Americans, by many measures, are unhappier at work than they have been in years.

Despite wage increases, more paid time off and greater control over where they work, the number of U.S. workers who say they are angry, stressed and disengaged is climbing, according to Gallup’s 2023 workplace report. Meanwhile, a BambooHR analysis of data from more than 57,000 workers shows job-satisfaction scores have fallen to their lowest point since early 2020, after a 10% drop this year alone.

In interviews with workers around the country, it is clear the unhappiness is part of a rethinking of work life that began in 2020. The sources of workers’ discontent range from inflation, which is erasing much of recent pay gains, to the still-unsettled nature of the workday. People chafe against being micromanaged back to offices, yet they also find isolating aspects of hybrid and remote work. A cooling job market—especially in white-collar roles—is leaving many professionals feeling stuck.

Companies have largely moved on from pandemic operating mode, cutting costs and renewing a focus on productivity. The disconnect with workers has managers frustrated, and no quick fix seems to be at hand. Those in charge said they have given staff more money, flexibility and support, only to come up short.

The experiences of workers like Lindsey Leesmann suggest how expectations have shifted from just a few years ago. Leesmann, 38 years old, said she soured on a philanthropy job after having to return to the office two days a week earlier this year.

Prepandemic, she would have been happy working three days a week at home. “It would have been a dream come true.” Still, her team’s in-office requirements seemed like going backward, and made her feel that her professionalism and work quality were in doubt. Instead of collaborating more, she and others rarely left their desks, except for meetings or lunch, she said. Negative feelings followed her home on her hourlong commute, leaving her short-tempered with her kids.

“You try to keep work and home separate, but that sort of stuff is just impacting your mental health so much,” said Leesmann, who recently moved to a new job that requires five in-office days a month.

No more honeymoon

The discontent has business leaders struggling for answers, said Stephan Scholl, chief executive of Alight Solutions, a technology company focused on benefits and payroll administration. Many of the Fortune 100 companies on Alight’s client list boosted spending on employee benefits such as mental health, child care and well-being bonuses by 20% over the pandemic years.

“All that extra spend has not translated into happier employees,” Scholl said. In an Alight survey of 2,000 U.S. employees this year, 34% said they often dread starting their workday—an 11-percentage-point rise since 2020. Corporate clients have told him mental-health claims and costs from employee turnover are rising.

One factor is the share of workers who are relatively new to their roles after record levels of job-switching, said Benjamin Granger, chief workplace psychologist at software company Qualtrics. Many employers have focused more on hiring than situating new employees well, leaving many newbies feeling adrift. In other cases, workers discovered shiny-seeming new jobs weren’t a great fit.

The upshot is that the newest workers are among the least satisfied, Qualtrics data show—a reversal of the higher levels of enthusiasm that fresh hires typically voice. In its study of nearly 37,000 workers published last month, people less than six months into a job reported lower levels of engagement, feelings of inclusion and intent to stay than longer-tenured workers. They also scored lower on those metrics than new workers in 2022, suggesting the pay raises that lured many people to new jobs might not be as satisfying as they were a year or two ago.

“What happened to that honeymoon phase?” Granger said.

John Shurr, a 66-year-old former manufacturing engineer, took a job as an inventory manager at a heavy-equipment retailer in the spring in Missoula, Mont., after being laid off during the pandemic.

“It was a nice job title on a pretty rotten job,” said Shurr, who learned soon after starting that his duties would also include sales to walk-in customers.

When Shurr broached the subject, his boss asked him to give it a chance and said he was really needed on the showroom floor. Shurr, who describes himself as more of a computer guy, quit about a month later.

“I feel kind of trapped at the moment,” said Shurr, who has since taken a part-time job as a parts manager as he tries to find full-time work.

Bridging the distance

Long-distance relationships between bosses and staff might also be an issue. Nearly a third of workers at large firms don’t work in the same metro area as their managers, up from about 23% in February 2020, according to data from payroll provider ADP.

Distance has weakened ties among co-workers and heightened conflict, said Moshe Cohen, a mediator and negotiation coach who teaches conflict resolution at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. He has noticed more employees calling co-workers or bosses toxic or impossible, signs that trust is thin.

Cohen’s corporate clients said their employees are increasingly transactional with one another. Some are coaching workers in the finer points of dialogue, such as saying hello first before jumping into the substance of a conversation.

