• My daughter doesn't fold her laundry or do dishes right after eating, and I judged her for it.
• I do these things for her and her family when I visit, and I worry that it annoys them. 
• I realized that she doesn't fuss over cleaning because it gives her more time with her kids.

I think my kids should do their dishes immediately after eating, fold their laundry, and make their beds — because that's what I do. But I've never seen my daughter and son-in-law's bed made. I don't make it for them, but I do often empty their overflowing bathroom wastebasket when I visit them.

When my daughter Ali brought my future son-in-law Chrix home to meet me for the first time, he learned just how helpful I am. His suitcase was on the floor full of unfolded clothes. I assumed they were dirty, scooped them up, washed them, folded them, and put them in a drawer.

I love visiting my daughter's family

They married five years ago and have two daughters, now 3-years-old and 18 months. Most evenings, they video call me during dinner, and I feel like I'm at the table with them. The kids are great at including me in their lives. A few weeks ago, when I was staying with them, my daughter said, "Mommy, stop folding the clothes."

I ignored her and continued folding like I always did. Then, more firmly but without anger, she said, "I'm not letting you fold the clothes," and took them from the dining room table into the bedroom. She is as patient with me as she is with her daughters.

She told other family members who were visiting how freeing it is not to fold clothes. "I sort them in piles, then they go into the appropriate drawers," she said.

My daughter does things differently from how she was raised

It's hard to believe that my daughter, who grew up in a house with her shirts perfectly aligned in color-coded piles, doesn't fold the laundry.

Ali comes from a long line of benevolent meddlers. My grandmother stuck a middle initial on my birth certificate while my mother was still dopey after my birth. My husband and I were a little annoyed when my mother threw away the pillows in our first apartment and bought us what she thought were better ones. At first, we complained, until we realized that they were better.

When I visit my kids, I vacuum the sesame seeds out of the freezer that are there because they leave bagels in an open paper bag and don't bother to use a Ziplock. And it's not because they're saving the earth. Every light in the apartment is on at all times. When I was a little girl, if I left the bathroom light on, my mother would say, "Do you own stock in Florida Power and Light?"

I don't think they notice when I clean their freezer, but often Ali tells me that she worries that I'm working too much.

My son told me that Chrix asked him why I have to rearrange things all the time. I wondered if he was referring to the time I put all their spices in order or arranged all the bowls in the cabinet. He might find me annoying, but I'm hoping he thinks having me around the kids outweighs his annoyance.

When Ali caught me picking up toys, she said, "Mommy, don't worry about the toys, they'll just be on the floor again after school."

"Am I driving you crazy?" I asked.

"No, we appreciate the help, but we'd rather you hang out with the girls than clean up," she said.

It felt like she was rejecting the way she was raised, rejecting me. I asked her if she ever felt unloved as a child when I did household chores. She said, "Never."

Then she laughed at the video I took of Noa vacuuming. "Look how thorough she is. She even vacuumed the dining chairs," I said.

"She's her Nanu's granddaughter," Ali replied.

Later, Ali called me the "baby whisperer" because I was the only one who could calm my younger granddaughter, and I felt loved, not rejected.

On the last day of my visit, Ali and Chrix thanked me for getting up at 6 a.m. with the girls each day so they could sleep in, which may be why they didn't hide the dust buster from me.

They are moving to Seattle at the end of the month for work, as far away from me in Miami as possible in the mainland United States. I know it's not to get away from me because each house they looked at had a room for me, and they asked me which one I preferred. I tried not to weigh in, but my son says I make faces and noises when I don't like something. They bought my favorite of the houses and asked me to come for the entire summer.

Now, I realize that they're trying to manage their time efficiently and be good parents. Ali lets my granddaughters play in the tub for 45 minutes instead of rushing them into their pajamas. Then she reads them a bonus book after she already read the three books that Noa insists on because she's 3.

I can see that Ali is tired and just wants some time to herself, but she places importance on what matters: the girls, not the dirty dishes. I clean up and do the dishes because I don't want her to have to do one more thing at the end of the day. It's meddling, but it's also helping and I won't stop, and as I fold the fourth load of laundry that day, I realize that my daughter is doing a great job, even though it's different than the way I did things.

