Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel • Hacker News Board

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#381

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 10:59 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #64

The blame falls also on businesses which take money for services they don't deliver. They often know, and otherwise often could know, when subscribers are not using the service. If you're a business, you should earn your revenue, otherwise you are frauds. This particular behavior is little better than taking money and simply refusing to provide service. Don't tell me it's unintentional - you know what's happening and…

"It should be shame that also falls on them, but somehow we give businesses a pass."

I have always viewed the push for "subscriptions" as a business model by so-called "tech" companies with suspicion. Looks like it was warranted.

Forgetting to cancel is part of the scheme. A friend of mine once worked briefly for a direct marketing company many, many years ago, pre-www. He said they knew a certain percentage would forget to cancel. They banked on it.

This is not something new.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#382

Post by pc86 » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 11:01 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #316

darkwizard42 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, I used to buy into this reasoning, but now, I'm not so sure. You can easily say the same thing about someone who does work a high-tech job. You make so much money you stop looking at your bank accounts. There are so many new grads or even late 20s professionals who barely manage their finances beyond 1-2 months. I would argue middle-class folks manage the idea of a "6 month emergency fund" a lot better than thos…

>You can easily say the same thing about someone who does work a high-tech job No you F-ing can't, and if you even remotely think that, you have never experienced poverty. Life's a lot different when your bills are $X this month and working 60 hours only makes you $X-$1000. "Change your expenses" Oh yeah? Am I supposed to WILL cheaper apartments into existence? Am I supposed to magically reduce the cost of my groceri…

My dad was a part-time janitor at my high school and I was in my teens before I realized that sometimes people got more than a single gift for Christmas, but I'm also able to talking about this without resorting to ad hominem and calling people privileged jerks for having a different opinion or calling wealthy family members jackasses while simultaneously taking their money.

Is it a human right to live in a $1500/mo apartment? Is it a human right to live within a short commute of your workplace? Is it a human right to have your salary increase commensurate with inflation or your increase in costs when you're doing the same job from 5 years ago?

When someone says "be better with your money" they're not telling you that your $15/hr job should cover your $1500/mo rent, they're telling you that you shouldn't be living in a $1500/mo apartment on $15/hr. I'm willing to bet a lot of them have no idea just how little $15/hr is, though.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#383

Post by auggierose » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 11:03 PM UTC

olejorgenb wrote: post #380

Slow_Hand wrote: post #377

I'm using a service called Subly that keeps track of all of my recurring payments and puts them into a database that I can view at a glance. It shows me which day of the month it renews, how much, and to which card or account it will be charged. This includes my annual renewal fees as well. It then shows me what my average monthly expenditure is. With this I can see that I'm spending roughly $112/month on subscriptio…

How much does it provider over simply taking the time to add the numbers to a spreadsheet? Does it integrite with bankstatements or automate the prosess in other ways?

People who use such a service probably don't know what a spread sheet is.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#384

Post by cwillu » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 11:04 PM UTC

I tried to downsize my google plan from 2tb to 100gb. It's now charging me for both plans every month, and my available space toggles every couple weeks (with dire warnings in every app about being at 90% capacity when it's on the 100gb plan). Support says all the things that are already on the support pages and then throw up their hands and say they don't have access to do anything to fix it.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#385

Post by smtp » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 11:05 PM UTC

hartator wrote: post #299

paxys wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gyms, cloud storage, restaurant buffets, insurance all follow this business model. If everyone paying into it actually expected to extract their entire money's worth of value the whole industry would collapse.

> restaurant buffets Buffets have monthly subcriptions?

I was legitimately excited about this idea. If anyone wants to start a buffet with a monthly subscription, I may be your first customer.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#386

Post by bhaney » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 11:05 PM UTC

paulpauper wrote: post #212

marcrosoft wrote: post #3

Use virtual credit cards and privacy.com. It really helps with peace of mind that you can really have a free trial and not worry about it.

no, this is bad advice . Credit cards are better because the dispute process is more favorable to buyers and longer dispute window. A debit card has worse buyer protection.