“The idea of slowing down, taking the time, being genuine, trying to actually establish some sort of connection with the other person—that’s really missing,” Cohen said.

One Los Angeles-based consultant in his 20s, who asked to remain anonymous because he is seeking another job, said that when he started his job at a large company last year, his largely remote colleagues were focused on their own work, unwilling to show a new hire the ropes or invite him for coffee. Many leave cameras off for video calls and few people show up at the office, making it hard to build relationships.

“There’s zero humanity,” he said, noting that he is seeking another job with a strong office culture.

The share of U.S. companies mandating office attendance five days a week has fallen this year—to 38% in October from 49% at the start of the year—according to Scoop Technologies, a software firm that developed an index to monitor workplace policies of nearly 4,500 companies.

Some companies have reversed flexible remote-work policies—in large part, they said, to boost employee engagement and productivity—only to face worker backlash.

Not all the data point downward. A Conference Board survey in November 2022 of U.S. adults showed workers were more satisfied with their jobs than they had been in years. Key contingents among the happiest employees: people who voluntarily switched roles during the pandemic and those working a mix of in-person and remote days. But that poll was taken before a spate of layoffs at high-profile companies and big declines in the number of knowledge-worker and professional jobs advertised.

At Farmers Group, workers posted thousands of mostly negative comments on the insurer’s internal social-media platform after its new CEO nixed the company’s previous policy allowing most workers to be remote.

Employees like Kandy Mimande said they felt betrayed. “We couldn’t get the ‘why,’” said the 43-year-old, who had sold her car and spent thousands of dollars to redo her home office under the remote-work policy. She shelled out $10,000 for a used car for the commute. A company spokesperson said that not all employees will support every business decision and that Farmers hasn’t seen a significant impact on staff retention.

During a brief leave, Mimande realised she no longer felt a sense of purpose from her product-management job. She resigned last month after she and her wife decided they could live on one salary.

She now helps promote a band and pet-sits. “It’s so much easier for me to report to myself,” she said.

TAIPEI—For years, Beijing hoped to win control of Taiwan by convincing its people their economic futures were inextricably tied to China.

Instead, more Taiwanese businesses are pivoting to the U.S. and other markets, reducing the island democracy’s dependence on China and angering Beijing as it sees its economic leverage over Taiwan ebb.

In one sign of the shift, the U.S. replaced mainland China as the top buyer of Taiwanese agricultural products for the first time last year.

Electronics firms such as chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. are also selling more goods to American and other non-Chinese buyers, thanks in part to Washington’s chip restrictions and Apple’s bets on Taiwanese chips.

Overall, Taiwanese exports to the U.S. in the first 10 months of 2023 were more than 80% higher than in the same period of 2018, Taiwanese government data shows. Taiwanese exports to the mainland were 1% lower—a major change from a decade or so ago when China’s and Taiwan’s economies were rapidly integrating.

Taiwan’s outbound investment has also shifted. After flowing mostly to mainland China in the early 2000s, it has now moved decisively toward other destinations, including Southeast Asia, India and the U.S.

Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn, which assembles iPhones in mainland China, is expanding in India and Vietnam after Apple began pushing its suppliers to diversify.

Chinese state media recently reported that China had opened tax and land-use probes into Foxconn. Though Taiwanese officials and analysts interpreted the probes as a sign that China wants Foxconn founder Terry Gou to drop plans to run in Taiwan’s presidential election in January, some have said Beijing may also be trying to pressure Foxconn into resisting decoupling with China.

“Any attempt to ‘talk down’ the mainland’s economy or to seek ‘decoupling’ is driven by ulterior motives and will be futile,” said a spokeswoman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office in September. “The mainland is always the best choice for Taiwanese compatriots and businesses.”

Fully decoupling from mainland China’s economy likely isn’t possible, and would be disastrous for Taiwan, not to mention China, even if it were.

Foxconn and other major Taiwanese companies depend heavily on China for parts, testing and buyers. Some 25% of Taiwan’s electronic-parts imports still come from the mainland.

If China’s weakened economy returns to strong growth, it could shift the calculus back in favour of the mainland, where the Communist Party claims Taiwan despite never having ruled it. About 21% of Taiwan’s total goods trade this year has been with mainland China, versus 14% for the U.S., though the U.S. share has risen from 11% in 2018.

