Live data from Hacker News

The FTC puts off enforcing its 'click-to-cancel' rule

theverge.com

201–210 of 225 posts

Re: The FTC puts off enforcing its 'click-to-cancel' rule

#201
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for lunch.

I'm getting tired of this whataboutism. We did not have an almost daily turmoil of shit happening in 2021-2024.

One of the biggest accolades Biden got for a lot of people was they got 4 years of being able to turn off the news and nothing was on fire. His critics might have called him sleepy Joe (despite his administration being quite prolific) but it terms of normalcy and the government not constantly meddling in your life and business he did a bang up job.

Re: The FTC puts off enforcing its 'click-to-cancel' rule

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absurd if you believe the point of government is to be by, for, and of the people. If you see government as a way to enhance the ability of the owner class to enrich themselves, it makes perfect sense.

It’s almost as if the previous administration was focussed more on the former, and the current administration more on the latter. I guess you get the government you vote for.

I'm happy to see the waste reigned in and corruption exposed.

Re: The FTC puts off enforcing its 'click-to-cancel' rule

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you A/B test your company's reputation as being difficult to cancel? You can't exactly serve up different word-of-mouth to different users.

Believing that "reputation" actually matters for American businesses is laughable. Craftsman tools are STILL riding the reputation they had half a century ago, despite being made out of the cheapest chinesium and losing their impressive warranty stance. The American consumer has demonstrated an absurd inability to consider past events as useful information to predict future results. Things continue to enshittify beca…

Comcast

Re: The FTC puts off enforcing its 'click-to-cancel' rule

#205
post #69
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nihilism is useless. We've made enormous progress since the first human stepped on this planet so I would say we've disproven nihilism for good. Modern governments are definitely not purely tools for the owner class to enrich themselves.

I don't see the contradiction between the two propositions "government is for the ruling class" and "there have been some progress". There are even economic theories that start from that tenet (globally referred to as "trickle-down-economics").

> There are even economic theories that start from that tenet (globally referred to as "trickle-down-economics").

Those economic theories are not proper economic theories. As in, mainstream economists don't support them. That theory is propaganda in service of some specific political parties.

> I don't see the contradiction between the two propositions "government is for the ruling class" and "there have been some progress".

"There has been some progress" is a gross understatement considering the age we're living in. There has been tremendous progress and the lifestyle difference between the poorest members of a developed country and the richest ones is much, much smaller than that between the poorest and richest members of a country 200+ years ago.

Re: The FTC puts off enforcing its 'click-to-cancel' rule

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually want there to be a big "Cancel" button in the top right corner of every subscribed service? I personally don't want that. Click to cancel? Sure. But perfectly symmetrical is not something I need and in many cases not something I want.

>Do you actually want there to be a big "Cancel" button in the top right corner of every subscribed service? ABSOLUTELY YES

Fair enough.

I'm going off my experience with cookie banners, and how that whole thing seemed like a great idea at the time but turned out to mostly be an incredible annoyance.

In the same way, I don't think I'd enjoy a cancel button being front-and-center and cluttering up an interface at all times, given that I don't want to perform a cancellation action the vast, vast majority of the time when I am using a subscription service.

95% of the services I use already stick a cancellation button in either a "billing" section or a "user" section, which is generally quite easy to find and use in the rare instances I need it.

Re: The FTC puts off enforcing its 'click-to-cancel' rule

#207

How about 'click-to-bill'. If I don't touch your service you can't charge me.

The finger on the monkey's paw curls.

Now every service will be spamming you notifications and emails even more desperately to bait you into "using" the service so they can bill you. More clickbait and scare tactics on news subscriptions. Also goodbye monthly subscriptions.

It only works for Kagi because they're pretty decent folk.

Re: The FTC puts off enforcing its 'click-to-cancel' rule

#208
post #72

I wish businesses would realize this actually hurts their sales. I’ve put off joining a gym for years because I don’t want the hassle of I want to cancel. Also I never do free trials assuming they’ll be hard to cancel.

Reminds me of that one time I ordered a super shuttle to the airport, and the website had an offer to get 15% off if I subscribed to that random thing (first month free, cancel anytime). I’m good at immediately marking my calendar to cancel as soon as I got what I want, so I thought this would be a walk in the park. And surely enough, as soon as I was out of the shuttle and got my discount, I immediately cancelled th…

You should have reported them to the FTC anyway, if you didn't. I don't think this is even legal.

Re: The FTC puts off enforcing its 'click-to-cancel' rule

#209
This just in: consumer protection is "woke" and "cultural marxism". Americans elected the most corrupt president ever, that just received the largest bribe in history [1], and then act surprised when this administration fucks over consumers.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/11/trump-accept...

Re: The FTC puts off enforcing its 'click-to-cancel' rule

#210
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paper as in money? I can point to how multiple of these have saved me money directly. Cash dollars. Overdraft savings alone have numbered in billions back in the consumers' pockets... and that's just one piece of legislation that is easy to measure. A lot of people don't realize how many current credit card regulations didn't exist 20 years ago. For example: you'd have to manually figure out how much interest was cos…

I don't feel like going through each one specifically, and I'm sure some of them actually reined in some practices, but the vast majority are just disclosures, i.e. some paper for the consumer to sign without reading.

Why comment at all if you're going to make an incorrect claim with the evidence of "I don't feel like it"
Post reply on HN