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Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

wsj.com

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Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#321

Post by nightski »

dvdkon wrote: post #250
paxys wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I watch 1 hour of Netflix a month and you watch 300 hundred hours a month, should the government mandate that Netflix charge you 300x more than me? If not, why should the person who watches 0 hours be treated any differently? Ultimately Netflix is creating the plan and publishing its details, and we are all opting into it willingly. Whether we get value from it or not is for us to decide, not the government.

Because a person who doesn't watch Netflix for a month gets no value from their money, so not charging them is a clear win with no downsides. Netflix doesn't get as much money, but since they didn't provide any service, I fail to see why that's a problem. The only reasonable price for 0 work is 0€. For anything more it gets complicated.

That's not entirely true though. Netflix had to be prepared to provide that service. Meaning they needed to be able to have the capacity to serve the videos if necessary. Some times just having that capacity has a cost in and of itself.

Not to mention they still are producing content whether you watch it or not, and by subscribing you are paying for that content to be created.

It's more extreme in other scenarios, like say hospital emergency rooms. But it still applies to services like Netflix imho.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#322

Post by wiseowise »

paxys wrote: post #106

It's bizarre to me just how many people in this country ( especially the ones who can least afford it) simply do not take charge of their financial health. Even in this very thread you can see all kinds of excuses ("it's too hard to log in and check credit card statements every month", "they make you call or chat to cancel so I don't bother", "they should cancel subscriptions automatically if you don't use them", "it…

> 30 minutes of effort once a month to go over bills and budgets is hardly the end of the world.

Maybe for someone who already has good financial habits it is 30 minutes, but for people who never bother with this it will take far more time.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#323

Post by lacrimacida »

paxys wrote: post #106

It's bizarre to me just how many people in this country ( especially the ones who can least afford it) simply do not take charge of their financial health. Even in this very thread you can see all kinds of excuses ("it's too hard to log in and check credit card statements every month", "they make you call or chat to cancel so I don't bother", "they should cancel subscriptions automatically if you don't use them", "it…

> It's bizarre to me just how many people in this country (especially the ones who can least afford it) simply do not take charge of their financial health.

It’s designed to be complicated, confusing or easy to forget just so it traps people at least once. It’s borderline fraud sometimes, at least it feels like that to me. The recourse is to be super vigilant but when you let guard down you fall into a trap and it’s hard to beware all traps at all times especially when they’re being constantly evolving

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#324

Post by godelski »

mckn1ght wrote: post #68
godelski wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like it can get a bit overwhelming. I absolutely abhor notifications on my phone unless they are things that need my immediate attention. Email is a particular pain where it is difficult to impossible to differentiate spam from legitimate communications. I really do wish banks or visa/mastercard would offer virtual card functionality. It really would empower users to have more control over their money and…

I'm like you in that I hate notifications, but I love this idea at the same time, so I think I'll set up an email filter that sends them all past the inbox, right to a dedicated folder, where I can periodically review them all together. Sounds much better than logging into each CC provider separately, finding the statement area, downloading a clunky PDF, after probably having to change a password and confirm contact…

Actually this is not a bad idea. I was thinking phone notifications, but emails are much easier to control. Though I find filtering often not that great. I've been using Thunderbird, but if you have a suggested CLI email client that can "easily" (I live in the terminal, so that's the bar) integrate gmail and my work/school emails, allow me to hack on it, and __most importantly__ has decent documentation, then I'd love to hear about it. I tried Mutt many years ago but experienced too much friction, but things change and I haven't revisited the topic.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#325

Post by jjulius »

sailfast wrote: post #281
Modified3019 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lovely and idealistic view of humans. Unfortunately bad actors have realized that what we actually are is just meat computers with unpatchable security vulnerabilities, so demanding that people just stop having problems and fit your nebulous definition of competence with unlimited and unwavering performance, has predictably not panned out. What is the more moral solution then? Recognizing and placing systema…

Just wanted to say that I found this phrasing to be fantastic.

