Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it
imgur.com
imgur.com
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 customer who can sign up later again, what you get is someone who hates your company.
What an incredibly stupid way to erode the brand of a publication, whose major asset to survive is precisely its brand.
Was asked if i was suuuuuuure i wanted to leave, 3 separate times before it canceled.
Definitely not thinking of doing that again, or like i do for some streaming services, pay for a couple months, stop, then pay for a few more.
Utterly rediculous.
Cancelation apparently required a fax. Got a legal friend to help me write a scary letter.
Service was promptly canceled.
(It seems like you DO keep them until the end of the trial, but you only get told that after cancelling)
Together with their decreased support quality (agents barely understanding what I write + the typical "tell the customer what they want to hear so they go away and give you a good CSAT, by the time they realize you lied it won't matter for you anymore"), I have a _very_ low opinion of Amazon. They still have a service (delivery time), price (free shipping) and consistency advantage in many cases, but it's quickly shrinking, and I am much more likely to buy from alternative places if they can make a competitive offer.
I assume that eating the cost of a bad purchase is cheaper for them than upsetting a long-term customer.
On one occasion when I had to return an item I ended up £30 out of pocket because it had to go by courier instead of post, due to length. I had to argue with their customer support to obtain recompense despite it having been them who told me to send it courier. The item was only worth £80.
Nowadays I just use Amazon as a price baseline but shop elsewhere.
On memberships, I don't mind the Prime cancelling issues very much because they seem to always credit back a month if you later tell them you forgot to cancel. Unfortunately, there are annoying dark patterns when signing up, hiding the "No thanks" button when trying to get through an order, etc.
The only thing I noticed is they hide the collection options under a button. By default they encourage you to drop off at a depot or post office.
Now I'm still waiting for a product I ordered 3 months ago. The only option I have is contacting the seller - who doesn't respond. I wrote a review about the experience, which then got promptly removed.
More recently I've ordered a few things from multiple places, the one outstanding delivery is from Amazon, and now almost a week late. It'll probably be the last one; their obvious lack of interest regarding fake reviews, review resetting and obfuscation, misleading pricing, counterfeit products and the constantly shrinking number of quality products have taken a toll. More often than not products are shipped from China, making it a worse choice than many local competitors who may ask higher prices for delivery but at least ship in two days instead of two weeks, have a phone support hotline and a reason to care.
Very slowly but steadily the reasons I started using Amazon's platform eroded away until it became more or less a more approachable middleman for aliexpress dropshippers.
When I found myself slowly buying fewer things on Amazon a few years ago and decided to cancel Prime after many years as a subscriber, I was so grossed out by the cancellation process that I’ve actively avoided ordering from them ever since.
¹ it was a bit of a mess, they first tried to bill an empty credit card, but only notified me after several attempts when prime was actually suspended. I added a regular credit card, but they don't conform to the new EU rules about authentication so it just got declined. Again, they didn't tell me they were even trying. So I added a SEPA account which is possible through the UI, but apparently they required a credit card. In the end I just cancelled, and re-signed up under the amazon of the country I live in (which is fairly new, hence not doing it the first time.) At least I get another free trial month for the hassle.*
Just the fact that I–a software engineer and longtime Amazon customer–felt compelled to open a new tab and Google questions about the cancellation process, seemed ridiculous to me. Plenty of less tech savvy folks are sure to have been confused, tricked or given up in the process.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55637140
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpEQ4OWNO4Y&feature=emb_titl...
Exceptions will exist, but the general rule is such.
No, it is subscription. Much like a magazine subscription, where you are purchasing the magazine each month, you are purchasing credits each month that you can use to buy audiobooks that you then own (yes yes, do you really “””own”””” things in the digital world of licenses, blah blah). So losing access to the app, and therefore the audiobooks you purchased, is not how it is supposed to work.
But THIS is how it works. This reality doesn't fit your paradigm. But the reality prevails.
In other words, when you stop paying them.. it stops. You can no longer consume the goods, past-present-future. You call it subscription. I call it a service. Because in my mind a subscription to a Newspaper is "News-as-a-Service. I stop paying Amazon, I lose the AWS. I stop paying the Economist, I lose access to all (present-past-future) issues.