• My CFO and I became good friends while working, but there was nothing romantic between us.
• When I quit the job, he showed up at my house to deliver me my last pay stub, and we kissed.
• On our first date, we realized we are meant for each other and have been together for 25 years.

I have read and heard about "love at first sight" many times, but my true love story is somewhere on the other end of the spectrum.

When I worked as an insurance agent for a brokerage, David was the CFO. We saw one another most days and occasionally were the only ones working in the building when the official workday had ended, but reams of paperwork still covered our desks.

After a phone call from a client got on my last nerve, it wasn't unusual for me to grab a cold soft drink and hide in his office for half an hour.

There was no romantic spark between us. We were just two coworkers who relied on each other's company to get through the workday.

But all that changed when I decided to change jobs.

A knock at the door changed everything

I liked my job, but I knew a good deal when I saw it. Another company offered me a position with a higher base salary and commission.

After giving my notice, I took the summer off, excited to dive deeper into the insurance industry.

On the following Friday, around noon, my doorbell rang. David looked a little sheepish when I answered the door. He said, "I thought I would drop off your pay stub."

On payday, David would always deliver everyone's pay stub to their desk. David felt he still needed to deliver my pay stub one last time.

I invited him in for lunch which turned out to be a couple of subs, quickly thrown together.

After an hour of jovial conversation, David reluctantly said he needed to return to the office.

What happened may be reminiscent of a daytime soap or drama, but it's all true. As he reached the door, David turned around, and his car keys slipped out of his hand. We both bent over to pick them up, our eyes meeting and locking together as we stood upright again.

A few uncomfortable seconds passed before David leaned in for a kiss that lasted several minutes. When the hottest kiss I ever had was over, he fumbled over the words, "I should…"

At the same time, I said, "You'll call?" David told me he would call, and as he headed back to his car, I leaned against the door.

"Whoa," I thought. "Where the heck did that come from?"

We went on a date, and we've been together ever since

I expected David to call maybe the next week, giving me time to absorb what had happened and what it meant. It turned out that I didn't have that much time.

David's number came up on my phone later that evening, and I answered tentatively. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't mad at me for, you know, what happened today," he said.

I surely wasn't mad — maybe a little confused, but definitely not mad.

We talked for over two hours and made dinner plans the next week. I had no qualms about David picking me up.

Having spent five days deciding what to wear as I stood in front of my closet, the clothes yet again staring back at me, I opted to buy a new dress. At the mall, I found a dress and a matching purse — all in under an hour. But it turned out the shoes caused the most indecisiveness. I wanted to wear flats to avoid getting my heel stuck in the cobblestone sidewalk, but David was nearly seven feet tall. I picked out a pair of stilettos and would take my chances.

In hindsight, I shouldn't have worried about my outfit because that evening brought us a revelation: We were meant to be together. We had both been in a prior long-term relationship that didn't work out; we each had a child, and we genuinely liked one another.

Just over a month later, we were engaged.

It took us four years of being coworkers before we discovered we were the perfect match. But I'm happy we waited because everything worked out. We've now spent half a century together happily.

• AI hype has been everywhere since OpenAI introduced ChatGPT to the world.
• Gary Marcus doesn't think we should buy the hype.
• The academic has emerged as a vocal critic of OpenAI — and thinks it could end up like WeWork. 

Gary Marcus doesn't consider himself an AI skeptic. Don't let that throw you, though, when he argues that OpenAI could turn out to be as much of a dumpster fire as WeWork.

"I actually want AI to succeed, so to call me an AI skeptic as many people do is to miss that I'm not skeptical," Marcus told Business Insider. "I'm skeptical of how we're doing it right now."

For the 54-year-old cognitive scientist and AI researcher based in Vancouver, set to publish a book titled "Taming Silicon Valley" this fall, the AI of "right now" has made it hard for him not to be restless.

Since the launch of ChatGPT, Marcus has watched as AI fever has swept across the world. That fervor has set OpenAI on a dangerous path that he thinks strays from its original nonprofit mission to build AI that benefits humanity.

The euphoria and hype surrounding it have also left it dangerously unchecked in a way that parallels Adam Neumann's scandal-ridden startup, which has since fallen from grace.

"OpenAI might be the WeWork of AI," Marcus said. "I ran a poll [on X]. More people thought that was plausible than not."

