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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

#281

Post by inigyou »

nonethewiser wrote: post #193
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.

>This is what legitimate government looks like. Do you mean good government? Or well-functioning? Any government that is formed legally is legitimate.

Not every law is legitimate. Governments used to be formed legally by a hereditary succession, was that legitimate?

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#282

Post by therealpygon »

inigyou wrote: post #274
erentz wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not your property they care about. They usually want this because it includes liability insurance if you damage their property or someone else’s, or your negligence causes harm to someone.

Then they should include it in the rent. My landlord wants a Porsche too, he doesn't get to add a separate Porsche Fee or mandate me to pay a Porsche payment, he has to take some of the money coming out of the rent and put it towards his Porsche.

If you’d rather pay $500 for the landlords insurance rather than $200 from your own policy, that sounds like a great plan. You’re paying for the Porsche either way.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#283

Post by inigyou »

therealpygon wrote: post #282
inigyou wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they should include it in the rent. My landlord wants a Porsche too, he doesn't get to add a separate Porsche Fee or mandate me to pay a Porsche payment, he has to take some of the money coming out of the rent and put it towards his Porsche.

If you’d rather pay $500 for the landlords insurance rather than $200 from your own policy, that sounds like a great plan. You’re paying for the Porsche either way.

Sounds like the landlord has an easy opportunity to earn an extra $300, why doesn't he?

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#284

Post by mschuster91 »

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.

> 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.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#285

Post by esterna »

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.

Be here long enough and you will find people bragging about their captcha solving services, or how they found a clever loophole in anti-gambling laws. Posts about certain unmentionable topics are flagged minutes after being posted, post titles are changed to protect in-groups, and human rights are sometimes up to debate.

The rule is that you have to be polite about it all.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#286

Post by astura »

SoftTalker wrote: post #197
dml2135 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It should also be illegal. If I want to risk loss of my personal property that should be my decision to make.

Renters insurance protects the landlord from liability claims. They don't care if you insure your own property, but I don't know of an insurance company that decouples liability and property.

Also, renters insurance is cheap, I haven't rented in more than a decade but when I rented I was only paying less than $100/year for it.

I just looked it up and currently the average premium for renters insurance is $15 to $22 a month.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#288

Post by astura »

echoangle wrote: post #263
erentz wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not your property they care about. They usually want this because it includes liability insurance if you damage their property or someone else’s, or your negligence causes harm to someone.

But then it should be included in the quoted price, right? It’s mandatory after all.

Most people will purchase through their car insurance company for a bundled rate.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#289

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

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.

It’s not just Europe, most of the developed world works like this. Except for the United States

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#290

Post by LadyCailin »

angrysaki wrote: post #191
LadyCailin wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not a good example, since you can argue that LLMs have utility to humanity. Hiding the cancel button has none, except for rent seeking.

The bigger difference is that the net utility for LLMs could turn out to be massively negative

Maybe! But that’s certainly debatable. “I thought I was doing the right thing” is anyways a much better defense than “I was just following orders” anyways.
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