Downvote all you want. Call it what you want. Still.. someone give me an example where the subscription ENDED, and they still have access to the Benefits. If not.. you're welcome. NaaS. Unless you get the paper-copy. Then you ACTUALLY bought the "News" and ONLY because YOU control the physical medium (the paper its printed on).
Literally Audible. The person that couldn't access the app is not the norm and likely had some sort of problem. You can access the app after you cancel and can continue to download and listen to books you've already bought. That is why it is a subscription, not a service.
I will not subscribe again after this experience.
This cancellation process never considered the impact of internet cancel culture and rage reactions. It's far easier to damage a brand than it is to build it up.
Unlikely considering the general popularity of articles highlighting their incompetence/malfeasance. See: slatestarcodex articles of the last week
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa...
?? I automatically assume that articles that are written by NYT, NewYorker, and The Guardian are complete BS and should be ignored.
0 journalism found there.
Wanna spend money somewhere? Spend it on The Atlantic or Bloomberg.
Bad: NewYorker, New York Times, The Information
Not Bad: The Economist
Good: The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, The Politico (at least in the EU)
Very good: Reuters
Can you please elaborate on why you feel that way?
For a younger person, perhaps they wouldn't notice? I have been reading NYT and Guardian since the early 2000s, and canceled the NYT this summer when they failed to report really major events in NYC that didn't match narrative (looting and rioting that was directly observable for two days). I realized at that point we had a real problem.
The Guardian has always been more openly activist, and I have a lot of respect for their Snowden work. But Trump being in the front page for four years was a bit much.
I'm pretty happy with Reuters and to a lesser degree Bloomberg (whom I pay per month 7 times what I was paying for the NYT subscription).
It's depressing because the NYT was more of a mainstream liberal newspaper whose main crimes were a lack of critical attitude towards foreign policy (such as the weapons of mass destruction fiasco). Its domestic reporting was decent. Now the domestic reporting is pitting Americans against one another.
"Seeing how Netflix would be so protective of my time were I to leave makes me all the more unlikely to do so."
Maybe the NYT should take their own advice.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/business/yourmoney/02digi...
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/net...
I'm not sure if this really counts for much in their favour.
Terrible, terrible company.
Every person everywhere really needs to move all their money to credit unions, our banking system is so thoroughly fucked.
The cashier gave me all the cash I’d already taken from the account.
Charging for bank accounts in North America is just like commission on retail brokers - everyone else is doing it, so why not? Eventually probably 'fintech startup challenger banks' with the novel idea of not charging will gain too much market share, and the big boys will scrap the fees too in order to compete (and barely feel it).
https://money.cnn.com/2017/02/22/investing/atm-overdraft-fee...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/20...
Then they accepted a charge on the account from a subscription I had forgotten to move, even though the account was closed, and because my account was then in deficit decided to reactivate my account without letting me know. Then they charged me an overdraft fee and daily penalties, and then eventually sent me a bill with like £120 of charges.
I challenged it and had to speak on the phone to people for ages. Eventually they took the charges off as a "one-off gesture of good faith" which annoyed me, because it still implies that it was my mistake and not theirs.
If signed up to the scheme (most are, including Santander), your old bank is responsible for passing on any deposits directly to your new bank account and the new bank is responsible for processing any transactions made using your old details. This carries on for, I believe 12 months.
I found the Switch Guarantee service to be excellent and believe it's a significant driver of innovation and competition in UK banking (which is far ahead of many other European countries in my experience).
My payees from my old bank were even transferred over to my new one.
(Current account = checking account to any non-UK readers.)
Fun times.
Cheques basically don’t exist here in NZ now.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
Not to criticize this behavior, just to set it into the proper context. Its just smart to see the potential customer in your cancellations anyway.
Rather than good customer service, Amazon try to be generous on the visible aspects that people might talk about, but quietly cheat you with antipatterns.
Sure, it's a principle thing, treat our customers as we'd like to be treated ourselves. But it makes sense from a purely business point of view as well.
In return for giving up some small amount of subscription revenue by putting through a cancellation that was going to happen anyway a bit sooner, we generate positive sentiment. We often get a nice thank-you message back, with extra information about why someone was cancelling or hadn't been using the app recently.
We know for a fact that we have sometimes gained new customers from referrals by those people we helped out a little. Sometimes a former customer's situation changes again later and they come back to us, too.