At the same time, Marcus has seen large language models (LLMs) — the technology underpinning generative AI tools like ChatGPT — attract billions of dollars amid shaky promises from industry leaders like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that they might one day guide humanity to the field's holy grail of artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Buying all the hype, he estimates, is a huge mistake: "The AI we're using right now has many fundamental problems."

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

OpenAI's top skeptic

Marcus hasn't always felt this distressed about the industry.

Just over a year ago, in May 2023, he sat side-by-side with Altman to address questions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill about the dangers posed by AI. By his own measure, both he and the OpenAI chief agreed that AI was a deeply complex technology that would cause serious societal problems if left unchecked. Its problems, ranging from bias and hallucinations to its potential to warp election outcomes with false information, demanded attention.

"I do think he was sincere in his concerns," Marcus said, noting that Altman shared the same birthday as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist behind the atomic bomb. "He does not want to cause the destruction of the world."

A year on, however, the mood has clearly shifted.

While Marcus left Washington last year feeling "mostly impressed" with the ChatGPT boss, a series of developments in and around OpenAI since then have put him on high alert.

The most dramatic moment after the Capitol Hill hearing came in November when Altman was fired as OpenAI's CEO. The company's board had concluded that "he was not consistently candid in his communications."

One major allegation against Altman was that he tried to persuade board members to push out Helen Toner, a fellow director, after she published a research paper criticizing OpenAI's efforts to make AI safe. According to Toner, he also "started lying to other board members" to turn them against her.

As Marcus recalled, "the world was treating him as a saint" until then. Leaders including France's Emmanuel Macron, India's Narendra Modi, and South Korea's Yoon Suk Yeol offered Altman a statesman-like welcome during a global tour last year.

Though the firing saga stunned Silicon Valley, triggering a mission among key OpenAI backers like Microsoft to reinstall the ousted CEO, Marcus saw signs of inconsistency hiding in plain sight.

One example: when Sen. John Kennedy asked Altman if he "makes a lot of money" during last year's hearing, the OpenAI CEO quickly responded that he has "no equity in OpenAI." That was not the clearest answer he could have given.

Altman maintained ownership of the OpenAI Startup Fund until March 29, ownership that Toner said the board wasn't originally informed of. Altman also serves as chairman of nuclear fusion startup Helion Energy, and has carved an "opaque investment empire" worth at least $2.8 billion as of earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported this month.

With this in mind, Marcus has been hardly surprised as OpenAI has had drama around inconsistency unfold again.

GPT-4o, OpenAI's new model unveiled in May, was criticized by Scarlett Johansson for carrying — without permission — a voice called Sky that resembled the AI assistant she voiced in the movie "Her." Though Altman later claimed that Sky "was never intended to resemble" Johansson's voice, he couldn't help but tweet "her" after the GPT-4o launch event.

"He's still saying, well, the resemblance is coincidental," Marcus said. "People are like, 'What am I, stupid?' The reaction right now, I think rightly so, is that he takes us to be fools."

OpenAI's safety commitments have been questioned after top safety researchers, including Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike, left last month. Its treatment of employees is also under scrutiny after details emerged about strict clauses that threatened to claw back workers' vested equity if they didn't sign non-disparagement agreements.

The generative AI problem

More broadly, Marcus is concerned that a focus on LLM-led generative AI is leading the industry down the wrong path.

While he acknowledges that the technology powering ChatGPT has its uses, he doesn't think it'll get humanity toward a form of AI that can rival human intelligence. He points to the "diminishing returns" each successive new AI model has displayed, with performance improvements seemingly becoming smaller each time a new model is introduced.

"Billions of dollars have been spent on them, and that has starved everything else out," Marcus said. "LLMs are not useless. They can do some things. But they're not actually AGI. They're not trustworthy, they're not reliable."

Not everyone agrees with him. In recent months, Marcus has drawn sharp criticism from "AI godfathers" including Yann LeCun and Geoffrey Hinton over his views on today's most-hyped technology.

Marcus feels he has been pointing out that LLMs are not the path forward to AGI for some time, an idea he thinks the likes of LeCun — Meta's chief AI scientist — have not acknowledged until recently.

