Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The desperation of NYTimes

rozumem.xyz

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 331 posts

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#91

Post by epistasis »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #40
epistasis wrote: post #3

NYTimes is predatory on subscriptions. Over my long lifetime I've subscribed twice, and regretted it both times with intensity. Any place that allows easy instantaneous subscription by a simple web form, but makes you call and talk to a person during limited business hours for cancellation , is a toxic place. I've been told they have stopped this predatory practice due to some newly passed laws or something, but they…

> makes you call and talk to a person during limited business hours I unsubscribed a couple years ago. It was a click on the website. (Just checked. Cancelling online without talking to anyone is still an option.)

If you read one more sentence further:

> I've been told they have stopped this predatory practice due to some newly passed laws or something, but they did not stop their predation due to their own values.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#92

Post by lostlogin »

failuser wrote: post #22

NYT makes more money from their games than actual news, right? Newspapers are dead and there is nothing to replace them. There is no loner money in informing the masses, only is disinformation. The people who can make money from the news and data buy surveillance data that is far more accurate than the government publishes and trade on it. You can’t have anything resembling a liberal democracy when the monetary insen…

ChrisArchitect posted this:

Whatever they're doing, whether to maintain growth or increase it, it's mostly working. Just today coincidentally:

The New York Times Reaches Three Million Digital Subscribers Outside the U.S.. And last month:

The New York Times Passes 13 Million Subscribers

> For the second quarter of 2026, the company forecast a 14 to 17 percent increase in digital-only subscription revenue.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#93

Post by JumpCrisscross »

alephnerd wrote: post #67
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> makes you call and talk to a person during limited business hours I unsubscribed a couple years ago. It was a click on the website. (Just checked. Cancelling online without talking to anyone is still an option.)

Depends on the jurisdiction you are in.

I’m in Wyoming. There is zero chance we have any consumer protection laws around this.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#94

Post by Tistron »

epistasis wrote: post #3

NYTimes is predatory on subscriptions. Over my long lifetime I've subscribed twice, and regretted it both times with intensity. Any place that allows easy instantaneous subscription by a simple web form, but makes you call and talk to a person during limited business hours for cancellation , is a toxic place. I've been told they have stopped this predatory practice due to some newly passed laws or something, but they…

I've been close to subscribing to The Economist a couple of times, but when I do a web search I find a lot of people complaining about their similar practice of making it difficult to unsubscribe, so I've refrained.

I guess there are more people who give up on unsubscribing than who refrain from subscribing?

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#95

Post by mikestew »

epistasis wrote: post #3

NYTimes is predatory on subscriptions. Over my long lifetime I've subscribed twice, and regretted it both times with intensity. Any place that allows easy instantaneous subscription by a simple web form, but makes you call and talk to a person during limited business hours for cancellation , is a toxic place. I've been told they have stopped this predatory practice due to some newly passed laws or something, but they…

Any place that allows easy instantaneous subscription by a simple web form, but makes you call and talk to a person during limited business hours

That hasn't been true for, what, almost ten years? When I cancelled three months ago, it was about three or four clicks through the beg screens, and done. No, I don't live in CA.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#96

Post by angelofthe0dd »

I bought into the low-cost subscription offer a few months ago. Since then, I get a huge pop-up ad literally every other article, asking me to upgrade to all-family access. I also receive a similar email every other day. They must be very desperate indeed to have to nag me every other article to upgrade. The irritatingly incessant pop-ups have guaranteed that, not only will I NOT be upgrading, I will be cancelling my subscription at end of the trial rate. :)

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#97

Post by dieselgate »

Centigonal wrote: post #68
dieselgate wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respect your opinion but am grateful for and find tremendous value in my NYT subscription. I share it with my SO and read their articles constantly. Prior to getting a subscription I was a "turn js off" kind of person - which is fine I suppose and still do it for other sites. I do not maintain any streaming or other subscriptions outside of Deezer (and a Garmin GPS FWIW). I would like a Bloomberg subscription but t…

This is an interesting topic. If a company does something you approve of (e.g. do journalism) and something else you disapprove of (e.g. make canceling hard), is there a good way to signal both as a consumer? This is also relevant in the context of companies like Target, which has been boycotted by both sides of the US political spectrum for various reasons.

Good point. I vote with my dollar and do not support Amazon (directly; AWS is unavoidable). But that's your point!

I deleted linkedin a few years ago because of the ridiculous volume of emails and their dark patterns about cancellation. NYT is just not a hill i'm willing to die on unlike linkedin, for example

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#98

Post by jjtheblunt »

tobinfricke wrote: post #65
epistasis wrote: post #3

NYTimes is predatory on subscriptions. Over my long lifetime I've subscribed twice, and regretted it both times with intensity. Any place that allows easy instantaneous subscription by a simple web form, but makes you call and talk to a person during limited business hours for cancellation , is a toxic place. I've been told they have stopped this predatory practice due to some newly passed laws or something, but they…

Any place that allows easy instantaneous subscription by a simple web form, but makes you call and talk to a person during limited business hours, is a toxic place. Happily, this practice is illegal in California. Sometimes consumer-protection laws work ... and are necessary. (As a hackaround, try using a VPN to make it appear as if you are connecting from California...)

> Happily, this practice is illegal in California.

that's totally irrelevant: Conde Nast for Wired is a shameless offender, for example. took me hours to cancel some autorenewing subscription i never subscribed for, perhaps enabled years ago through some dark pattern in iOS, but i genuinely don't know, and am not easily tricked.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#99

Post by wholinator2 »

ethagnawl wrote: post #54

The UX anti-pattern of theirs which really grinds my gears is the "Continue reading in the app -- it's better." modal which appears when reading articles on the web. There does not seem to be a way to permanently opt out of it. I'm sure I could use GreaseMonkey or whatever to dismiss it for me but I mostly read articles on my phone, which makes any of that harder. The larger point, though, is that I shouldn't have to…

You probably know but firefox on mobile let's you use extensions, for which i have ublock origin installed and regularly use it to block modals and things that my filter lists (every single one activated) don't cover already.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#100

Post by EA-3167 »

halapro wrote: post #33

This is why I love Apple's Hide My Email. I use it ALL the time and the unsubscribe button is always there. It's not the most polished interface, but it works perfectly. Also, for any subscription for which I don't use HME, I will immediately "mark as spam" any minimally-spammy email I get. The ones described in the article would be insta-marked due to the lack of Unsubscribe button.

It’s fantastic, and also lets you track exactly who leaked your email.
Post reply on HN