“My hunch is that the large manufacturing sectors will try to stay in the Chinese market, even with harsh conditions,” said Alexander Huang, director of the international affairs department of the opposition Kuomintang Party, whose supporters include business people with mainland ties. “If you talk to those business owners, they say, ‘Nah, no way will I give it to my competitors.’”

Even so, many forces are pushing Taiwan to rewire its economic relationship with China.

Trump-era tariffs and Biden administration export controls have raised the cost of sourcing from China, and in some cases prohibited it. U.S. firms are pushing their Taiwanese suppliers to diversify sourcing, and rising wages in China have made it less attractive than before.

Long-running shifts in Taiwanese sentiment toward China—and China’s own efforts to punish the island using its economic leverage—are also factors. China has banned Taiwanese agricultural products such as pineapple and, in 2022, grouper fish, and restricted outbound tourism to Taiwan.

Those restrictions to some degree have backfired, pushing Taiwanese businesses to look elsewhere.

Casting for new markets

Chang Chia-sheng, who runs a fish farming operation in Taiwan, said his main export target a decade ago was mainland China. But as geopolitical tensions climbed, he looked elsewhere. Sales to Americans have jumped fivefold since 2018, he said. “In the U.S., things just seem to work out more easily,” Chang said.

The U.S. and Taiwan reached an agreement in May on a number of trade and investment measures to deepen ties, though the deal stopped short of reducing tariffs.

In the June quarter of 2023, 63% of revenue at TSMC, which makes most of the world’s most cutting-edge logic chips, came from the U.S., up from 54% in the same period in 2018, according to S&P Global data. Just 12% of TSMC’s revenue now comes from Chinese buyers, down from 22% in the second quarter of 2018.

Taiwan’s government is also encouraging closer economic links with Southeast Asia, South Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Its “New Southbound Policy,” rolled out in 2016, has been the subject of fierce debate in Taiwan, with the Kuomintang Party saying steps to boost relations—like handing out scholarships—aren’t worth the cost.

Exports to “New Southbound” partners have risen, however, to $66 billion in the first nine months of 2023, about 50% higher than the same period in 2016.

“Frankly speaking, we’re responding reactively” to the need for more diverse trading partners, Taiwan’s Economic Minister Wang Mei-hua said. “Taiwan needs to manage the risks on its own, but we also need our allies to join us more in mitigating these risks.”

Together, the U.S. and the six largest Southeast Asian economies accounted for 36% of Taiwanese exports in the third quarter of 2023, according to data from CEIC, surpassing the percentage sent to mainland China and Hong Kong on a quarterly basis for the first time since 2002.

In September, Taiwan sent less than 21% of its exports to the mainland, the lowest percentage since the global financial crisis.

Taiwanese foreign investment into mainland China, steady at around $10 billion a year for most of the early 2010s, plummeted in late 2018 and has since been running at about half that level, according to Taiwanese government data. In 2023 so far, just 13% of Taiwan’s investment went to mainland China; 25% went to other Asian locations, and nearly half went to the U.S.

A survey of Taiwanese businesses conducted last year on behalf of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, found that nearly 60% had moved or were considering moving some production or sourcing out of China—a significantly higher rate than European or American firms.

Jay Yen, chief executive of Yen and Brothers, a Taiwanese frozen-food processing company, said his firm received a government subsidy of around $75,000 to market his products to American consumers. China now only accounts for about 3% of its revenue, he said.

That said, “if you really have to consider the risks of a war between the U.S. and China and its potential impact on Taiwan, you might want to place your bets on a third country—neither China nor the U.S.,” Yen added.

Reversing the tide

After China began to open up its economy in the late 1970s, Taiwanese businesses were among the first investors.

By the 2000s, China seemed to be succeeding in its strategy of integrating the two economies, with more than 28% of Taiwan’s exports going to the mainland in 2010, from less than 4% a decade earlier.

Direct flights between the two sides were normalised for the first time in decades. Mainland tourists were allowed to visit Taiwan on their own.

By 2014, the tide was turning as more Taiwanese grew worried about over dependence on China. Student demonstrators protested against a trade pact, later abandoned, that would have deepened ties with China. President Tsai Ing-wen, who took office in 2016, has pushed to diversify Taiwan’s economy.