LeCun has previously suggested "LLMs are an offramp on the path to AGI," but he has also shared the view that "by amplifying human intelligence, AI may cause a new Renaissance, perhaps a new phase of the Enlightenment." In an interview with the Financial Times last month, he acknowledged pretty bluntly that LLMs have a "very limited understanding of logic," making them unlikely candidates for AGI.

Marcus takes that as a small sign of hope that people are slowly waking up to the limitations of today's AI: "What gives me a little bit of optimism is that people are finally facing reality."

His hope now is that Altman can do the same and face the reality of the mess that has passed. His message to the OpenAI chief is that it's not too late to change course: "Return to the mission. Really make OpenAI a force for good."

• Kate Middleton attended the 2024 Trooping the Colour parade in London on Saturday.
• It's the first time she's been officially seen in public since revealing her cancer diagnosis.
• The event honors King Charles III's birthday and includes a military parade.

Kate Middleton returned to the public eye on Saturday when she attended the 2024 Trooping the Colour parade in London.

The event, which takes place at the Horse Guards Parade near Buckingham Palace and marks King Charles III's official birthday, was the Princess of Wales' first official appearance this year.

Her last appearance was on December 25, 2023, when she attended the traditional Christmas Day walk to a Church service in Sandringham, Norfolk.

Buckingham Palace previously confirmed to the BBC that King Charles would also attend his official birthday celebration amid his treatment for cancer, though he will ride in a carriage instead of on horseback.

Kate was first photographed being driven to Buckingham Palace with the rest of her family. 

The princess was driven to Buckingham Palace 30 minutes before the parade began, alongside her husband, Prince William, and children, Prince George, 10, Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince Louis, 5.

The princess looked in good spirits ahead of the parade.

Kate's appearance at the annual royal event comes nearly four months after she announced that she has cancer and had been undergoing preventative chemotherapy.

She shared the news in a video released to the public on March 22. Calls from the public for Kensington Palace to address the princess's health came to a head following the discovery that a photo of the Wales family, released on Mother's Day in the UK, had been digitally altered.

In a press release shared with Business Insider after her cancer diagnosis was made public, Kensington Palace said that she would be returning to work "when she is cleared to do so by her medical team."

The princess opted for a monochrome look for the event.

The mother-of-three wore a white dress adorned with a large black-and-white bow and a brooch for the event. She paired the monochrome outfit with a white wide-brim hat and pearl cluster earrings

Kate announced that she would be attending the event the day before

She announced on Instagram and X that she was making "good progress" with her chemotherapy treatment and was looking forward to attending The King's Birthday Parade.

The post, accompanied by a new photograph of Kate taken at her home in Windsor earlier this week, read: "I have been blown away by all the kind messages of support and encouragement over the last couple of months. It really has made the world of difference to William and me and has helped us both through some of the harder times."

She added that she has been experiencing "good days and bad days."

She wrote that,"On those bad days you feel weak, tired and you have to give in to your body resting. But on the good days, when you feel stronger, you want to make the most of feeling well."

Kate added that her treatment is ongoing but that she is starting to do "a little work from home" and that she hopes to attend more public engagements over the summer.

"I am learning how to be patient, especially with uncertainty," she added. "Taking each day as it comes, listening to my body, and allowing myself to take this much needed time to heal."

• Delayed purchases can lead to a "deflationary spiral" for the automotive industry.
• Increased inventory is already putting pressure on vehicle pricing.
• Durable goods, like cars, are already in a recession.

It's finally getting easier to buy a new car, but shoppers are still hesitant.

High interest rates remain a big deterrent for many car shoppers, and price volatility has some car shoppers delaying their purchases in hopes they can get an even better deal in a month or two.

That's creating a big problem for the automotive industry, according to one economist.

The average price paid for a car ($48,389 in May, according to Cox Automotive) is down from its peak at the end of 2022, thanks to a return to normalcy in automotive production.

But with interest rates still averaging between 6.7% and 11.9%, according to Experian, many shoppers are still choosing to put off their purchase.

As car shoppers try to wait out interest rates and price changes, Jonathan Smoke, an economist for Cox Automotive, says the industry is on the verge of what economists call a "deflationary spiral."

This phenomenon occurs when consumers push out their purchases, reducing demand and causing supply to pile up, putting pressure on prices. As prices continue to fall, it creates a vicious cycle that only encourages shoppers to continue putting off their purchases in hopes of a better price down the road.

