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New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

theguardian.com

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Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#291

Post by astura »

SoftTalker wrote: post #217
evolve2k wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia we have very strong consumer protection law, here it’s expected (by the bank usually) the landlord has at least a minimum “landlord insurance” that covers all that stuff. For anything not covered, where a tenant does damage thats what the bond is for. Renter insurance should be optional. Actually I’m surprised that landlord insurance is not already occurring, imagine a building with 100 apartments, I’m s…

Same here. This has only been a thing recently when landlords figured out they could make money selling the insurance. When I was a renter, insurance was never required from me.

Plenty of places have required renters insurance going back the last two decades I've been an adult. My parents were landlords in the hood when I was a kid and they required it (as a lease provision, never enforced).

However, it is landlord and location dependant - it's pretty much the norm in NYC, for example (see https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/comments/11bl350/does_your_a...).

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#292

Post by dml2135 »

acdha wrote: post #221
dml2135 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is not showing a cancel button quickly better or worse than treating accessibility as a checkbox and producing things which many people struggle to use despite laws requiring you to support them? Shoving unwanted features into a bundle? Encouraging people to use Chrome by introducing dependencies on proprietary features or not testing other browsers? Designing apps with bloated JavaScript frameworks which are borderl…

Well, some of those examples are instances of not being able to prioritize a good thing. That can be due to an unethical decision, but can also be due to needing to prioritize other things, possibly better things.

The unethical part of the example that I was referring to is, you have the good thing built, but you are refusing to give it to some people, for bad reasons.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#293

Post by evolve2k »

inigyou wrote: post #275
dzhiurgis wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone is required to have an insurance - why not bury it in property tax/rates instead? In NZ we are not required to have third party medical cover because everyone is already covered by yearly car registration fee.

What about people without cars?

I’m pretty sure EVERYONE is covered under the public system, a levy is added in the car rego fee that is the funding mechanism. You don’t need to be a driver to be covered.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#294

Post by anilakar »

mschuster91 wrote: post #284
flyingshelf wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part of restaurant fees are the people (both owners and somehow the patrons) that will justify the existence of the fee as if it's too difficult to just print the final price in the menu. I live in a touristy part of the world and effectively all restaurants above baseline level will have a "+7% service +11% tax" line. To me this is clearly deceptive practice.

> I live in a touristy part of the world and effectively all restaurants above baseline level will have a "+7% service +11% tax" line. In Germany and Croatia, there is no % at all, the prices are final and include all taxes and fees by law and no one will bat an eye if you pay straight cash - however I personally always tip around 10%, simply because I was happy about that when I worked in hospitality myself.

When I was in high school my German teacher taught us to tip by default by rounding up and paying with exact change. Is that still a thing when everyone is paying with card?

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#295

Post by jvanderbot »

qmr wrote: post #220
jvanderbot wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To get paid, obviously. We're all self interested actors here.

Nuremberg defense. I thought the HN crowd at least pretended to be somewhat better.

GGP didn't break the law (in fact he conformed wtih it), he just didn't disobey his orders (risking his salary) in order to go the extra mile in order to make a negligible positive impact in the world. Seems rational.

Ever speed on the way to/from work? That's a worse offense than a strictly-compliant website - you're increasing danger for yourself and others and breaking a law, precisely for your own benefit.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#296

Post by constantius »

ar_lan wrote: post #91
aczerepinski wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once wrote code that checks location before hiding/showing the cancel button. It’s really absurd that the nice experience exists on all subscription sites by now but you only get to see it if your state demands it.

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.

Saying no is always an option, and this seemed like the opportunity for this. Highly paid devs consistently choosing to do this and using the "following orders"/"food on the table" defense should be socially unacceptable. However, the parent seems to feel no guilt despite the many comments blaming him, so I think protecting his feelings is not necessary.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#298

Post by nixon_why69 »

constantius wrote: post #296
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.

Saying no is always an option, and this seemed like the opportunity for this. Highly paid devs consistently choosing to do this and using the "following orders"/"food on the table" defense should be socially unacceptable. However, the parent seems to feel no guilt despite the many comments blaming him, so I think protecting his feelings is not necessary.

You don't know anything about them. Do they have kids? On a visa? Both? Need health insurance?

Yes, "just following orders" was not an excuse for the holocaust but we're talking about a subscription here. I for one appreciate the honesty.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#299

Post by inigyou »

nashashmi wrote: post #297
inigyou wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're asking it right now to a worker at a newspaper site

Nothing wrong with working at a newspaper site.

Specifically the one who disabled the cancel button in places that don't legally require it.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#300

Post by Teever »

flyingshelf wrote: post #267
sxp wrote: post #5

It's unclear whether this junk fee law will have teeth. In theory, California has the same anti-drip pricing law, but restaurants have a specific carve out [1] which is bullshit because the drip pricing that most people complain about is the X% "service charges" and "lifestyle fees" that restaurants have at the bottom of their menu in small print. From what I can tell online, NYC rules won't have this carveout, but I…

The worst part of restaurant fees are the people (both owners and somehow the patrons) that will justify the existence of the fee as if it's too difficult to just print the final price in the menu. I live in a touristy part of the world and effectively all restaurants above baseline level will have a "+7% service +11% tax" line. To me this is clearly deceptive practice.

What happens if a tourist refuses to pay the fee? Or asks for resolution by a neutral third party like law enforcement?

Seems like a kind of practice that could quickly become impractical if people simply DDOS it by disputing it.

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