And the reality is that particularly with online payment methods, there's also a small risk that someone will do a hostile chargeback without bothering to even try cancelling, particularly if they forgot about a subscription and changed their email address or something like that. Even if you've done nothing wrong and provide evidence accordingly, you have a good chance of losing a dispute anyway, and one way or another it ends up costing you more than it would have done to preemptively cancel a subscription that you knew wasn't being used for a long time.
This is from the perspective of a small business in a niche market, where there is definitely a sense of community and reputation does matter. We've met some of our customers in person, and there are many more mutual connections or friend-of-friend kinds of relationships that might be relevant one day. Maybe things work differently when you're running a huge business with a strong brand in a huge market; I've never done that, so I wouldn't know. But I honestly can't imagine why we'd want to run things any other way. There are few things more valuable to a business like ours than a good reputation in the community we cater for.
With a positive attitude like yours, it seems like something I would want to know about.
It was such a sad experience- while helping out with the customer side I was wading through emails _begging_ to cancel their subscription. Some people were closing their bank accounts to do that, because the founders intentionally introduced dark patterns to hide the unsubscribe functionality.
I mean yeah they did get a fair amount of money from those schemes, but they did loose all of their senior devs in the process.
I personally don't think routine cancellation policy should even be up to the business. Deliberately preventing customers from cancelling a subscription that they are entitled to cancel, or making it unreasonably difficult or intimidating to do so, should be grounds for legal or regulatory intervention to protect consumer rights.
A basic rule along the lines that subscription services must provide a means of cancelling that would normally be no more demanding than the means of starting the same subscription seems fair to me.
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.
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.
* Subscriptions are for one year at a time, and have transparently indicated pricing. No "$2.71 per day, charged annually", no hidden tips, taxes or convenience fees.
* If you don't use the app for a few months, they auto-extend your subscription by an extra month as a courtesy.
* When your annual subscription is about to expire, they send a reminder a few weeks and another a few days before the expiration. If you don't renew, you get a final "Sorry to see you go, here's how to reactivate for $annual_price, if you don't renew we'll delete your stored data in a few months" email.
This is how subscriptions should work. They send an appropriate amount of notification at a good schedule to make sure you don't accidentally forget to renew, and don't pester you to death if you don't.
Imagine if you had to go through this exhausting process in your personal life. After half an hour since asking your spouse to help with the dishes, your spouse finally says “now that we realize using paper plates will solve your problem of dirty dishes, is there anything else I can help you with?”
We wouldn’t tolerate that in our personal life so why do we in business? After all, corporations are people...
Reminds me of the quote “Being well adjusted to a sick society is not a measure of health”
Well, which one is it? /j
This mixture of trying to help the consumer to boost your image and sabotaging your own consumer-friendly process to drive up revenue is what late-stage capitalism is all about.
You're right that the cyberpunk genre lacks a sufficient dose of this kind of absurdity. I think that derives in large part from its original popularizers - I'm thinking here of Gibson and Stephenson, in particular - being in such deadly earnest about everything. Gibson especially, being a literary author trafficking in genre, I think could fairly be blamed for this; Stephenson at least attempted a sense of humor in his most significant work, and sometimes even succeeded, but in his case I think it's more a flaw of worldbuilding in that the mechanisms of transition from the America of his present, to the micro-balkanized future he depicted, were insufficiently fleshed out and thus failed to capture the mounting absurdity of daily life that any such transition I think necessarily entails.
Perhaps that's a touch presentist of me, in the case of Snow Crash at least; after all, it was written in far less absurd days than these. Nonetheless, I think most who've followed have felt to some degree bound to emulate - not all, though; for example, the brilliant cyberpunk film The Fifth Element does spend deliberate effort to successfully, if briefly, depict the absurdity of life in such a dispensation.
Would that more works in the genre did the same, and in general that they would more broadly update their extrapolation of possible futures to look ahead from today, instead of from thirty or forty years ago. But that kind of work is very hard, so maybe it's not too much a surprise to see it done so rarely.
In any case, I haven't watched either film in far too long. I should really remedy that soon!
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.
Cyberpunk stories tend to focus on the "consumer-hostile" part, whereas I think the superposition of the two and the permanent conflict between them is way more interesting.
(For instance, you almost never see review systems or consumer watchdogs in cyberpunk stories)
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 support requests, while they won't do a thing about their broken payment process.