"Both new and used vehicle prices have been declining for two years," Smoke wrote in a recent blog. "Initially, this was a correction and return to normalcy, but the market is at an inflection point because consumers now expect that prices will keep falling."

Durable goods are already in a recession

Cars are "durable goods," or products that do not quickly wear out and are useful over a long period of time. Other durable goods include home appliances, furniture, sports equipment, and even toys.

According to Smoke, durable goods are already in a recession due to deflation.

"We are no longer in 2023, when pent-up demand, excess pandemic savings and revenge spending kept the economy growing despite the Fed's aggressive tightening," he wrote. "We have been on cruise control in restrictive territory for nine months."

While much has been made of a slowdown in electric vehicle demand as consumers become more frugal and practical, a similar trend is also spreading industry-wide.

While vehicle sales are still on the rise, the momentum of growth is decelerating. Higher levels of inventory are putting pressure on vehicle prices, which fell 1% in May, according to Cox. About 41.2% of vehicles sold last month transacted for less than $40,000—up from about 37% a year ago. That's a sign that market demand is shifting to more affordable models.

All of it adds up to an uncertain summer ahead for the automotive industry, which Smoke writes could be challenging "if consumers en masse believe they are better off waiting to purchase."

• Affordable housing is becoming increasingly difficult to find in the US.
• The median home price in the US increased nearly 50% from 2019 to 2024.
• In cities like Akron, Ohio, and Lansing, Michigan, there are still plenty of homes under $200,000.

Finding an affordable home seems all but impossible in this current market, but if you know where to look, you can still find some more reasonably priced homes.

Prices have increased across the board in most markets, pricing a lot of residents out and forcing them to look elsewhere to settle down.

While, individual investors are still buying up properties left and right.

"I don't think there's any place where we are seeing significant price reductions," Realtor.com data journalist Evan Wyloge told Business Insider. "A lot of this list has to do with the baked-in affordability for some of these places."

The Midwest is a recurrent region on this list as it's traditionally been an affordable part of the country. Not a single West Coast city cracked the top ten — simply because there are no affordable pockets out West, Wyloge said.

For a lot of people looking to move into their first home, that $200,000 range has historically been the sweet spot. However, homes haven't hovered around that price point in a while.

According to data from the National Association of Realtors, the median existing home price was $274,500 in December 2019. As of April 2024, that number is $407,600.

"Areas that were once popular for downsizing are now out of reach for many," Realtor.com senior economic analyst Hannah Jones told Realtor. "Florida markets like Lauderdale Lakes are seeing a surge in affordable condos, providing viable options for those looking to downsize without breaking the bank."

Lauderdale Lakes and Lauderhill, both suburbs of Fort Lauderdale, made the list, and their housing supply is almost entirely condos, Wyloge said.

It's not just first-time homeowners seeking out cheap regions, either. Smaller and individual investors are also zeroing in on more affordable areas, many of which saw a population boom between 2010 and 2020, leading to increased rental demand.

Realtor.com scoured the US to find the most affordable cities and ranked them by how many listings they had under $200,000 — excluding land, mobile homes, and cities with less than 100 listings.

10. Cleveland

Median list price: $135,475

Number of listings under $200,000: 512

Percentage of listings under $200,000: 61%

9. Rockford, Ilinois

Median list price: $164,950

Number of listings under $200,000: 153

Percentage of listings under $200,000: 66%

8. Lansing, Michigan

Median list price: $143,950

Number of listings under $200,000: 133

Percentage of listings under $200,000: 68%

7. Albany, Georgia

Median list price: $104,000

Number of listings under $200,000: 245

Percentage of listings under $200,000: 64%

6. Niagara Falls, New York

Median list price: $114,500

Number of listings under $200,000: 98

Percentage of listings under $200,000: 80%

5. Rochester, New York

Median list price: $161,194

Number of listings under $200,000: 213

Percentage of listings under $200,000: 68%

4. Detroit

Median list price: $90,000

Number of listings under $200,000: 1586

Percentage of listings under $200,000: 64%

Detroit has become a popular place for first-time investors looking to break into the market thanks to the city's lower home prices.

