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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

#721

Post by throwanem »

tjr wrote: post #714
throwanem wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's wild that Douglas Adams' and Infocom's Bureaucracy , an interactive fiction published in 1987, had precisely this sort of thing as more or less its whole subject matter. It's not quite exact to what we see today, of course; for one thing, it traffics in paper forms and mail-in cards, rather than web forms and obstructionist live chats. But its juxtaposition of saccharine platitudes and hostile apathy feels no le…

Bureaucracy was very enjoyable. I wish he had released that same basic content in other forms. I often think of scenes from that game in everyday life; too few other people have ever played it.

Likewise. But it was so hard to get any work out of Adams, apparently [1], that it's no great surprise Bureaucracy only happened in the medium of IF.

Perhaps it's time for a reimagining - I could see it working really well as a collection of "websites" with "live chats" and "emails" and so forth, borrowing tools from the "alternate-reality game" style of organic viral marketing and turning them to an altogether nobler purpose. I think that'd be the right choice of medium to tell this sort of story today.

[1] https://www.filfre.net/2015/08/bureaucracy/

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

#722

Post by colinmhayes »

polote wrote: post #522
jb775 wrote: 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…

Trump refusing to ever wear a mask had a huge impact on how seriously people took covid and what they did to protect society. Trump really is at fault.

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

#723

Post by px43 »

xuki wrote: post #555
px43 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you subscribe through Google? Do you need to download their app or something?

Yeah subscribe through their app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nytimes.an...

Eh, I'm not going to download a whole app for reading one article a month. There really needs to be something where I can just hit a bunch of checkboxes for the news sites I want to subscribe to, and then that app could charge me accordingly. Hell if Google integrated it with their Google News app, it could be super seamless.

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

#724

Post by sequoia »

berelig wrote: post #656
subpixel wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not rage-quitting yet but the decision to capitalize the word used to describe the skin color of one group of people, but not the words used to describe the skin colors of other people, is just so completely asinine and panderous that I have considered doing so.

Are they not in line with the APA styleguide? https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/bias-free-... I know it's a recent trend but I thought the capitalization was applied to all ethnicities.

It's the AP style guide: https://apnews.com/article/9105661462

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

#725

Post by DanBC »

Veen wrote: post #512
DanBC wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Spectator routinely publishes misinfo.

Would you like to provide an example? Or, better, several examples to establish a pattern that couldn't also be found in, for example, The Guardian or NYT?

Any of their coverage of trans issues.

I haven't said the Guardian or NYT is better.

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

#726

Post by lostlogin »

aligray wrote: post #421
lostlogin wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I closed a bank account in the UK in about 2001. I emptied it at an atm then walked into the bank to close it. The cashier gave me all the cash I’d already taken from the account.

I really hope this is true, always nice to hear about the robbing happening in the opposite direction.

I gave the money back when I realised what had happened, which was about 5 minutes later.

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

#727

Post by lostlogin »

csomar wrote: post #482
lostlogin wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I closed a bank account in the UK in about 2001. I emptied it at an atm then walked into the bank to close it. The cashier gave me all the cash I’d already taken from the account.

Do you mean you got your balance twice?

Yes. I gave it back.

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

#728

Post by Shacklz »

jb775 wrote: post #353
chmod600 wrote: post #278

I just cancelled and it was relatively painless, to their credit. When they asked the reason, I said that political coverage was unfair. Left is OK, unfair is not. I don't consider myself "on the left" but I really don't mind a publication being left of center or right of center. If it's good, I will pay for it (I subscribed tp The Atlantic at least twice, and the New Yorker once, and probably others in a mix of prin…

> 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…

As a regular European reader of the NYT, even the stronger left leaning columns from people such as Krugman/Kristof contain mostly opinions that are often considered "common sense" on our side of the pond.

Maybe your opinion has more to do with how weird and dispatched from reality American politics has become and less with how the NYT wants to brainwash you, or whatever you think they're doing?

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

#729

Post by kizer »

I mean, it wasn't THAT bad. But that's still annoying and you should be able to cancel via their website.

They likely have metrics on how effective their attempts to prevent cancellation are. If it's worth it (save more $ by preventing cancellation than it costs to pay these chat workers), they'll continue to do it. Though, I also have been very irritated with some companies' cancellation hurdles. I could see some law where cancellation can't take longer than 5 min or something on average (that was just an arbitrary criterion). It's anti-competitive to obscure cancellation for sure.

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

#730

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

Out of curiosity, does anyone know what's legally required to cancel a typical subscription or membership?

For example, are companies like the NYT permitted to force you to go through a red-tape gauntlet of their design?

Or, e.g., does the law ensure that once you tell one of their agents that you're canceling, they're legally barred from attempting to charge you for the service?

It seems to me that the burden of red-tape / bureaucracy navigation is an under-discussed battlefield for consumer rights, at least in the U.S.

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