China has responded by moving trade issues more into the spotlight.

In April, it opened an investigation into Taiwanese trade restrictions that it says limit exports of more than 2,400 items from the mainland to the island in violation of World Trade Organization rules. In October, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced the probe would be extended until Jan. 12—the day before Taiwan’s coming election.

Taiwan’s government has called the probe politically motivated.

Chinese officials have implied that Beijing could suspend preferential tariff rates for some Taiwanese goods in China under a 2010 deal signed when Kuomintang’s Ma Ying-jeou was president. Beijing has also reacted angrily to Taiwan’s recent trade agreement with the U.S.

For Taiwanese companies, building and operating new factories in places other than China isn’t cheap or easy. Protests have at times disrupted operations at Indian plants operated by Foxconn and Wistron, another Apple supplier. In September, a fire halted production at a Taiwanese facility in Tamil Nadu.

Still, some Taiwanese businesspeople have clearly soured on China.

“The electronics industry has already become a Chinese empire, not a Taiwanese one,” says Leo Chiu, who worked in mainland China in quality control for an electronics manufacturer for 14 years before concluding he couldn’t move up further there and returning to Taiwan in 2019. Many of his old colleagues have left, he said.

“If Xi Jinping steps down, there’s still a chance it could change,” says Chiu. “But I think it’s very hard.”

Martha Stewart’s 150-plus-acre property in Bedford, N.Y., includes a farm with horse stables and a chicken coop, a fruit orchard, a peacock pen and seven stately houses.

One of the abodes opened for a night’s stay this month.

The domestic goddess is among the A-listers, including Gwyneth Paltrow and Mariah Carey, putting their estates or penthouses up for short-term stays on rental sites such as Airbnb and Booking.com for nominal fees or no cost at all.

“It is a very pleasant weekend in the country,” Stewart said in an interview.

Why would a celebrity invite strangers to traipse through their home? Rental companies can use the attention to reach new audiences and distract from public criticism over hassles such as rising fees. Luminaries can promote their own brands, and guests get to briefly live like a star, in a highly orchestrated way.

Stewart said she had never used Booking.com or Airbnb for her own travel, and was intrigued by what the experience would be like as the homeowner. She recently announced that one of her farmhouse’s residences—her “tenant house”—in Bedford, would be bookable for two guests for one night starting Nov. 18. The Thanksgiving-themed overnight (Thanksgiving is among her favourite holidays) included a guided tour of the farm, a wreath-making class and a brunch with Stewart herself.

In keeping with the holiday vibe, the getaway was priced at $11.23, as in Nov. 23, this year’s Thanksgiving date.

The two-bedroom cottage where her guests stayed is always prepared for visitors, she said. (Of course it is.) That meant she didn’t have to worry about removing personal items, and she was unfazed about opening her home to people she didn’t know.

But don’t expect to post all over Facebook about your stay at Martha’s. Booking.com said celebrities can ask their guests to sign nondisclosure agreements, something Stewart required for hers. What exactly it is like to spend a night in any of these VIP homes will likely remain rarefied knowledge.

Celebrities are compensated for the home stays; Leslie Cafferty, Booking.com’s chief communications officer, declined to disclose how much.

People have long had a voyeuristic fascination with the lifestyles of the rich and famous. In Los Angeles, companies compete to offer celebrity-home tours, where passengers crane to see mansions behind gates and humongous hedges while sitting in faraway buses. Dwellings with even a patina of historic relevance draw fans. “George Washington slept here!” says a title for one Virginia farmhouse on Airbnb. (Wrote one reviewer: “This is a beautiful old home with wonderfully scenic views. There are horses, donkeys, and the oddest assortment of charismatic dogs.”)

Some can even be enthralled to sleep in a dorm room—if it once housed American royalty-turned-U. S.-president. At Harvard University, visiting politicians and notable figures including actor Alec Baldwin have stayed overnight at John F. Kennedy’s senior-year dorm suite, though it hasn’t been available for personal use for several years.

Companies such as Airbnb have faced scrutiny over soaring cleaning fees and host demands. In September, New York City began cracking down on short-term rentals by requiring hosts to register with the city and meet multiple requirements, such as not renting out an entire property. During a recent travel-industry event, Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky acknowledged seeing thousands of complaints on social media about rising rental costs.