The virtual cards offered by Privacy are credit cards (specifically, charge cards) and feature the normal credit card dispute process.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#387

Post by wharvle » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 11:05 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #128

eropple wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see how this follows. A perfectly reasonable option that doesn't affect your use case at all would be "don't charge a customer who didn't use the service during that period." AWS doesn't charge me for an empty S3 bucket, Netflix shouldn't charge for zero minutes of video watched that month. Simple as! The downside, of course, is that this does mean you can't ride the Personal Responsibility bicycle and…

What's wrong with people putting on their adulting pants and actually being responsible? Why outsource personal responsibility to a third party? That seems, absurd. "Frazzled and overloaded" is not an excuse for not looking at your bank account one time in 6 months or longer. That's just plain old fashioned irresponsible. If you are at a stage in life where a $10 subscription is hurting, then it stands to reason you…

Who cares about responsibility? I want more efficient price signaling. Bringing spending more in line with intent improves price signaling, so, gives us more utility from this whole capitalism thing. Doing this also happens to benefit and strengthen the weakest actors in the economy, and to make them more-confident economic actors.

It’s all win except for the companies getting free money for no reason. Why not fix this?

[edit] put it this way: if easy visibility into subscriptions and standardized, easy cancellation mechanisms were already mandated, would there be a strong case for changing that?

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#388

Post by silisili » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 11:06 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #64

The blame falls also on businesses which take money for services they don't deliver. They often know, and otherwise often could know, when subscribers are not using the service. If you're a business, you should earn your revenue, otherwise you are frauds. This particular behavior is little better than taking money and simply refusing to provide service. Don't tell me it's unintentional - you know what's happening and…

I worked once for a company who internally decided to never contact paying accounts that hadn't logged in in over a year. This isn't a gym membership, this is 5 digit yearly payments.

The reasoning? "We don't want them to realize they're paying us for a service they don't use and cancel."

I guess I see the point, but feels unethical.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#389

Post by pc86 » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 11:06 PM UTC

BuckRogers wrote: post #171

HumblyTossed wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most HNers have never held a job outside of a high paying tech job. When you're working retail and struggling to pay bills, literally all you think about is money. So much so that it is debilitating from the stress. When you're under that much pressure constantly, it is very easy to miss something. "But, if it's that bad, they shouldn't even be signing up for this stuff!", I hear some of you saying. You look for an e…

I worked my way up, I'm 41 and working non-stop since I was 12 receiving a check as a paperboy. Worked at tire shops, autobody, whatever you can imagine. Before I was a paperboy, I ground down spot welding tips in my dad's shop to buy my toys and video games. Worked night shifts during community college and university. Fully qualified for SS in my 20s. Never a dollar from mommy and daddy. I haven't even received a Ch…

I am not that much younger than you but I think you need to look at average income and expenses for young people these days. Look at what it cost to attend college if you graduated around 2018.

We missed the period of time where you could "work your way through college" and have it paid off by the time you graduated, but we were able to graduate with reasonable levels of debt. I think I had $20k in debt when I graduated in 2008. My first apartment was a $450/mo room in someone's house then a $500/mo studio.

It's not possible to graduate college today only $20k in debt and they're going to make $10k/yr more than I did but have to pay for a $1800/mo studio (the median rent in the same town I got that $500/mo studio in 15 years ago). So it's great that you were disciplined but that's not the only thing that matters and each year things are a little worse for those just starting out.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#390

Post by dayjaby » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 11:06 PM UTC

jjav wrote: post #320

Alupis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with people putting on their adulting pants and actually being responsible? Why outsource personal responsibility to a third party? That seems, absurd. "Frazzled and overloaded" is not an excuse for not looking at your bank account one time in 6 months or longer. That's just plain old fashioned irresponsible. If you are at a stage in life where a $10 subscription is hurting, then it stands to reason you…

> If you are at a stage in life where a $10 subscription is hurting, then it stands to reason you should monitor those things. Unfortunately people for whom $10/mo hurts are usually working three part time jobs while also trying to get the kids to/from school and take care of them. So I can see why they might not have time.

A monthly financial review doesn't take longer than 10 minutes.

So you are suggesting that these three part time jobs offer more than $60/h and thus are more valuable than a 10 minute finance review where you identify your misspending of $10/mo?