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

New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 363 posts

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#171

Post by aliasxneo »

voidhorse wrote: post #167
ianmarcinkowski wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have similar feelings. I am sympathetic to a perspective that says this is not the responsibility of a mayor of a single city... But also; who else is going to do it? Normal people have very little say over the politicians that govern them in larger electoral regions like states or provinces, and maybe this can signal to other levels of government that they should implement similar rules... If it works.

Mamdani has been doing great in NYC so far. The hope is that he will inspire similar behavior in others. And drive similar approaches to politics in other constituencies.

I'm all for it. Would be great to see exactly how all of his policies play out across a larger area.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#172

Post by lostlogin »

gruez wrote: post #4
bell-cot wrote: post #2

No mention of the New York Times, or its practices?

Why should it be mentioned? The article doesn't call out any other specific company by name. Is the Times really that egregious of a offender compared to the other businesses? Does new york city have a history of selectively enforcing laws to favor local businesses?

> Is the Times really that egregious of an offender compared to the other businesses?

Yes.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#173

Post by SecretDreams »

59percentmore wrote: post #104
ar_lan wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no context of who you are/your position here, but the responses you're getting seem absurd to me. I just don't understand people placing the blame on you when it should be on your company. Most people in the world are just trying to keep their job - you did it. It wasn't something illegal, it was something that if you didn't do, you would have risked your job and then someone else would have done it anyway.

Because the difference between what he's done and, say, the practice of the people who peddled opioids for a paycheck is one of degree, not kind.

Yeah, but it's multiple orders of magnitude apart.

Are we also going to start putting LLM engineers to the fire because they're accelerating the enshitification of our world? Probably not.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#175

Post by dml2135 »

acdha wrote: post #105
Larrikin wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don’t like it either but blame goes to the top of the org chart. That’s not illegal or, by the standards of the field, flagrantly unethical so it’s a bit extreme to expect someone to resign over.

I don’t know what standards you are referring to, but yea I would call it flagrantly unethical for sure.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#176

Post by dml2135 »

socalgal2 wrote: post #147
sxp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From TFA: > Rule from Mamdani administration ... targets ‘junk fees’ > The city is also targeting so-called “junk fees” that raise the final price of everything from apartments to sporting events, with a proposed rule that requires sellers to “advertise the total price for any good or service, including all mandatory additional charges and fees, up front”, according to a release shared with the Guardian.

The latest one for me is renting a new apartment, getting told it cost $XXXX a month, then being told I'm required to have $XXXXXX amount of renter's insurance at $XXX a month and oh, by the way, click here to use ours.

A requirement to obtain renter’s insurance is not an example of the type of fees this legislation is targeting.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#177

Post by sillyfluke »

59percentmore wrote: post #104
ar_lan wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no context of who you are/your position here, but the responses you're getting seem absurd to me. I just don't understand people placing the blame on you when it should be on your company. Most people in the world are just trying to keep their job - you did it. It wasn't something illegal, it was something that if you didn't do, you would have risked your job and then someone else would have done it anyway.

Because the difference between what he's done and, say, the practice of the people who peddled opioids for a paycheck is one of degree, not kind.

Obviously the difference of degree on the spectrum between the two in this case does vary greatly, but your comment reminded me of an interview with a journalist who had compiled a collection of interviews with midtier drug dealers in various cartels and one thing that stood out to him was that almost all of them, when asked why they did what they did, would respond by saying that if they didn't someone else would.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#178

Post by returningfory2 »

gumby wrote: post #16

These rules are great but “landmark” seems like puffery, as California has had such rules for quite a while. Ironically that has meant it’s hard to unsubscribe from the New York Times except in California.

This information about the NYT is out of date; it's now easy to unsubscribe from anywhere.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#179

Post by antiframe »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #127
dqv wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes > Subject: Information about Your Automatic Renewal > This is an automatically generated email from Nintendo for customers who have a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack individual 12‑month (365‑day) membership set to renew automatically. > Dear [user], > Your Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack individual 12‑month (365‑day) membership will automatically renew soon. > ... > Deadline to turn off automa…

Because this is mandatory in the EU probably.

Even if that were true, Nintendo is better than most companies, which will use deceptive practices wherever they are allowed, even if they have to pay to maintain multiple systems and configurations.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#180

Post by colechristensen »

ianmarcinkowski wrote: post #155
SkipperCat wrote: post #138

This is what legitimate government looks like. Leaders actually advocating for the people who are being deceived by those in power instead of helping those in power. While this may be a trivial issue, being able to cancel a gym or newspaper subscription, it sends a signal. Companies need to view customers as partners in a business transaction and not objects to be exploited.

I have similar feelings. I am sympathetic to a perspective that says this is not the responsibility of a mayor of a single city... But also; who else is going to do it? Normal people have very little say over the politicians that govern them in larger electoral regions like states or provinces, and maybe this can signal to other levels of government that they should implement similar rules... If it works.

>I am sympathetic to a perspective that says this is not the responsibility of a mayor of a single city... But also; who else is going to do it?

With a population of 8.5 million if NYC was a state it would be the 13th largest so I'm quite all right with the city going beyond the normal purview of a city government.

Post reply on HN