Rinsing the pasta is fine for making a cold pasta salad or something like that, removing the free starch stops it from sticking. But for a dish with sauce, definitely don't rinse.
The events of this story are bad yes, but I think it's important to point out that the '$33k' figure is using AUD, otherwise known as the weakest dollar. That's a bit under US$21k. Still bad, but obviously not nearly as much.
I'm pretty sure someone like my parents has no idea what that even means, though I guess many of these companies might just be targeting younger people more likely to know
We definitely just called it 14 where I grew up