3. Akron, Ohio

Median list price: $138,600

Number of listings under $200,000: 214

Percentage of listings under $200,000: 70%

Akron, Ohio, was named one of the 20 most attractive US cities for both homebuyers and investors looking for affordability, based on 2023 summer data.

2. Lauderhill, Florida

Median list price: $175,000

Number of listings under $200,000: 404

Percentage of listings under $200,000: 70%

1. Lauderdale Lakes, Florida

Median list price: $149,350

Number of listings under $200,000: 239

Percentage of listings under $200,000: 85%

Prices in many parts of Florida remain cheap even amid an ongoing wave of internal US migration to the Sunshine State. Billionaire investor Kyle Bass said earlier this year that Florida is one of three states where he's buying up property to match migration trends.

• A top UK doctor has warned people against using weight loss drugs to get "beach body ready."
• Stephen Powis said drugs like Ozempic should not be seen as "a quick fix."
• Such drugs, marketed for diabetes, have soared in popularity over the last year.

One of the UK's top doctors has warned people against taking weight loss drugs such as Ozempic to get "beach body ready" for summer, saying they should not be seen as a "quick fix."

The National Health Service (NHS) England medical director Stephen Powis said such drugs needed to be taken with proper medical supervision and warned that they could have potentially dangerous side effects, The Times of London reported.

Speaking at the NHS Confederation conference, Powis said: "We know these new drugs will be a powerful part of our arsenal dealing with obesity, but they should not be abused. Buying medication online without a doctor's supervision can lead to complications and dangerous consequences."

"Drugs including Ozempic and Wegovy should only be used by people prescribed them for obesity or diabetes. I'm worried about reports that people are misusing them — they are not intended as a quick fix for people trying to get 'beach body ready.'"

Vicky Price, an acute physician and president-elect of the Society for Acute Medicine, said some of the more dangerous potential side effects of weight loss drugs bought online included "serious, life-threatening complications" such as "inflammation of the pancreas gland and alterations in blood salt levels."

Nevertheless, weight loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy have soared in popularity over the last year.

The boom in Ozempic sales has even helped its maker, Danish company Novo Nordisk, become Europe's biggest company by market cap.

It has also markedly impacted the Danish GDP, which grew by almost 2% in 2023.

Statistics Denmark has said the pharmaceutical industry largely drove the growth.

"The pharmaceutical industry has been the main driving force in the Danish economy in both the fourth quarter and for the whole of 2023," the agency said. "Other industry and business services also contributed to the progress in the fourth quarter."

The active ingredient in Ozempic, semaglutide, functions by mimicking GLP-1, a hormone that the gut produces to help balance blood sugar and that makes you feel full.

But the once-a-week injection comes at a cost, with buyers having to shell out around $1,000 a month for the drug.

There are currently three semaglutide products approved by the US Food and Drug Administration — Ozempic injection, Wegovy injection, and Rybelsus tablets.

All three are only available with a prescription.

• Greece's prime minister reportedly aims to limit cruise ships at Mykonos and Santorini.
• The islands have become overrun by cruise passengers over the last few years.
• And the rich tourists staying on the island aren't happy about it.

Tourists headed to the expensive hotels of Mykonos and Santorini: rejoice!

Greece's prime minister is reportedly moving to limit the number of unattractive cruise ships clogging the harbors of the country's most popular islands — ruining views of sunsets and leading to overcrowding on the picturesque narrow streets.

"There are people spending a lot of money to be on Santorini and they don't want the island to be swamped," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Bloomberg.

Since the pandemic, the European nation has seen an influx of tourists. About 36 million people visited Greece last year, up 20.8% from 2022, according to data from the Bank of Greece.

The increased demand, in addition to macroeconomic factors, has made the country more expensive to visit, with the average overnight stay costing 8.6% more in 2023 than in 2022, also according to the Bank of Greece.

Some who want to experience the islands without the high costs have turned to cruises, whose passengers have grown disproportionately — a 61.1% increase, year over year — the Bank of Greece reported. On Mykonos and Santorini, two of the most popular islands, the number of passengers arriving by cruise increased by 74% and 57%, respectively, according to a report by the Greek Tourism Confederation.

