looking for a job in Poland after having my son, I looked for a position that would require a lot of English and I actually got callbacks. I was given chances that seemed out of reach in the Bay Area.

After looking at some tutoring options, I saw a job ad that seemed like an entry-level position at an SEO company. The ad said something like, "If you speak excellent English, we will literally teach you everything."

I half expected it to be a scam. However, after the interview, I was surprised to find out that it was a legitimate company that needed new people to train for a real project. The job market in Poland seems more relaxed. In the Bay Area, there was no getting into a job like this "by accident" for me.

I got into SEO by chance and was able to test it out and see if I actually liked it.

I always planned to stay in the US, but the living expenses made me reconsider

All I want is a moderate lifestyle — a modest house, some kids, and actually being able to save — but statistics say that an average income of $300,000 a year is needed to obtain this life in the Bay Area.

When I did the research, daycare costs about $2,000 a month for infants and $1,300 a month for older kids. We would've also needed a bigger apartment.

I worked full-time in the US, but the costs of getting health insurance through my job were too high. Rent was very expensive, and a large chunk of our paycheck went for the basics.

I looked at how much people were paying out of pocket for childbirth, and even with good insurance through a plan chosen by my employer, it was about $5,000, which was an amount I was unable to commit to. After the recession, I had problems getting back into the graphic design industry, and even though my food service jobs offered insurance, I opted out after a while or chose just the bare minimum options.

This left me wondering, what if something didn't go right? What if I had to have a C-section and couldn't go back to work right away?

I remember a girl who came into a café I worked at years before — she was a manager at Whole Foods and had just given birth. She was back to work a month later. I asked her how she was doing, and she burst into tears. She wasn't healed yet, and she had to leave her baby behind and go back to work. I could see that she didn't have a choice, and that terrified me.

We concluded that it made more sense to move

Our decision to leave the US wasn't only based on money. It was also about being given a chance to live the "American dream," the idea that equal opportunity is supposed to be available to any American, allowing their highest aspirations to be achieved. The truth is, I didn't feel that in the US.

I feel it over here, in Poland. Here, I was able to start off at an entry-level position because there was one available for people with no experience. If I noticed an ad like that back in California, even five minutes after it got posted, it probably would've been scooped up by people with actual experience.

I was allowed to grow and move up the ladder in Poland — and not by beating my way to the top with countless overtime and lunches spent at my desk. I could take a vacation, get sick, and go back to work without feeling like I did something wrong or "wasted" sick days.

In Poland, if you have a doctor's note, you don't have short, limited time off— you can actually ride out a bad flu in bed instead of going to work with a fever, which I'd often done in California. Here, I could take a mandated day off when my son was sick. I felt like a human.

I also felt like I could actually commit and do better at work because I was treated better, which makes me happy. I never knew how much I needed that. To me, it's the ultimate success.

Moving out of the Bay Area felt like someone turned all the heat off before I boiled to death 

When I left the Bay Area, I received the type of inner peace I never thought possible. Even as I was leaving, I felt like I underestimated what living there actually cost me stress-wise.

The constant stress was not only about feeling like I had to rush to be productive constantly — it was about worrying about healthcare, battling the rising housing costs, and feeling that the system was somehow set up against me. It was the type of stress that can be compared to the hot water that slowly boils a frog.

After I got settled in Poland, I realized how much chronic stress was actually weighing down on me. Just one example was after I gave birth at a local hospital in Poland, my husband picked me up and reassured me that I didn't have to pay any bills. I could just walk out without financial paperwork. I felt like I was stealing a baby.

After I went back to work in Poland, I also went to therapy for the first time. This wouldn't have happened in the Bay Area — going to specialists was a luxury and not in my insurance plan.

In Poland, I have to take 14 days off in a row. They do this so people can have an actual restful break instead of just taking solitary days off here and there.

The real cost of living in the Bay Area was the insecurity I constantly felt

I also felt guilt for not fitting in, as everyone else around me was focused on jumping through all the hoops of this hyper-competitive, cutthroat environment.  

I used to hike the Stanford Dish Loop Trail all the time and passed joggers who had audile conversations about tech, IPOs, and their startup funding. They seemed very aware that they were indeed in the promised land. I'd listen to these conversations as I passed and felt so out of place.

I go on hikes in Poland, and the first time I passed a group of Nordic walkers, I felt a sudden, happy culture shock when I realized they were talking about which Geranium strain blooms the most in the fall. It finally felt like real life.

There are negatives about living in Poland — life isn't as convenient

The biggest negative is air pollution in the winter. A lot of people still burn coal in their homes, while their neighbors might have solar panels, which was a huge shock for me. Also, everything seems slower and requires more energy. Shops are closed on Sundays, which makes life harder to plan.