The inexpensive and publicity-drawing celebrity home stays are one of several ways short-term rental companies are marketing to new hosts and guests.

Earlier this year, Paltrow invited guests to spend the night at her Montecito, Calif., home free of charge through Airbnb. The sunny, white-marbled rental featured a bathroom filled with products from Goop, Paltrow’s lifestyle company, and activities such as transcendental meditation. Through Airbnb, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis opened up their Santa Barbara beach house. The stars greeted their guests personally, and Kutcher documented part of their stay on his Instagram. Airbnb declined to comment.

Those who walk through the doors of a celebrity-anointed home might wonder: Should they expect to see family photos, or Paltrow’s personal trinkets hanging on the walls? And do they really get the run of the whole house?

That is up to the stars, Cafferty said. The entirety of Stewart’s guesthouse is available for the duration of the guests’ stay. Carey, the queen of Christmas, opened both her New York City penthouse and her rental home in Beverly Hills, Calif., to fans via Booking.com—yet Carey’s penthouse was only available for a cocktail hour; her guests stayed overnight at The Plaza Hotel.

Producer DJ Khaled opened only one room of his Miami house for Airbnb—his sneaker closet. To be fair, his sneaker closet doesn’t look like your sneaker closet. His is the size of a small dorm room, large enough for a bed for two, a shoeshine station and floor-to-ceiling sneakers (which guests weren’t allowed to touch). This was bookable last year for $11.

One of the guests who spent the night with DJ Khaled’s shoes wrote that the stay came with a free sneaker-shopping trip and chauffeurs, deeming it “an experience from start to finish.” No word on how the sneaker closet smelled, though the reviewer called it “immaculate.”

Sarah Jessica Parker invited two guests to her Hamptons home via Booking.com. It came with access to a crystal-blue private beach, a free pair of heels from Parker’s shoe line and reservations at some of her favorite local restaurants (though no appearance from Parker herself). Her rental went up for $19.98—priced for the year “Sex and the City” premiered.

When couples argue over money, the real source of the conflict usually isn’t on their bank statement.

Financial disagreements tend to be stand-ins for deeper issues in our relationships, researchers and couples counsellors said, since the way we use money is a reflection of our values, character and beliefs. Persistent fights over spending and saving often doom romantic partnerships: Even if you fix the money problem, the underlying issues remain.

To understand what the fights are really about, new research from social scientists at Carleton University in Ottawa began with a unique data set: more than 1,000 posts culled from a relationship forum on the social-media platform Reddit. Money was a major thread in the posts, which largely broke down into complaints about one-sided decision-making, uneven contributions, a lack of shared values and perceived unfairness or irresponsibility.

By analysing and categorising the candid messages, then interviewing hundreds of couples, the researchers said they have isolated some of the recurring patterns behind financial conflicts.

The research found that when partners disagree about mundane expenses, such as grocery bills and shop receipts, they tend to have better relationships. Fights about fair contributions to household finances and perceived financial irresponsibility are particularly detrimental, however.

While there is no cure-all to resolve the disputes, the antidote in many cases is to talk about money more, not less, said Johanna Peetz, a professor of psychology at Carleton who co-authored the study.

“You should discuss finances more in relationships, because then small things won’t escalate into bigger problems,” she said.

A partner might insist on taking a vacation the other can’t afford. Another married couple might want to separate their previously combined finances. Couples might also realise they no longer share values they originally brought to the relationship.

Recognise patterns

Differentiating between your own viewpoint on the money fight from that of your partner is no easy feat, said Thomas Faupl, a marriage and family psychotherapist in San Francisco. Where one person sees an easily solvable problem—overspending on groceries—the other might see an irrevocable rift in the relationship.

Faupl, who specialises in helping couples work through financial difficulties, said many partners succeed in finding common ground that can keep them connected amid heated discussions. Identifying recurring themes in the most frequent conflicts also helps.

“There is something very visceral about money, and for a lot of people, it has to do with security and power,” he said. “There’s permutations on the theme, and that could be around responsibility, it could be around control, it could be around power, it could be around fairness.”

Barbara Krenzer and John Stone first began their relationship more than three decades ago. Early on in their conversations, the Syracuse, N.Y.-based couple opened up about what they both felt to be most important in life: spending quality time with family and investing in lifelong memories.

“We didn’t buy into the big lifestyle,” Krenzer said. “Time is so important and we both valued that.”