Agreed, this was a really well-put response.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#326

Post by eropple »

themacguffinman wrote: post #310
eropple wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see how this follows. A perfectly reasonable option that doesn't affect your use case at all would be "don't charge a customer who didn't use the service during that period." AWS doesn't charge me for an empty S3 bucket, Netflix shouldn't charge for zero minutes of video watched that month. Simple as! The downside, of course, is that this does mean you can't ride the Personal Responsibility bicycle and…

It screws over other use cases because it changes the economics of these streaming services. Monthly subscriptions for media, especially ones like Netflix, account for bingeing followed by dead periods amortized into the monthly price. Only counting active periods will break that amortization and the monthly price increases as a result. If someone doesn't binge and their lifestyle includes watching things more consis…

You know, you're right, it would affect that use case. On the other hand, "I would have to pay a higher amount of money for my teevee if they stopped bleeding people for no services rendered" is a really funny thing to get on the the Personal Responsibility bicycle about. Like, you could've just said "I don't want to pay more" and I guess that'd be mildly unfortunate for you, maybe I could've found some sympathy for that viewpoint. Instead you got on that bicycle, just like the other person, and doubled down on the Fun At Parties thing. "I don't want to pay more because I practice Personal Responsibility, please bask in my my perceived moral value."

And that makes me think a little more. So after doing that thinking, here's what I realized.

It can still be about Personal Responsibility for you and the other person if you have to pay your own freight about it. In fact--it's more! You get to exercise so much more Personal Responsibility when you aren't being subsidized by other people, even. When you are standing on your own two feet in such a Personally Responsible manner.

Isn't that nice?

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#327

Post by alfalfasprout »

paxys wrote: post #106

It's bizarre to me just how many people in this country ( especially the ones who can least afford it) simply do not take charge of their financial health. Even in this very thread you can see all kinds of excuses ("it's too hard to log in and check credit card statements every month", "they make you call or chat to cancel so I don't bother", "they should cancel subscriptions automatically if you don't use them", "it…

Honestly this is a very out of touch view. And you assume people don't do these things. Of course they do. Some don't. But you're making a broad generalization.

People do check this stuff. Even then it's easy to forget about something for a few months. Or ask if your SO is using something.

There are so many charges on a typical CC statement that spending time every day going through them isn't always worth it either.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#329

Post by jjoonathan »

jjav wrote: post #267
teg4n_ wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also who would you even send it to? How do you guarantee they receive it? If you do certified mail that is a cost and another thing to take up your time.

True, although I'd rather pay the few dollars for that and the 10 minutes in the post office, than spend endless hours on hold just to be hung up on and start again.

10 minutes during weekday business hours plus 30 for commute and 20 minutes of standing in line if you go at noon. Also, the discoverability of this workflow is complete dogshit.

None of this is a problem for me, but I fully understand why dishonest businessfolk love to exploit the hell out of these "tiny conditions" and then turn around and pretend they don't understand why they are a big deal.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#330

Post by jjulius »

paxys wrote: post #106

It's bizarre to me just how many people in this country ( especially the ones who can least afford it) simply do not take charge of their financial health. Even in this very thread you can see all kinds of excuses ("it's too hard to log in and check credit card statements every month", "they make you call or chat to cancel so I don't bother", "they should cancel subscriptions automatically if you don't use them", "it…

>It's bizarre to me just how many people in this country (especially the ones who can least afford it) simply do not take charge of their financial health.

But, see...

>No one is looking out for you.

... that's just it, isn't it?

Nobody's looking out for you. We send kids to public school from ages five to eighteen, but at a broad level, we do not have a requirement for any of that education to be about how to take charge, and stay on top of, your fiscal health. I'm not sure how you can look down on others like that when a large chunk of people are kicked into adulthood without ever having been taught how to look after themselves financially.

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