Not everything is great about healthcare in Poland, either. In some public healthcare institutions, the conditions aren't as nice as in the US — no comfortable and sleek waiting rooms, no newest equipment.

Long waiting periods are the biggest problem, with months and sometimes years to wait for some bigger procedures if you have state insurance. But I'd rather wait than not have any options at all or be forced into debt, as is common in the US. 

I get private insurance through my work now, and it's nowhere close to the co-payments of insurance in the US.

I do miss some things about the Bay Area — but Big Tech made some of those things scarce 

I miss the whirlwind of food and culture — I grew up with Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Salvadoran, Vietnamese, Australian, and Irish friends. Most of all, I miss the nostalgia of the old Bay Area. Even people who stayed there feel the same way, they no longer live in that Bay Area, either. 

I liked the quirky neighborhood businesses with a long history. These places went out of business quickly and were particularly vulnerable to rent increases. As these places closed, the values of the whole area seemed to change.

But after years of living away from the Bay Area, I don't miss the stress and feel happier living in Poland than I did in California.

If you relocated to a new country and want to share your story, Please email Manseen Logan at mlogan@businessinsider.com.

• The fight for LGBTQ+ equality in the military has spanned decades.
• "Don't ask, don't tell" forced LGBTQ+ service members to remain closeted. It was repealed in 2010.
• Trump banned transgender individuals from serving in the military in 2017, but Biden overturned it.

LGBTQ+ individuals in the US have fought for equality in all areas of their lives, including the opportunity to serve their country in the military.

Even though the "blue discharges" of World War II and the "don't ask, don't tell" policy of the 1990s are things of the past, LGBTQ+ service members still face hurdles despite the progress of the last few decades.

This Pride Month, here's a look back at how being LGBTQ+ in the US military has changed through the years.

During World War II, homosexuality was considered a mental illness that disqualified soldiers from serving in the US military.

New recruits were asked about their sexual orientation upon enlisting in the military, forcing potential service members to lie or answer vaguely if they identified as LGBTQ+.

Soldiers who were outed during their service were given "blue discharges" that labeled them as having "undesirable habits and traits of character," according to the National Park Service. The discharge records were public, which made it difficult for former service members expelled for their sexuality to find work.

Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, who was discharged from the Air Force for being gay, appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1975 to share his story.

The Stonewall Inn uprising of 1969, in which patrons at an LGBTQ+ bar fought back against a police raid, sparked nationwide awareness of the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

Matlovich, who served in Vietnam and was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, appeared on the Time magazine cover in uniform with the headline "'I Am a Homosexual:' The Gay Drive for Acceptance." He became a lifelong advocate for LGBTQ+ rights until his death at age 44.

Matlovich was buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC. His tombstone reads: "When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."

Gilbert Baker, a former Army medic, created the first rainbow flag in 1978.

After experiencing homophobic threats and harassment in basic training, Gilbert Baker switched to medic training and served for two years in California hospitals, according to the National Park Service. He kept his sexuality hidden for the rest of his military career and was honorably discharged in 1972.

After his military service, he volunteered at the San Francisco Gay Community Center and used his artistic skills to create banners for gay liberation marches.

In 1978, he sewed the first rainbow flags for the Gay Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco. Rainbow flags went on to become a symbol of LGBTQ+ pride and protest.

"We all felt that we needed something that was positive, that celebrated our love," Baker said of the rainbow design.

Between 1980 and 1990, around 17,000 service members were discharged from the military due to their sexual orientation.

In 1992, the US General Accounting Office found that it cost $28,266 to replace each member and $120,722 to replace each officer who had been discharged due to their sexual orientation, according to a report cited by the Congressional Research Service.

Also that year, Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer (pictured) was discharged after 23 years of service after revealing she was a lesbian. A judge later ruled her discharge unconstitutional and she returned to the National Guard until she retired in 1997.

In the 1990s, organizations like the Gay Veterans Association advocated for equality in the US military.

Members of the Gay Veterans Association demonstrated outside the White House during a gay rights march in 1993.

President Bill Clinton enacted the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy in 1993.

Clinton pledged to allow gay and lesbian service members to serve openly in the military during his presidential campaign, but he was unable to deliver on his promise due to opposition from Congress and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Instead, he brokered a compromise in which service members would not be asked about their sexual orientation, but could be discharged if they disclosed it.

In his remarks announcing the change, Clinton said that the policy was "not a perfect solution," but called it a "major step forward."