For Krenzer and Stone, committing to that shared value meant making sacrifices. Krenzer, a physician, reduced her work hours while raising their three children. Stone trained as an attorney, but once Krenzer went back to full-time work, he looked for a job that let him spend the mornings with the children.

“Compromise: That’s a word they don’t say enough with marriage,” Krenzer said. “You have to get beyond the love and say, ‘Do I want to compromise for them and find that middle ground?’”

Money talks

Talking about numbers behind a behaviour can help bring a couple out of a fight and back to earth, Faupl said. One partner might rue the other’s tightfistedness, but a discussion of the numbers reveals the supposed tightwad is diligently saving money for the couple’s shared future.

“I get under the hood with people so we can get black-and-white numbers on the table,” he said. “Are these conversations accurate, or are they somehow emotionally based?”

Couples might follow tenets of good financial management and build wealth together, but conflict is bound to arise if one partner feels the other isn’t honouring that shared commitment, Faupl said.

“If your partner helps with your savings goals, then that feels instrumental to your own goals, and that is a powerful drive for feeling close to the partner and valuing that relationship,” he said.

A sense of mission

When it comes to sticking out the hard times, “sharing values is important, even more so than sharing personality traits,” Peetz said. In her own research, Peetz found that romantic partners who disagreed about shared values could one day split up as a result.

“That is the crux of the conflict often: They each have a different definition,” she said of themes such as fairness and responsibility.

And sometimes, it is worth it to really dig into the potentially difficult conversations around big money decisions. When things are working well, coming together to achieve these common goals—such as saving for your own retirement or preparing for your children’s financial future—will create intimacy, not money strife.

“That is a powerful drive for feeling close to the partner and valuing that relationship,” she said.

With offshore wind projects bleeding cash, governments will have to pay more to hit their clean-energy targets. Recent auctions show just how much more.

Higher prices for steel, labor and debt financing have raised the cost of developing a wind farm by almost 40% since 2019. It is a big problem for developers like Danish energy company Ørsted, which signed power supply agreements a few years ago at prices that no longer cover today’s costs.

Developers’ struggles are having a knock-on effect on the turbine makers that supply them, including Vestas, GE and Siemens Energy. The latter’s wind unit, Siemens Gamesa, lost €4.3 billion in the company’s latest fiscal year, equivalent to $4.7 billion at current exchange rates—although its issues are mainly with faulty onshore turbines rather than offshore ones.

Germany last week stepped in with a multi-billion-euro state-backed guarantee for Siemens Energy, which told investors at a capital markets day on Tuesday that its wind division won’t make a profit until after 2026. GE says its offshore wind business will lose $1 billion this year, and the same again in 2024.

The industry’s deepest challenges are in the U.S., a market that was meant to be the next growth frontier following the Biden administration’s pledge to install 30 gigawatts of offshore capacity by 2030. Instead, developers are taking multibillion-dollar impairments on U.S. projects, or backing out entirely. According to BloombergNEF, of the 21.6 gigawatts of offshore wind power awarded or signed so far in the U.S., a quarter has been canceled and almost another third is at risk.

Governments are now responding by topping up the prices at which they auction off licenses. Britain was forced to raise its guaranteed price for offshore wind power by 66% after a September auction didn’t attract a single bid. The average price in New York’s latest offshore wind auction in October was a fifth higher than previous rounds, according to BloombergNEF, and the bill could rise further as new contracts include inflation protection that will shield developers from future cost pressures.

Paying higher, more flexible prices for fresh contracts might still end up being a cheaper solution for New York than renegotiating old ones. Developers including BP and Equinor asked for increases of 49% on average over what was agreed in their original power supply contracts. They may pull out after getting a no from the state.

Governments and companies had become used to the cost of renewable energy heading only one way. The global average levelized cost of electricity generated by offshore wind—a measure of the minimum price necessary to cover the lifetime costs of a project—has plunged by 66% since 2009, according to BloombergNEF data.

After years of becoming more competitive as a source of power, offshore wind is beginning to look expensive in some markets compared with fossil-fuel alternatives. Globally, new offshore wind projects still work out cheaper than natural gas ones and are level with coal. But offshore wind looks costly in the U.S., partly because the supply chain is so immature and will need heavy investment for several years.

