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The New York Times uses the dark patterns it derides

nirandfar.com

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Re: The New York Times uses the dark patterns it derides

#81

Post by Nicksil »

dialtone wrote: post #80
Nicksil wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's really not alright to step on the pulpit to point fingers left and right when your house is also not in order, it makes it seem more like you're trying to move forward your business agenda rather than really caring about the issue. What does this mean? Are you speaking to the author of the parent comment or in general? What is this un-orderliness you've alluded to?

I'm speaking to the author of the comment I replied to who basically states that the article was purely good because of the topic, without having any critical eye towards it. And the un-orderliness is in the title of the article commented on, nyt has dark patterns on their site as well. The author of the NYT piece is a member of the editorial board so he should be held to a higher standard than employees of a busines…

Ah, much clearer. Thank you for taking the time to go into detail.

Re: The New York Times uses the dark patterns it derides

#82

Post by naturalauction »

Kinda related but the NYT somehow kept on charging me even after I froze and then closed a privacy.com card associated with the account (this went on for months). No idea how it happened but I eventually had to spend 30 minutes going through the maze to cancel.

Re: The New York Times uses the dark patterns it derides

#83

Post by Macha »

GhostVII wrote: post #37

Normally I'm not a huge fan of throwing in new laws but I do think it would be reasonable to legislate that unsubscribing from a service must be as easy as subscribing. If we are going to give companies the legal ability to auto-charge you each month, we should give people the legal ability to stop that at any time easily.

California has done that, and hence NYT allows you to unsubscribe online without this hassle if it's IP geo-detection detects you're in california, which exposes this as the business/retention decision it is and not a technical limitation.

Re: The New York Times uses the dark patterns it derides

#84

Post by ekianjo »

mapgrep wrote: post #25

I have adopted a zen posture to this sort of hypocrisy which involves believing both these things: 1. It is good to call out hypocrisy like this article does where a publishing entity is engaged in behavior completely contrary to the behavior called for in their published words. 2. It is also good that the reporter’s journalism is sufficiently free (as in freedom) that they are able to write so independently of the b…

> that they are able to write so independently of the behavior of the mother ship.

Or maybe they are completely oblivious and blind. Possible explanation as well, very common for people who criticize others before looking at themselves.

Re: The New York Times uses the dark patterns it derides

#85

Post by Componica »

Macha wrote: post #11

I've considered actually subscribing to news media but the behaviour of the NYT and a few known others have left me not to trust the entire industry to behave responsibly with a subscription, so I am at least 1 anecdote of someone not subscribing because of knowledge of the cancellation process

Why can't there just be an option to subscribe for one year and it cancels? No auto-renewals, just a polite reminder it's about to expire. The world is filled with roach-motel dark patterns everywhere that I never subscribe to anything, and they're losing out on people like me.

Re: The New York Times uses the dark patterns it derides

#86

Post by CogitoCogito »

kilburn wrote: post #78
WalterBright wrote: post #3

> I told the representative I wanted to cancel. Then I was offered reasons not to. I responded with “no thanks” each time. Then, I waited for the representative to reply and come back with several rounds of offers to get me not to cancel. On and on, the process went until I was finally allowed to leave. That's fairly easy to deal with. Answer every question, argument, and pitch from the representative with "please ca…

Right after the first question, someone should try replying in the lines of: I have expressed in no unclear terms that I want to cancel my subscription and I don't want to answer any further non-essential questions about it. Any further questions that are not legally necessary to terminate our relationship will be considered usage of my professional consulting services at the rate of 10$/minute for which I will send…

It's a nice thought, but nothing would happen. They might even just cancel the chat to annoy you. Or they might continue asking you questions. In either case they wouldn't owe you money for it. They didn't engage into a contract with you just because you sent them that message.

That said you might have certain consumer protections you're not aware of. I had cell phone plan with Comviq here in Sweden that I wanted to cancel and they said on their website that I needed to call. Swedish law requires my being able to cancel in various ways (e.g. sending a letter, or sending an email, etc.) regardless of what they said in their initial contract. So I found an address and just sent them an email stating I wanted to cancel. In a day or two it was done. I presume they know they are legally required to do so and so they did what I said, but I'm also sure they happy to provide conflicting information making consumers unaware of their rights. I reported their website to our consumer protection authorities, but I never heard back.

Re: The New York Times uses the dark patterns it derides

#87

Post by prostoalex »

atty wrote: post #56
dmitrij wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with me. In my case, the Economist, who does the same like the New York Times. Subscribing is a click, canceling is a call to a representative who will talk to me about how they "love to discuss a more affordable or flexible subscription option so that you can keep enjoying everything The Economist has to offer" https://myaccount.economist.com/s/article/How-do-I-cancel-my...

The economist was my first experience with this tactic, and I promised myself I’d never sign up again, no matter how good a deal they offered.

If you want to avoid Economist business practices, but still access the coverage, I found DiscountMags to be fairly pain-free experience. They manage the customer info and billing, and have a "rate protect" feature, where they promise to get you exact same (or lower) price next year, or cancel the subscription otherwise.

Their regular prices are somewhat inflated, but registering a deal alert on slickdeals/etc. would get you annual pricing similar to https://slickdeals.net/f/14599963-1-year-of-the-economist-ma...

Re: The New York Times uses the dark patterns it derides

#88

Post by mapgrep »

dialtone wrote: post #80
Nicksil wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's really not alright to step on the pulpit to point fingers left and right when your house is also not in order, it makes it seem more like you're trying to move forward your business agenda rather than really caring about the issue. What does this mean? Are you speaking to the author of the parent comment or in general? What is this un-orderliness you've alluded to?

I'm speaking to the author of the comment I replied to who basically states that the article was purely good because of the topic, without having any critical eye towards it. And the un-orderliness is in the title of the article commented on, nyt has dark patterns on their site as well. The author of the NYT piece is a member of the editorial board so he should be held to a higher standard than employees of a busines…

Fwiw I don’t think it’s purely good, I both judge and applaud the article, hence the “zen” language. I think it’s good to criticize the hypocrisy. But also much better that the article exists than not. You’d see basically no journalism if journalists were constrained by the behavior of their owners to never be such hypocrites by association.

Re: The New York Times uses the dark patterns it derides

#89

Post by sofixa »

GhostVII wrote: post #37

Normally I'm not a huge fan of throwing in new laws but I do think it would be reasonable to legislate that unsubscribing from a service must be as easy as subscribing. If we are going to give companies the legal ability to auto-charge you each month, we should give people the legal ability to stop that at any time easily.

> Normally I'm not a huge fan of throwing in new laws but I do think it would be reasonable to legislate that unsubscribing from a service must be as easy as subscribing

But the free market will regulate itself! /s

What else are laws for?

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