How much more could I do (note that Netflix CS replies to the other person's reply in that thread): https://twitter.com/dorfsmay/status/1315402870661902336
Clearly, Tech (at least for payment processing), Marketing and Customer Services don't talk to each other.
...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.
I’m not sure I’m ready to chalk it up to nefarious motives. But it is quite suspicious.
The email I received was "We’ve detected a suspicious sign-in to your Netflix account. Just to be safe we've reset your password and you’ll need to set a new one." with a button to "Set a new password".
It didn't mention any IP or geolocation as many other services say in such cases.
Do you live in the US? GDPR does not apply to US companies serving US citizens. If you live in the EU, you might need to request account deletion, I think GDPR doesn't require that data is deleted, it gives Europeans the right to have their data deleted upon request. (I've read the entire code before but I don't remember the details on this point.)
GDPR also requires you to be able to cancel by the same way you signed up, so any company that doesn’t let you cancel online is in flagrant violation.
NYT is a US company serving a US locale by it's very name. GDPR doesn't even automatically apply to European NYT subscribers, unless the NYT advertises directly to Europeans, or does EU business with EU offices*. The GDPR law is clear about this point, it is a protection for EU citizens regarding web sites and businesses that are focused on, directed and targeted toward EU citizens. It does not apply to interactions outside of the EU (aside from EU travelers visiting EU web sites), and it does not apply to web sites that originate outside the EU and are global that just happen to have visitors from the EU.
* The NYT might be advertising in the EU, I don't know. If it does, I'd be willing to bet that EU citizens are given an online mechanism to cancel, even though US citizens aren't...
It definitely does have UK specific ads, I’ve seen them, and GDPR is grandfathered into UK law.
I cancelled mine by cancelling the PayPal, there was no other way to cancel without phoning them. There is no online cancellation even for those in GDPR jurisdictions.
Apparently someone from Netflix read my comments here and deactivated the account completely. :P Thanks! Sorry if I spoiled your clever marketing strategy but I think sending a fake "suspicious login" email and keeping cancelled accounts for 10 months is just not right.
Either way, I agree with you that this is not right.
Using it with an adjective to clarify the meaning here is fine.
I am obviously not an authoritative source on how words are understood, but just wanted to add this data point.
In our college house, we’d always run these rackets and get free plane tickets, CDs, tickets, etc. The phone companies were even better. At peak, we’d farm $300-600 a semester for switching long distance.
[0]https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1998-08-27-98082605...
The “loophole” on the consumer side was that of you lived with 5 roommates, you’d transfer the phone service every couple of months and then switch the long distance plans with a legit company like AT&T, Sprint, etc.
There was a period of time in the 90s where you would get a check or credit for switching... as much as $200-300! Long distance costs were in free fall and telcos were swimming in cash, so they decided to buy market share.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/media/new-york-t...
I don't know. Ask Amazon[1] I guess?
My point is that it's wrong to attribute this to a "fragile" business model. It's just plain, old greed and contempt for the customer.
[1] https://www.techtimes.com/articles/255977/20210114/amazon-pr...
If it doesn't, trying to repair that damage could be an exercise in futility. :/
P.S. there probably going to get a lot of people "going to prison" in the future so the scripts will include questions to out the fakers, who want to cancel without trouble.
> Me to retention person: Hi, I just switched to AT&T Fiber and I'm up and running, so I want to get rid of my Comcast internet.
> Rentention person: Is this the sort of sitation where you would move your Comcast internet to a new location?
> Me: No.
> Rentention person: Ohh, well in that case, I'll go ahead and cancel you're account. Ok done now.
Literally a 4 minute phone call including automated prompts.
I had to cancel the plan and have my "roommate" (actually my wife), start as a new customer to get an internet only plan.
At some point they sent a debt collection agency, that was much less stressful than it sounds. They called me up, "you owe $telco money", "No I don't", "oh?", "Yes, I have complete documentation of cancelling it, but their CS reps kept hanging up. Sorry, you've been had.", "Oh, this again. Sorry to have bothered you.", never heard from the debt collection agency again.
Very hard to close the account, even in person. My point was to make sure that there is no recurring payments left on the account.
Similar bullshit. You ask to close the account, and they keep asking you back with a square face.
