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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

#781

Post by davidivadavid »

violetgarden wrote: post #4

The marketing/sales talk like, “Am I to understand you’d like to cancel even though our product could be saving you $xx in time and money?” repulses me to no end. I understand they’re trying to keep a customer. I just hate the leading questions. I hate that I feel like they’re trying to outwit me, or trick me into realizing I’m so silly for wanting to cancel something. Even though I might cancel products, the cancell…

"Cancelling your product is going to save me even more money."

I mean, it's annoying to have to talk to sales reps when you don't have to, but I feel like people here are being a little overly dramatic?

There are certainly some cases where it becomes almost impossible to cancel things (people hanging up on you, etc.) which are much worse than what is described here and looks like it would take about 30 seconds of my attention in a background chat window.

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

#782

Post by chmod600 »

drzoltar wrote: post #376
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…

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

Right now I am subscribed to zero paid news outlets. Sad.

Watching this thread for suggestions. I'm thinking international, as foreign outlets will be less susceptible to American fashions.

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

#783

Post by chmod600 »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #471
bof_ wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://spectator.co.uk is decent

The idea that someone would suggest the Spectator—more reactionary troll factory than magazine at this point—as a response to someone who feels the NYT is pushing too much of an agenda is absolutely hilarious.

To be clear, I generally accept bias. It's just the way things are.

My complaint about the NYT and many other news sources is absurd combination of a hyper-specific and rapidly-changing set of beliefs, along with brutal enforcement of those beliefs.

My challenge to you: write down your beliefs on a controverial topic (on paper). Wait 6 months and pick up the NYT. My prediction: they will be in the process of canceling someone for those same beliefs, and you will shred the piece of paper out of fear.

OK, maybe that's an exaggeration. But I wouldn't be shocked if it was too close for comfort.

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

#784

Post by jrockway »

gsibble wrote: post #277
jrockway wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My credit card expired and they sent my account to collections. I still subscribe because I like the work their journalists do, but when I read an article about how they're dying I don't really feel bad for them. (I am also tempted to cancel my Wall Street Journal subscription when I accidentally read an opinion column. Not sure why real journalists let partisan hacks put their opinion columns right next to their rea…

NYT just lets the partisan hacks write the articles.

Can you show me some examples? I subscribe to both the NYT and the WSJ to act as a check and balance on each other. But the actual news is pretty much exactly identical. The reporting choices on big stories are about the same, with the NYT throwing in some more human interest stories while the WSJ gets into business nuts and bolts. (Following the whole Gamestop thing was much easier on the WSJ, for example.)

Both newspaper's opinion sections are complete garbage. I tend to agree with the NYT's opinion columnists more than the WSJ's, but I wouldn't say the pieces are well-reasoned, that they try to explain both sides of the issue, etc. It's basically long-form Twitter, which I would pay extra to opt out of.

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

#785

Post by sshekh »

I got a NYT subscription in 2019. Last year in September my credit card expired, and my bank sent me a new one. This one had the same card number but a different expiry date. NYT just wouldn't accept it. I don't know how credit cards are renewed in the US but this was the new card I got and it worked everywhere except NYT. They just kept saying that it was an expired card so they could not accept it.

I tried contacting customer support, no use. They just said they'd manually enter the card details from their side which showed the same result. After a month my subscription was automatically cancelled. Well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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

#786

Post by dreeves »

PoignardAzur wrote: post #553
matkoniecz wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beeminder https://help.beeminder.com/article/25-how-do-auto-canceling-... https://blog.beeminder.com/autocancel/

I mean, they can afford it. Their entire business model boils down to "exploit people's unrealistic expectations of themselves to make money". They obviously feel awkward about it, and they soften the blow a lot , which is to their credit, but at the end of the day this is where their money comes from.

We don't feel awkward about it! We're leaning into it hard. See https://blog.beeminder.com/focus and https://blog.beeminder.com/defail

But it's definitely not for everyone! If your reaction to Beeminder is "I would not do anything differently and just waste money" then you are probably right and should not use Beeminder. We've been around for about a decade which we think is evidence that there are people for whom it does work.

For anyone in the category you describe (tried Beeminder, found their expectations of themself to be unrealistic, quit Beeminder) we definitely want to talk to you.

Also calibrating self-expectations is one of things many users tell us is worth paying for.

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

#787

Post by chmod600 »

Fuzzwah wrote: post #516
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…

I'm an outsider to US politics (in that I'm Australian), but I'm really interested to know what widely held "left" views you think are "incorrect"? The topics I understand as being pushed by the left in the US just seem so centerist to me, based on the political landscape that I'm living in. Single payer health care, minimum wage increases, increases in social support nets... So many topics I'd love to hear the argum…

The US has four states with population comparable to Australia.

It would be perfectly centrist for a couple states to enact the policies you mention, assuming they can work out the details and balance the books. When these policies turn into wild success stories, other states might follow.

It probably makes sense to start with some small-medium sized, well-governed blue states first, like when MA implemented Romneycare.

But the left position is to enact these polcies nationally across the US, which has >10x the number of people in your country. And there are a ton of details that nobody really even wants to talk about, and no plan to adapt when things don't work out. So, we are just supposed to trust Congress with a huge amount of extra money and a lot more power because the title of the bill sounds nice?

There are also a lot of policies that seem uniquely designed to punish the "right". I am pro-choice, but I recognize that a lot of people in the US are really, really not. But a lot of people on the left don't just want it legal, they want to use taxpayer money to pay for it. Think about how that makes tens of millions of evangelical Christians feel? There are enough pro-choice organziations that they can pool money from pro-choice people to subsidize abortions. The taxpayer money isn't needed. Why force it?

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

#788

Post by carstenhag »

joncrane wrote: post #543
oliwarner wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Letting companies redefine the rights of their customers seems bizarre to me. I'm sure it's obvious by now but perhaps it's worth restating: Those companies have large budgets for contributing to elected officials' campaigns. The individual consumers negatively affected by these practices can't band together as efficiently as the large business on the other side of the abusive behavior. As long as enough elected off…

But do you think in the rest of the world it's the same thing? In Germany we have good consumer protection laws, even though there of course are lobbyists (or, the old-fashioned name for it, PR people and employees of a company).

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

#789

Post by hbrav »

mchusma wrote: post #652
astura wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that invalid "debt" was still on your credit report you'd just file a dispute to have it removed.

It's very difficult as a consumer to get things off your credit report. You may be able to do.it, but expect it to take months of effort. For many small debts, it's just not worth it (and I believe this is by design).

This might help: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r...

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

#790

Post by xkeysc0re »

genericone wrote: post #768
xkeysc0re wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it regularly and work there. I should edit my comment to say "recently"

Suggest you delete this comment to prevent your cancellation. You appear to be a rational but dirty not-good traitor after all. /s

You can't be cancelled if you never say you're sorry.
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