That's led to headaches for the local population, as well as those paying a lot of money to stay on the islands, which have become expensive travel destinations for the well-heeled looking to visit luxury hotels and shop at designer stores. Mykonos has a Soho House (it costs over $1,000 per night in peak season) and several Louis Vuitton boutiques, plus a pop-up. Santorini has a Nobu.

But the influx of cruise passengers who descend on the islands has made their iconic white alleyways almost impossible to navigate, and the enormous vessels they arrive on have marred the famous views.

Last summer, visitors and locals took to social media to complain.

"Another inconsiderate cruise ship blocking the sunset," one X user in Mykonos said.

"Streets are full even in the middle of the day with sun beating down," Georgios Hatzimanolis, who often documents the ships going in and out of the port during his summers in Mykonos, wrote last year. "Not sure this is enjoyable for them or for the rest of visitors, certainly not sustainable."

"It was much dirtier, more crowded and overdeveloped in ugly ways than when I visited it twice ten years ago," a Reddit user said of Santorini. "Used to be stunning back in 2012. The local government has let tourism ruin the island.

"In Santorini, even tourists complain about the great number of tourists," Greece's ombudsman said in a report released on Thursday.

Reducing the number of ships allowed will be a welcome change for those who want to enjoy their expensive lemonade without a throng of (likely less rich) tourists ruining their meal.

The boats that will still be received with open arms? Yachts, which tourists seemingly have no problem with. In fact, Koru, the superyacht owned by Jeff Bezos, has already made its way to Greece for the summer.

• Adults are increasingly attached to their devices and are almost constantly online, study shows.
• Many are turning to the tourism industry to force themselves to disconnect and relax on vacation.
• Writer Sarah Wood breaks down the logistics and drivers of phone-free travel. 

Six years ago, I spent ten days without my phone at a meditation retreat in Thailand. The experience was so refreshing that I felt like I had a new brain. I vowed to use my phone less, but unfortunately, the habit didn't stick. My phone usage has skyrocketed in the years since, sometimes clocking ten hours of screen time.

Planning a wedding and buying an apartment in the same month brought my digital dependence to new heights. On a recent trip to a Scottish cabin advertised as somewhere to "stay where the world can't find you," I tried to go tech-free and reset. With an itinerary of fly fishing and hiking, I thought it would be easy to unplug.

I was wrong.

The days were fine, but right before bed, I couldn't stop myself from scrolling through my email and notifications. I felt disheartened by my failed attempt to unplug.

62% of adults aged 18 to 29 say they're constantly online

Being unable to put your phone down, even on vacation, is becoming increasingly common. In 2024, a study by the Pew Research Center surveyed nearly 6,000 US adults on their tech usage. 62% of participants between 18 and 29 said they are almost constantly online.

In response to this constant online-ness, people also want to disconnect completely, especially while on vacation. Global search interest for "digital detox retreat" has increased by 50% in the past year. No longer beholden to emails and Slacks, vacations are the perfect time to shut down devices, and people are turning to the tourism industry to help them.

People are turning to the tourism industry to help them unplug

Property managers and tour operators are offering unplugged trips and tech-free destinations to meet this demand.

Unplugged is a cabin company in the UK offering "digital detox" long weekends in nature. Guests can use their phones to navigate to their Unplugged cabins, but once they arrive, they're expected to lock their phones in a box for their trip. The cabins have a paper map, a Polaroid camera for travelers, and a retro Nokia phone for emergencies.

"The key we found is to give people all the things that they might need their phone for," said Hector Hughes, CEO of Unplugged. The company launched in 2020 and has 23 cabins and a 94% occupancy rate since July last year, marking a 209% increase in bookings over the previous 12 months, according to Hughes.

Group travel operator For The Love of Travel (FTLO) ran its first phone-free trip this February and a second in April, and five more are listed on its site through 2025. For FTLO, the trips become "phone-free" once you arrive at the first hotel and meet your tour operator, who manages the logistics for the rest of the journey.

FTLO CEO Tara Cappel said guests are asked to leave their phones in their hotel safe or at the bottom of their bags when the group is together. "We're also obviously not controlling whether people are going back to the rooms and getting on their phones. It's an honor policy."

According to Cappel, their first two trips were filled, and all guests expressed interest in another "phone-free" trip.

She acknowledged that tech-free travel hasn't become completely mainstream, "People are still a little intimidated by the idea."