In the end, a year after I left Canada, I get a call from collectors saying that they have $600+ debt+penalties+interest on my allegedly closed credit card from a service the bank added itself, and that they set my credit score to zero.
Then I found that TD subscribed me on some bullshit "credit alert" right in the month when I asked for account closure.
An immediate WTF was how in the world my credit card was still active. In than latter came out that TD does not let people really close their CC accounts, only "stop them," which only amounts to just hiding you CC from web UI, and that you need specifically say that you want to "really close" the account, which I did. So, next time, if will ever set my foot in the country, I will need to ask them to "really, really, really close my account"
Ameritrade is owned by Charles Schwab now with TD having a minority stake in Schwab. Before that TD had a 40% stake in Ameritrade.
(source: Dave Ramsey's mentioned that in many of his radio shows/podcast episodes)
I already had them for Internet access, but had DirecTV at the time for my TV.
They must have a quarterly quota to upsell to their subscriber base, so I'd get a call like clockwork every three months, pushing a cable TV package. Each time I'd tell them that the only reason I'm with DirecTV is because of Sunday Ticket (NFL package; exclusive to DTV). That always worked, until one day.
This sales rep responds with, "We have Redzone". I reply that it's not the same, and I really need the package I have with DTV. Then he says, "You know there are websites that stream all the games for free, right? Why not do that?"
Yeah, basically telling me to pirate the games.
... "That's a good point! Hell, I don't need any TV service at all then, right?"
The answer? was a streaming box. I expect to see a monthly rental fee for the streaming box...
It keeps companies in line.
The only disadvantage is that you would probably have to give that company your billing information for that to work.
I'd bet that a small percentage of cancellation requests are waylaid by these sorts of underhanded tactics. Even if the success rate is low, it's still not zero.
It is such a scummy tactic. I tell everyone not to subscribe to NYT just based on that experience.
I replied to them no less than 5 times, each time pointing out that (a) I don't have time for phone calls (b) their terms and conditions permits cancelling by e-mail.
Another way is to notify them once by e-mail to end your subscription per [insert T&C clause and citation] and just stop paying. If they don't get payment they'll stop anyway, and if they come chasing after you, you have the notification you sent.
In my case: 1) First I had a rough time cancelling my account _in person_ at a T-mobile store. The remote T-mobile employees in charge of cancellation kept hanging up on the T-mobile employees calling them from the store because cancellations are bad. This was so normal to the local T-mobile employees it was laughable to them. 2) T-mobile never cancelled my account - they suspended it...and didn't tell me! They reopened it 6 months later, charged me for a few months w/o notifying me, then sent the unpaid dues to a local debt collector. I only found out after being contacted by a debt collection agency.
I was able to get both T-mobile and the collection agency they work with to "look into it", but I could not get a direct answer from T-mobile about how to fix the situation after multiple calls to them, and the collection agency relied on T-mobile to strike the debt clean.
Bob Ferguson is the attorney general for Washington where T-mobile's HQ is. Bob is THE man in case you were wondering. After filing a complaint to his office, which was then forwarded to T-mobile, I heard back from someone at T-mobile specializing in these situations in a week's time and was informed the situation was fixed and the debt was removed from my credit report.
A few months later I got a collections notice for $500 from t-mobile, went to a t-mobile store, said that my account looked weird, and they had recorded me as not owning my phone, despite a clear account history that I paid full price for the phone and didn't owe anything.
Still get collection notices, but it's now over 7 years, and my credit card recovered by some 70 points or so when it aged out.
I actually found the NYT cancellation process to be relatively painless to be honest. That’s how accustomed I am to painful cancellation experiences.
A letter to the regulators, though, a few days later I got a call from a much more friendly person who made it work like it should have. It's amazing how much better companies behave when the regulators come calling.
Yes, because it actually does work. If you need proof, just call up one of these companies and say "I am cancelling because your service is too expensive." Odds are decent that you will get some type of promo offer to keep you. If there is any competition in your area for internet/cable and you have never done this, you are wasting money.
OP could have also had any number of other problems that could have been solved by these retention specialists. Basically they are doing the equivalent of an IT person asking if you have turned it off and back on again. That might be frustrating for the type of people who read HN and know better, but the reason they ask it is because there are legitimately issues that can be solved by this extremely basic level of support.
