Some like it hot … but even for them, this summer is a bit much.

An estimated 32 million U.S. workers have outdoor jobs, including delivery people, roofers, and farmers. With record-setting temperatures, it’s difficult and even dangerous to perform their duties. Extreme heat waves may cost U.S. businesses $100 billion per year in lost productivity. They can also be deadly, as approximately 40 people die annually in U.S. workplaces due to high heat.

“The way that heat hits us, our thinking gets slowed down, our concentration is really tough, our hand-eye coordination is off, we’re tired, we make mistakes,” Kathy Baughman McLeod of the Atlantic Council told CNN, adding, “And so that also means as an employer, our perceptions of our workers’ risks are not keeping pace either.”

Just as with any other environmental workplace issues, ensure that your employees are safe and trained in how to spot heat-related health concerns. The Department of Labor has a list of best practices, but perhaps the most important is “remember water, rest, and shade.”

Reddit: How it lost control of “the internet’s front page”

Airbag Jeans: Saving motorcyclists’ behinds?

Tapping in: Why contactless payment is king 

Indie Bites: Podcast is a startup snack

(Source: Shutterstock)

An effective Google search these days often requires us to add “Reddit” at the end. With 430 million monthly users and 100,000 active communities — including business subreddits from r/Entrepreneur (on the respectable end) to r/WallStreetBets (on the far less respectable) — Reddit is an irreplaceable bastion of knowledge and discussion.

It’s also a complete mess this summer.

Back in June, volunteer moderators of countless subreddits locked their forums from public view … or bombarded them with off-topic John Oliver photos. You may have noticed that Google searches with “Reddit” produced nothing but broken links. This blackout — or Oliver-out — was a protest against Reddit forcing third-party mobile apps (which previously had enjoyed free access to Reddit’s Application Programming Interface) out of business by charging developers as much as $20 million per year.

Removing those moderators seemed to go against Reddit’s original decentralized, user-generated ethos. However, the site, which launched in 2005 as an obscure geek hub, is now a multibillion-dollar behemoth and planning to IPO later this year. This could have motivated the third-party crackdown, along with a desire to prevent AI from farming its data.

Columbia Journalism Review speculates that Reddit’s “drive for profitability will likely change the nature of the site and its communities, perhaps irrevocably, as seems to be happening at Musk’s Twitter,” which could ironically hurt profitability itself. The very public moderator revolt has turned enthusiasm for Reddit’s IPOs “ice cold,” Barron’s reports.

Perhaps this digital tug-of-war will soon be forgotten, and Reddit will become a Wall Street darling. Or perhaps this is “the end of the useful internet”. What we can safely predict, however, is this: When you use free labor and only pay those laborers in power, it probably won’t turn out well for your company, no matter the size.

🤿 DIVE DEEPER

• The Post-Unicorn World: What Comes After Tech’s Burst Bubble?

(Source: Mo’cycle)

Skinny jeans are out — Gen Z even brought JNCOs back; in fact, denim is about to get a whole lot puffier.

Stockholm-based company Mo’cycle raised $122,000 on Indiegogo for “Airbag Jeans,” which are exactly what they sound like: jeans for men and women with a built-in series of airbags around the hips, tailbone, and thighs. They attach to your bike via a clip-in tether and deploy under a force of approximately 90 pounds.

Mo’cycle’s founder says the puffed-up pants helped him through a 60-mile-per-hour wipeout. And while they cost $500 (if you pre-order now), that could be a lot less than your hospital bill otherwise.

Another bonus? Even fully inflated, they still look better than JNCOs.

If you’re ready to join the world of stylish entrepreneurs, check out our guide to starting a clothing store.

Cash is king? More like “contactless is king” these days. 

The popularity of chip-enabled credit cards and mobile payments has soared over the past few years. A recent study from Warwick Business School researchers found that consumers spend 27% more when they use these contactless payments instead of cash (and 12% more than when they use PIN-enabled debit cards).

Why the difference? One explanation is that tapping feels less real than pulling out your wallet and watching the cash go bye-bye. In fact, contactless payment users were less likely to remember how much they spent.

Small business owners can “tap” into this tendency by accepting mobile wallet payments (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay) or using a POS system such as the Square Reader. 

Cash is king? More like “contactless is king” these days. 

The popularity of chip-enabled credit cards and mobile payments has soared over the past few years. A recent study from Warwick Business School researchers found that consumers spend 27% more when they use these contactless payments instead of cash (and 12% more than when they use PIN-enabled debit cards).

Why the difference? One explanation is that tapping feels less real than pulling out your wallet and watching the cash go bye-bye. In fact, contactless payment users were less likely to remember how much they spent.

Small business owners can “tap” into this tendency by accepting mobile wallet payments (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay) or using a POS system such as the Square Reader. 

(Source: Twitter)

Written by Dan Ketchum and Mike Berner