"It is an honorable compromise that advances the cause of people who are called to serve our country by their patriotism, the cause of our national security, and our national interest in resolving an issue that has divided our military and our nation and diverted our attention from other matters for too long," he said.

"Don't ask, don't tell" remained controversial.

"Don't ask, don't tell" allowed LGBTQ+ individuals to serve in the military on the condition that they remained closeted. LGBTQ+ rights advocates pushed to end the policy, saying it still treated LGBTQ+ soldiers as second-class citizens and resulted in suspicion and harassment, Time magazine reported.

In 2009, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network found that 13,000 lesbian, gay, and bisexual soldiers had been discharged since "don't ask, don't tell" was enacted, costing $200 million to replace them, CNN reported.

In 2010, President Barack Obama signed legislation repealing "don't ask, don't tell."

Obama pledged to repeal "don't ask, don't tell" during his 2008 presidential campaign and signed the legislation doing so on December 22, 2010.

"No longer will tens of thousands of Americans in uniform be asked to live a lie," he said. "I believe this is the right thing to do for our military. It's the right thing to do, period."

The Department of Defense hosted its first Pride Month event in 2012.

The event featured video messages from Obama and then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, a keynote speech by then-Department of Defense General Counsel Jeh Johnson, and a panel titled, "The Value of Open Service and Diversity," according to the Obama White House's official website.

In 2013, same-sex military spouses became eligible for benefits provided by the Department of Defense.

Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act stated that federal marriage benefits only applied to heterosexual couples, even if individual states recognized their marriages. For LGBTQ+ service members such as Lieutenant Colonel Shannon McLaughlin (pictured above, second from right), that meant that her wife, Casey McLaughlin (left), could not receive military spouse benefits.

In June 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional, allowing same-sex spouses to receive military benefits such as housing, healthcare, and burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Marriage equality became the law of the land in the US in 2015.

On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states, citing the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection under the law."

"As the state itself makes marriage all the more precious by the significance it attaches to it, exclusion from that status has the effect of teaching that gays and lesbians are unequal in important respects," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

In 2016, the Pentagon announced it would no longer ban transgender individuals from serving openly in the military.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter outlined a policy in which transgender service members would be able to receive medical care related to their transition and change their gender identification without being discharged or denied reenlistment.

"Americans who want to serve and can meet our standards should be afforded the opportunity to compete to do so," Carter said.

In 2017, President Donald Trump surprised officials when he announced a ban on transgender people serving in the military, which then went into effect in 2019.

"After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the US Military," Trump wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, citing "tremendous medical costs and disruption" as the reason for the reversal.

BBC News reported that the Pentagon was surprised by Trump's announcement, with then-Defense Secretary James Mattis only finding out about it after Trump published his statement on X.

When the policy went into effect in 2019, it allowed transgender troops who had already been diagnosed with gender dysphoria to continue serving in the military, but did not allow transgender individuals to enlist.

President Joe Biden overturned Trump's ban and appointed transgender military officer Rachel Levine as assistant health secretary in 2021.

Days after his inauguration, Biden signed an executive order overturning Trump's ban on transgender troops, stating that "all Americans who are qualified to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States should be able to serve."

In addition, Biden appointed Rachel Levine, a trans woman, as assistant secretary of health, making her the highest-ranking openly trans person in the federal government and the first openly trans person to be confirmed by the Senate.

In October 2021, Levine was sworn in as a four-star admiral in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps — the first woman and openly trans person to hold the rank in US history.

That same year, a Navy ship was named after the LGBTQ+ rights activist and politician Harvey Milk.

Milk, who was discharged from the Navy due to his sexuality, was one of the first openly gay politicians in the US. He was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977 and assassinated in 1978.

"For far too long, sailors like Lt. Milk were forced into the shadows or, worse yet, forced out of our beloved Navy," Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said at the launch of the USNS Harvey Milk. "That injustice is part of our Navy history, but so is the perseverance of all who continue to serve in the face of injustice."

LGBTQ+ members of the US military still face discrimination despite enormous progress.

Despite progress through new policies, LGBTQ+ service members still encounter stigmas and discrimination due to their sexuality.

A 2020 study published in The Journal of Traumatic Stress found that over 80% of LGBTQ+ active-military service members said they have been sexually harassed during their service. LGBTQ+ veterans are also more likely to experience economic insecurity, housing instability, and mental health concerns than non-LGBTQ+ veterans, according to a 2022 analysis conducted by the Center for American Progress.

Organizations like the Modern Military Association of America continue to advocate for LGBTQ+ service members, providing resources and support as well as opportunities to march with a rainbow flag during Pride Month.