However much annoying these processes are (I had to suffer an identical Financial Times cancellation process last week) They know how much it costs to take cancelling users through an account specialist and presumably they get enough people to continue subscription to make it worth while.
A continuing paying customer now is worth far more than someone who may subscribe again in the future. And even if you're sick of their cancellation process, if you want to read NY Times news again you'll signup.
Thousands of Americans Waste $348 a Year on Subscriptions They’re Not Using [0]
It makes perfect sense to have a 'shield' that will minimize the 'quitters'. And this article focuses on streaming services only.
People who want to leave a service are probably NOT coming back. So an effort to keep vs lose forever has little downside.
https://www.gobankingrates.com/saving-money/budgeting/americ...
Edit/addition: regarding your ".. I wonder if this isn't a profitable practice though." Well they keep doing it, so.. at some point they ran the numbers and they saw it is better for them. Perhaps in 10y this may change, we will notice by the change of corporate practices. Profit will determine this.
My guess is there are a lot of potential subscribers reading stories like this and deciding not to bother with a subscription.
I think the primary feature is limiting the damage of a compromise.
It sounds great to also use this as a way for the customer to cancel service with an unwilling company, but I think in practice they may come after you with a collection agency.
"Mr. Freidman, who was partners with Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, disclosed the plan in a 2012 speech at Yeshiva University. "
Apart from that, they're great.
They are WILDLY successful. Their operating profit jumped 28% last year and literally are blowing away the competition in overall subscriber numbers and growth. It's really not even close
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/media/new-york-t...
So to answer your question, yes, it probably does reduce churn, if only slightly. Is there an occasional person who goes to try and cancel, runs into this byzantine process and then says, ah fuck it, I'll just stay subscribed so they don't have to deal with this bullshit? Yes, but probably only infrequently.
Instead, it infuriates all the rest who DO go thru the byzantine process and add more frustrating to whatever reason they were already intent on canceling from in the first place, as was demonstrated in this OP's chat transcript.
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 print and digital).
But the NYT has drifted too far down the path of politically-correct fashions, and away from robust debate and discussion of challenging topics and how they intersect with real events.
It feels more like they want to persuade me to hold a set of opinions (which shifts rapidly), rather than informing me and letting me form my own. "Persuade" is even the wrong word; more like "pressure" or "coerce". If it's all ads, so be it; but when I pay, I expect that I am the customer and not the product. So I don't pay as of the end of my billing cycle.
Also, the NYT cheers on, and even participates in bullying. Scott Alexander being a recent example, but there are a lot more when it comes to politically-charged topics.
I should reiterate that this is not a right-left thing. I would have remained subscribed if the NYT had simply drifted left, and concerned itself mainly with arguments betweed various left-of-center factions. Lots of worthwhile things to discuss and debate there, and lots of events to tie it to.
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 of what selectively gets ignored or hidden.
Huh?
There was recently an attempted insurrection based on fake news, you know.
I must say though that Fox News has gotten downright rational (on all things) since then. Politically biased, sure, but they're actually news lately.
If anything that’s all the more reason to be very mindful of the same effect occurring in other media publications.
It shows a strong assumption that while that commenter is able to see the difference between bias and misinformation, the left cannot. And I don't buy it.
Neither people who watch Fox News nor people who watch NBC News buy it hook line and sinker.
So considering there was an attempted coup, and that many people still believe the election was rigged and that trump will come back in power (arresting biden) in the beginning of March doesn't exactly speak well for the "especially on the left".
And it’s totally true when you’re countering the real charlatans of the right like Tom Cotton or Ted Cruz (to focus on American politics) But not a valid blanket statement whatsoever.
The implied reverse therefore would be that it's easier for people on the right to see bias in the media. Not that the right dont have bias.
Yeah, that's also what I read. And as evidence to the contrary I pointed out that some people had their world view changed so much that they tried to overthrow the government.
Which tells me that they didn't see the agenda they were being pushed.
Which contradicts the comment's point.
Note that in no way do I disagree that the left has a problem too.
As in, both sides are equally bad for similar but different reasons but we only hear about a singular event that some whack jobs on the far right pulled off. Compare to my local media as an example which buried the story about the violence around a "citizen" road block until a seven year old was murdered as her family tried to go past. Even then it was buried with stories of police violence or right wing threats.