The new reality makes it harder for governments to meet their net-zero targets while also keeping power costs low for the public. But densely populated areas like New York may not have much choice but to exploit offshore wind. Clean alternatives such as land-based wind and solar farms are tough to roll out where space is at a premium.

The European Union is also aware that if governments don’t do more to support local companies like Siemens Energy, Chinese turbine manufacturers that enjoy generous subsidies from Beijing will be only too happy to step in. This would help the EU stay on track with an ambitious plan to increase its offshore wind capacity sevenfold by 2030, but at the expense of the bloc’s energy independence.

Harnessing the winds out at sea is still a key part of countries’ plans to cut their carbon emissions and boost energy security. But governments can no longer pretend that these political objectives can come cheap.

There is an urban myth that says online shoppers who doggedly search for certain items on the web get tagged by algorithms that then cause them to see higher prices than others shopping for those same items.

The solution for many people: They choose private mode on their web browsers, believing that cloaking their identity can help them get better prices.

But while such “private” settings as Google Chrome’s Incognito mode or Apple’s Safari private browsing mode do offer some benefits, getting a better price isn’t one of them.

“All these private modes do for shoppers is basically erase your search history from the device you’re on and prevent the browser from using your cookies to see your browsing activity across different sites,” says Benjamin Barrontine, vice president of executive services at 360 Privacy, a company that specializes in protecting clients’ digital identity. This is a great feature if you share a laptop with your children and you want to hide the presents you’re purchasing for them, but companies’ pricing is typically based on a number of factors—timing, location, how much an item in that category’s company paid to rise to the top of your search results—that don’t have to do with you personally or how often you search for a product.

A Google spokesperson confirms that cookies, or information stored on your device, are remembered in the current Chrome browsing session while in Incognito mode but then deleted immediately after closing out the session. If you return in Incognito mode to make the purchase, the websites will see you as a new user and won’t remember what you left in your cart. You essentially have to start your search anew, but with the benefit of blocking anyone who shares that device from seeing what you were researching.

Ultimately, experts say, private modes give shoppers a false sense of anonymity and a feeling that they are gaming the system, when all they are doing is hiding past searches. “You should know that your internet-service provider and even your network administrator at work, if you’re searching on a work device or network, may still see what you’re searching,” says Barrontine. “Private mode is not so private, after all.”

In fact, the big tech companies most likely know with near certainty who it is that is doing this supposedly secret searching, even in private mode.

“When you go on to Amazon.com in private mode and search for a bathrobe, even if you’re not logged into the site, Amazon is 99.9% sure of who you are because of the digital fingerprint they’ve developed for you over time,” says Ken Carnesi, chief executive and co-founder of DNSFilter, a software firm that protects companies from attacks at the domain name system level. That’s because Amazon would still know how you arrived at its site based on the link you clicked, your IP address, your ZIP Code, many of your preference settings and loads of other device-specific attributes. A company spokesman declined to comment.

The tech firms may not know that it is specifically you scouring their sites, but they’d know the search came from your home, which operating system you’re using, which language is your default and other details that point to you.

“That’s why, even when you’re not in private mode later on, if you didn’t close out that private window, you may still see bathrobes being pitched to you,” Carnesi says. “All the tracking is likely still passed through to the company who paid for the ad you clicked on.”

Contrary to popular belief, pricing for highly fluctuating, big-ticket items isn’t impacted by private searches, says Kevin Williams, an associate professor at the Yale School of Management who recently published a paper looking at airlines’ methods of dynamic pricing. Williams says in the case of plane tickets, “Airline pricing doesn’t take into account any of your personal information except location,” as in the country of origin. Using a virtual private network (VPN) can obfuscate your device’s physical location, and may turn up a better fare, but might require some trial and error, Williams says.

There are some additional benefits for shoppers to using private mode, beyond hiding your searches from prying eyes. The search bar won’t auto-fill with prior searches, so you can start anew every time you open a new private window and not fall down an old rabbit hole. You can keep your searches private on a public device or borrowed computer. And you can use a credit card that will later be wiped so your children won’t have access to funds without permission.

For true privacy, consider shopping through a search engine like Brave.com, which doesn’t ever track your searches or your clicks. “Unlike with other search engines, you and your data are not the product here,” Carnesi says. And your partner will never know about that bathrobe you forgot to actually purchase.