Hughes told BI, "Many people haven't switched their phones off for years," Hughes added. "People experience phantom buzzes and find themselves searching for their phone instinctively before remembering it's locked in a box."

The reasons for going phone-free when traveling vary

One popular motivation is for couples to spend quality time with their partners. Hughes told BI that 80% of their guests are couples.

Elena Mnayarji, an MBA student at Berkeley, went on a phone-free honeymoon with her husband in Mallorca last summer. She said she didn't plan it but wanted to disconnect after a busy wedding. "By the time we got to Mallorca, I was exhausted and really needed to shut my brain off."

When she arrived in Mallorca, she turned her phone off and put it in a drawer at their hotel for their entire trip. Not checking her phone was difficult, but Elena was happy that she committed to it.

"For the first couple hours, it was a little tough," she said. "But I felt a lot less anxious." She also said her husband felt more connected to her.

Phone-free travel can also help with burnout

Last summer, nonprofit strategist Izzy Doonan did a tech-free week-long trip in the Cascades with her partner and another couple. They wouldn't have cell service, so they embraced the opportunity to get offline. "As the trip got closer, we all realized how burnt out we were. It was fitting to take a trip without our phones and really unplug," Doonan said.

As soon as they drove into the park and lost service, the group put their phones in the glove compartment of their car and didn't use them until they left the park.

"A lot of the nerves were from our parents because they wouldn't be able to contact us," said Doonan, who wasn't personally concerned. "I felt quite safe in the confines of a national park," she said, adding they had a car and other campers were around. "I would 1,000% do it again."

Logistics of traveling phone-free

Traveling phone-free does pose some logistical issues. "One concern that was brought up was that people's families back home were worried," said Cappel.

FTLO provides the trip leaders' phone numbers and full itineraries with contact information to travelers to share with whoever might need it. Mnayarji echoed, "I would recommend people tell their family if they're going to go phone-free. My mom was freaking out, so I had to text her from my husband's phone."

For both FTLO and Unplugged, you can use your phone to help you navigate to the destination and then are asked to put your phone away. Traveling domestically, bringing an emergency prepaid phone, or traveling with a tour operator in charge of the logistics are ways to make your tech-free trip as safe as possible.

Cappel said, "Committing to a multi-day phone-free trip is a lot, but if people can start with an afternoon and leave their phone in their hotel for the day, it's a great way to start and realize it's really doable."

• Restaurant chains from Subway to Arby's to Buffalo Wild Wings have a common owner.
• Roark Capital Group has been buying up restaurant chains for nearly 25 years.
• It's one example of how consumer brands have become consolidated under a handful of owners.

There's a good chance that just one private equity firm owns one of your favorite restaurant chains.

Over the last quarter-century, Roark Capital Group has bought up nearly 20 restaurant brands in the US. Its latest acquisition happened last year when it acquired Subway, which operates the most stores out of any restaurant chain in the US.

But Roark's holdings include other restaurants that you've probably visited before:

Other notable Roark restaurant holdings include coffee chain Dunkin', Arby's, Jimmy John's, Buffalo Wild Wings, and suburban mall favorites Cinnabon and Auntie Anne's.

The private equity firm also has investments in The Cheesecake Factory, which is publicly traded, as well as midwestern burger chain Culver's. It also owns the bakery chain Nothing Bundt Cakes and some franchises of Seattle's Best, that coffee chain you used to find at Border's Books.

Founded in 2001, Atlanta-based Roark has $38 billion in assets under management, according to its website.

The firm "was named after Howard Roark, the protagonist in Ayn Rand's book The Fountainhead," the firm's website reads. Rand's books have a following among libertarians and other advocates of deregulation and individual enterprise.

But the website adds: "As a firm of diverse viewpoints, it does not signify adherence to any particular political philosophy."

While Roark owns a lot of restaurant brands, it's hardly the only private equity player in the industry.

Hooters was acquired by TriArtisan Capital Advisors and Nord Bay Capital in 2019, for instance. TriArtisan also owns TGI Fridays and P.F. Chang's, according to its website.

Restaurants aren't the only consumer brands that have become more consolidated under a handful of owners. A handful of multinational corporations, from Nestle to Mars, own hundreds of food and personal care brands.