No, those of us who lean to the right know the nut jobs and there that line begins but there where that line is for my left leaning friends is beyond me to understand.
Really?
I would invite you to foxnews.com. As an example for the last week the front page has been plasted with Cuomo.
And CHAZ? A complete disaster that was absolutely not a secret.
You say that the line is clear on the right, but I think it's just that it's clear to you. The fake news that the election was stolen is actually mainstream, on the right. Trump had some ordinary people injest bleach, you don't think many more believed the other lies?
Do you think most people on the left supported the 2020 summer riots? Or defund the police? Even polling of black people had a huge majority against that nonsense. Some do. But then some on the right think Biden's about to be arrested when trump returns with the military in two weeks.
My point is that "especially on the left" has no connection in reality. "Also on the left" does.
I've noticed that national news outlets in the US tend to be better when their preferred party is in power and worse when the opposition is in power. I suspect it's because in the latter case the news outlets slant all of their coverage towards negativity and discrediting the opposition.
I thought CNN was much more tolerable during the Obama administration, but watching them over the last few years has consistently left my frustrated. Meanwhile, the reverse has been true for Fox News. That said, I don't consume much from either outlet.
But yes, they were bananas under obama too.
The comment doesn't say anything about people on the right being immune to it (and I would suspect there's a similar effect there in reverse, for eg Fox News).
I don't see misbehavior on the right as a justification for lazy, manipulative groupthink by the NYT, or outright bullying. Especially when they are clearly capable of good reporting.
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 argument against from any stand point that isn't pure capitalist greed.
Not saying that's a bad thing, but I think it would qualify as left-wing in most countries.
Agreed about social safety nets and most other policies. Sometimes it feels Americans don't realize how uniquely chaotic and inefficient their system is, compared to every other western country. The healthcare system in particular.
An increase in the minimum wage will help a little, but having affordable health care works help more.
Australia's minimum wage for people over 21 is over $15 USD for full time work, and over $19 USD for part time (you receive a 25% casual loading rate increase for part time work). [1] That comes out to about 70% of their GDP per capita (working 38 hours per week, 50 weeks a year). The US going to $15 an hour would only be 43% of GDP per capita. If the US paid its minimum wage workers according to our actual economic output per person, our minimum wage would be $24 an hour, to match Australia. I wouldn’t really call $15 an hour radical.
[1] https://blog.aigroup.com.au/australia-had-the-highest-minimu...
By 2025, and only for Federal workers. The small print in that promise that only came out after the election.
Moral/Immoral?
Right/Wrong?
Fair/Unfair?
If we can agree on judging policies, platforms, ideologies and beliefs on a shared set of criteria, then we can move forward, otherwise we're just shouting at each-other.
You can tell me all day long that it's fair for me to get my stuff taken away without my consent by an entity because I got born within it's "borders"; but that won't make it fair for me within my moral framework, irrespective of how much I deplore the suffering of the poor and unfortunate and want to help them.
> in my opinion it's artificially solidified their confidence on how "correct" they feel they are about political topics.
I was wondering what topics these were.
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?
But abortion funding is not the domain of the federal government and there is not much reason for it to be. There are plenty of private citizens who are pro choice and could fund abortion subsidies. It would probably be easier to do that than fight a political battle over it, which also costs money.
A government should govern the people that are actually here, not who you wish were here. Maybe in some places nobody minds abortion, but the US is not one of those places. So, we've got to respect those tens of millions of people at least enough to not spend their money on abortion.
If we should respect the views of tens of millions of people in one area, we should do it in another. If we think that life is sacred and we shouldn’t spend federal money to end it, let’s be consistent.
there are significant gaps in funding for these services, especially in underprivileged areas.
Would you support increasing WIC and other benefits for these children? Because if not, this policy decision would increase the number of people who grow up hungry.
The obvious answer is of course that health care is a public service and should not be reliant on charitable organizations, which would be absolutely ridiculous. (Yes reproductive care is health care, arguments made from personal feelings or believes are not a worthy retort against medical scientific consensus)
I'm not american but reading NYT during the elections, I was astonished by how much NYT was blaming Trump for everything, and never say anything positive about him. Now I treat newspapers as propaganda.
I actually stopped reading any news at all except bloomberg a month ago and can't be happier.
The guy was calling the whole thing a hoax, I don't know what credit he should get for anything.
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?
