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Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

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Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#631

Imagine having a business model so fragile that your only line of defense is to obscure the cancellation process through these tactics. Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? I mean best you’re doing is getting maybe another month or so of revenue from a customer who is just pushing the pain of cancelling because they are busy or lazy. And at the end instead of getting what could be a dormant…

Its brand is about all it has going for it. It's the IBM of journalism. We like to think it's still a leader, but we're kidding ourselves in doing so.

I had this thought the other day - what was the last big story the NYT broke that wasn't Trump related in some way? Like, actual investigative work whether in local governments or in other countries. I can't think of a single significant story that the NYT itself broke and led the charge on

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#632
The Economist magazine was the same. I had to call and talk to someone in the phone.

On the other hand, I subscribed to Bloomberg for 3 months at a nice discount, and cancelling that was easy. +1 for Bloomberg, -1 for NYT and The Economist.

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#633

I had a similar issue with the Wall Street Journal a few years back, and despite having spent the majority of my career working on Wall Street, I’ll never buy a subscription again. I signed up for a really good deal for 6 months of digital + paper delivery, but my paper always arrived a day or two late, so before my 6 months were up I tried to cancel, but couldn’t figure out a way to do so on their website. I message…

Incidents like this make me wonder why there isn't an appetite for better consumer rights in the US. If this had happened in the UK, you'd have the option to pro-actively block the payment, recover it, and legal standing to defend getting your money back. Letting companies redefine the rights of their customers seems bizarre to me.

There's a huge appetite, it just doesn't matter because corporations have more power than individuals because of how capitalism interacts with democracy.

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#634

Imagine having a business model so fragile that your only line of defense is to obscure the cancellation process through these tactics. Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? I mean best you’re doing is getting maybe another month or so of revenue from a customer who is just pushing the pain of cancelling because they are busy or lazy. And at the end instead of getting what could be a dormant…

This is why we need a CPA with teeth. The should be that if you can sign up with a click on mobile, you can cancel the same way. The amount of regulatory capture in our plutocracy is maddening.

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#635
post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like there are two departments in Netflix working against each other. One is trying to make sure that customers have a positive experience (not paying for a service they don't use) and the other trying to retain revenue by any means necessary (sending fake security warnings to artificially trigger activity on an account).

Yes, it is really bad. I cancelled my Netflix subscriptions for a few months, then tried to renew and cannot because of a bug in their Credit Card process. I have phoned and tweeted and online chatted etc... Their only solutions is for me to buy gift cards, which I won't. In the meantime, they keep sending me emails every week to beg me to try Netflix again. So Netflix spends money to promote to me, and to answer my…

Sounds like a really interesting blog post that could also get their attention.

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which other paid news publications do you prefer over the NYT?

I would vote The Financial Times or The Economist.

+1 to FT. I have been reading FT for a while now and have completely stopped reading NYT or other publications. They seem to have solid reporting and are pretty unbiased IMO.

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#637
post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen, with my own eyes, plenty of his tweets and videos of him saying it was a hoax, so debunk it for me.

You think you've seen videos and tweets. But you really haven't. There was one incident that came close: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-re...

The Snopes article was published 2 weeks before the impacts of coronavirus even started to be felt in this country, back when he was privately telling the truth about it to Woodward.

Trump's base overwhelmingly believes it's a hoax. So is "left" wing media lying to me that he says it's a hoax, or is right wing media lying to all his supporters that it's a hoax?

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#638

Last month I cancelled my subscription online in about three clicks. Not sure how they determine who to redirect to chat.

Me too. I've subscribed and unsubscribed to their digital plans a bunch of times in the past ~10 years and it was never difficult. Perhaps this is new?

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#639
post #522
post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they want to persuade me to hold a set of opinions Glad more people are realizing this. It's harder to spot/acknowledge for people on the left since the biased coverage feeds into their worldview...in my opinion it's artificially solidified their confidence on how "correct" they feel they are about political topics. The next step in this realization is nothing to do with one-sided reporting, it's the massive scale…

The pandemic made me realize how much newspapers have impact on people opinions. If they keep telling a vaccine in unsafe, a big part of their readers will believe the vaccine is unsafe. If they keep telling a vaccine is safe a big part of their readers will believe the vaccine is safe. And that no matter what the reality is. I'm not american but reading NYT during the elections, I was astonished by how much NYT was…

100% true. And let's recall the Time article how the media in US conspired against Trump: https://www.worldtribune.com/time-magazine-all-but-confirms-...

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#640
post #626
post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like there are two departments in Netflix working against each other. One is trying to make sure that customers have a positive experience (not paying for a service they don't use) and the other trying to retain revenue by any means necessary (sending fake security warnings to artificially trigger activity on an account).

>One is trying to make sure that customers have a positive experience ...and the other is the Netflix Specials department. EDIT: Addendum so not to be too shitposty. I think Netflix came to Denmark around 2013 or so, and the content at the time was pretty good. Now you have to wade through a swamp of third rate trash and maybe you're lucky to find something that isn't absolute garbage. My account will remain canceled…

Using services like Donotpay which generates credit card numbers that you can then freeze instantly might be the best solution for this. You can easily get an account when good content is recommended by friends etc then just switch off the card until you need to use the service. Cancelling is a lot of work.
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