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Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

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

#651

Post by listenallyall »

_gabe_ wrote: post #625
listenallyall wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You already had the apps installed... already had the passwords loaded... had zero transactions that you had to recall who the vendor was? really?... and you recognized all of your spouse's transactions? and all of your kids?... and you also checked ACH payments?... every ATM withdrawal accounted for?... not concerned with any gradually increasing amounts?... why did you wait 6 months to do this if it's so simple?

I pay through the apps. I have a password manager. There were a couple transactions that took me a couple seconds to recall. I’m single, but this whole thread is about _personal_ responsibility. I would trust my spouse to also keep up with her expenses. I also wouldn’t give my kids credit cards. Cash works fine when it’s needed, that’s what my parents did and I was just fine. I never put any sort of subscription on A…

The point is, not everyone's situation is the same as yours, lots of people have a whole lot more going on. You sound like a tool by insisting that 5 minutes (while taking a shit, no less) is universally sufficient for a comprehensive financial review.

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

#652

Post by carlosjobim »

lwhi wrote: post #634
carlosjobim wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about individual companies, I'm talking about the systemic factors in general. > They don't have to sell because the factories can't stop making products. What are they supposed to do? Shut down the factories and fire their workers? Industrialised production relies on huge up-front investments and large operating cost, in exchange for enormous output and low per-unit cost of production. That's how it w…

We're talking about subscription services. A huge number of these services won't actually even supply physical goods. Your argument isn't relevant here.

Mass media is also an example of mass production, working in the same way. Whether it's through subscriptions or selling physical media or entrance tickets, creators seek a huge audience. They usually have huge investment costs to produce their stuff, whether it's money or time. Then their cost-per-unit sold is extremely low, sometimes approaching zero. But if they can't get paid by a mass audience, then creativity will have to return to bespoke works. Ie, artists will make their work for rich individuals by commission, instead of to the general public.

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

#653

Post by robertlagrant »

gmd63 wrote: post #517
robertlagrant wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that services should start unsubscribing people just in case they have ADHD, that seems a very odd way round to think. They're just businesses. I don't think it's reasonable to assume they can know what you want or intend.

It's pretty **** easy to infer that a customer wants to save money when possible That businesses and advocates play dumb when it comes to this basic fact is no longer astonishing to me, sadly

They're not playing dumb, just as a magazine subscription isn't playing dumb by not phoning you up to see if you want every magazine. If you sign up to a subscription, you are saying you want it until it's cancelled. If you just want them one at a time, go buy each one in a shop.

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

#654

Post by robertlagrant »

Krasnol wrote: post #650
robertlagrant wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but all I'm doing is reversing the equally unjustified claims in the parent. Ironically they've lamented unjustified claims in the sibling comment to this one, but their post is chock full of them.

How are you supposed to know that they're unjustified when the (at that time) top comment is just "no"? Are you supposed to accept the superiority of some anonymous commenter, or is the fact that they just "need to" post "no" and therefore show that their opinion must be superior?

I was that commenter who said no. I was replying to equally unjustified assertions. Just because my reply was shorter, does mean it contained fewer justifications.

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

#655

Post by taffer »

eropple wrote: post #632
taffer wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's wrong with asking businesses to simply not charge you if you don't use the service Pay-per-view services exist. Customers seem to prefer subscriptions. Any subscription model works by amortising costs over a large population, which always means that some people will benefit more than others. To prevent businesses from charging for unused subscriptions, the only solution would be to ban subscriptions altogeth…

> Pay-per-view services exist. Customers seem to prefer subscriptions. If Netflix will let you pay $2 to buy something from them, they sure don't advertise it. So this assertion requires what the customer wants to buy to be fungible. It's a mindset that requires one to implicitly accept the idea of content-as-gruel, and I think most people don't do that. It also implies that people are rational and responsive actors…

I have no idea what you want to say. Is this what you mean when you talk about riding the personal responsibility bicycle, only this time it is the jargon bicycle?

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

#656

Post by _gabe_ »

listenallyall wrote: post #651
_gabe_ wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay through the apps. I have a password manager. There were a couple transactions that took me a couple seconds to recall. I’m single, but this whole thread is about _personal_ responsibility. I would trust my spouse to also keep up with her expenses. I also wouldn’t give my kids credit cards. Cash works fine when it’s needed, that’s what my parents did and I was just fine. I never put any sort of subscription on A…

The point is, not everyone's situation is the same as yours, lots of people have a whole lot more going on. You sound like a tool by insisting that 5 minutes (while taking a shit, no less) is universally sufficient for a comprehensive financial review.

I understand everyone has a different situation. OP literally said that it’s impossible for anyone to review their finances in 10 minutes, and I provided a counterclaim. Additionally, my point was that in this day and age, the majority of people that are able to subscribe to these things have the tools at their disposal to find and cancel the subscriptions while taking a shit. Just hop on your phone, it really is that easy.

You calling me names because you can’t formulate a valid argument does not dispute that fact. It weakens your argument and goes against the nature of this site.

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

#657

Post by themaninthedark »

robertlagrant wrote: post #453
dotnet00 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a perfectly reasonable point that the company has all the information necessary and has the ability to automate a system which charges you only when you actually use the service, or hell, even just a system that emails you a reminder for not using the service you're paying for (Amazon kind of does this regarding their Music service as part of Prime, and I love them for it, even though I still don't use it). They…

> and do their taxes manually This isn't a great comparison. Looking through a bank statement once a month and clicking "end subscription" takes a few minutes for anyone. Doing your taxes manually is much more difficult. This is the easiest economic decision to choose to stop partipating in in the history of the earth.

The average burden of the 1040 C-EZ is 1 hour 40 minutes.

If we take the premise that 10 minutes to review your finances a month and then cancel unused subscriptions is not a burden(and good luck with canceling in 10 minutes) then doing basic taxes takes less time than a full yearly review.

There are a great many people here who argue that doing ones taxes are an impossible burden and the government should automate it away since they have the (most of) the data.

However here it should fall upon the individual to do all this labor in a case where the business has this information already compiled.

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

#658

Post by robertlagrant »

ozim wrote: post #640
robertlagrant wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But we know - no one will even propose implementing such an email because it will be loss for the company. So that would be action for government to enforce. Doesn't this just add another hull to the titanic? People don't have 2 minutes to check their bank statements a month, but do have time to check their email regularly enough to catch this? I can't tell who this is for that would be strong enough to require gov…

That was my idea from top of my mind for corporations to show they care for the customers. Proposing that they refund money would be realistic if they would at least agree to send out email - which I do believe will never happen. So refunding money is fantasy, sending out emails is realistic but since they won’t do it, that makes refunds even more unlikely.

15 years ago I remember a colleague who'd bought a TV a month earlier get a refund for the difference from Amazon because the TV had recently come down in price. That's great service, don't get me wrong. I just don't think this sort of thing should be expected, particularly when it's not about a price drop you couldn't know about, and it's just not clicking an unsubscribe link.

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

#659

Post by runeb »

wolverine876 wrote: post #642
theendisney2 wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually created a business model based on it. The vhs rental stores were dying left and right. The one i looked into got most of its money from snacks and drinks. The subscription moddel was 75 cent, renting a movie would drop from 3-4 euro to 75 cent. (only 1 at a time) You could keep it for a week, then you would get a call if you could please return it. The existing customers knew vhs rental was not really a…

In a sense, a social club for movie lovers. Why not switch to showing movies and serving some food?

You could call it a cinema!

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

#660

Post by dang »

lazide wrote: post #474
wolverine876 wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? You broke the site guidelines badly in this thread.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

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