I wonder who it is referring people to HN for this purpose.
I am currently struggling to come up with something about Trump that's not mostly negative. Maybe his honesty in the Woodward calls? That's stretching it a bit, and only highlights how dishonest he's been in public. His response to Covid and natural disasters? So bad it better be incompetence rather than malice. His refusal to clearly distance himself from hate groups? His refusal to pay his own lawyers? Trump University and all the other scams?
No, I'm lost, I might be missing something. Please explain what Trump did well that isn't considered morally questionable.
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?
My sense is many (most?) of the commenters here are off-put by the latter category.
Edit: the reference to Krugman as significantly “left” just registered, and I don’t think that’s what people are referring to —- or even that most of NYT’s new guard would consider Krugman to be a leftist
The NYT’s views on race relations are so far from normal Europeans that Macron called them an existential threat to France.
I had heard horror stories about needing to call customer service, but they must have heard those complaints, because now their unsubscribe process is a simple form.
I'm sure they mean well, and hopefully their journalism department also has an ear to the ground. It'd be nice if they returned to centrist investigative journalism soon.
If I recall correctly both predict the collapse of France, like clockwork, every few years (especially because French policies are slightly more socialist and both publications are super business).
And of course, both look down on non-Anglosphere countries, in general :-)
I don't know where you get that from. Any examples?
> You have to be aware of their biases, though.
A point of view is not a bias. The Economist was founded as a pro-market liberal (classically liberal) publication. A Marxist would consider that a bias I guess?
I think it's a mostly respectable magazine with a high degree of journalistic integrity (e.g. the recent High Court case). They have some fantastic contributors. Like any publication there are some that are a bit "out there" for my tastes, Delingpole comes to mind, but they pale in comparison to some of the opinion pieces the Guardian publishes. But because of its mild association with the word "right", I know many of my peers would be unpalatable.
It's definitely right-of-center and doesn't mind cocking a snook at left-wing holy cows, but it's not a "reactionary troll factory".
I haven't said the Guardian or NYT is better.
It's not "disagreement" -- they regularly publish easily checkable objectively false information.
Magazines publishing centre-right views are fine. But if what you are seeking is a news publication that doesn't push a particular agenda, then The Spectator is pretty much as far away from it as you can get outside of Pravda.
You're right, of course, that it publishes some mild centre-right commentators with uncontroversial conservative views. That doesn't really compensate, in my view, for the provision of space to writers like Liddle and Young. These particular people are reactionary trolls; their writing contains little other than disinformation deliberately intended to stoke culture-war nonsense, and they're too smart to believe what they write. This stuff does little more than make society worse for everyone.
But I'd say regardless of your views on individual commentators or the overall quality of the publication – if someone wants to avoid the NYT because it is campaigning too much, then directing them to The Spectator is laughable.
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.
Watching this thread for suggestions. I'm thinking international, as foreign outlets will be less susceptible to American fashions.
I guess people try to be polite and come up with a reason for cancelling their subscription, and this reason could be solved by customer support. It is not being polite to try to please Tony from customer support, he is just doing his job and does not care about polite reasons for cancelling, his job is that you do not cancel. It is important to know what you *really* want before contacting them (or any other company), in case they use this kind of trick to confuse you.
You would have a better analogy if you used "socialism" rather than "communism".
It's all relative. From a communist perspective, most of Europe is a laissez faire free market. Private control of the press!? Hah!
From Europe's mildly-socialist perspective, America is a laissez faire free market. Private control of healthcare and education!? Hah!
I'm not making value judgements. Just pointing out its a spectrum.
That’s because you’re using the term incorrectly: right-wing authoritarian states were just as perilous for those who disagreed – imagine being a left-wing business owner under Hitler or Pinochet! You’d much prefer living in “left-wing” Sweden unless you were very right-wing.
The mistake is trying to use a single term to compare multidimensional properties. The degree to which power is centralized in the state is independent from economic and social policies, and you can find examples of many combinations depending on which characteristics you’re interested in (for example, the Soviet Union was good for the perspective of opening career paths for women and terrible for gay rights while Nazi Germany was bad at both, and no single term comparison is going to cover that).
Is this true, though? With full socialism isn't control supposed to be pooled by citizens? If anything, it's more akin to libertarianism, just that instead of citizens self-organizing in groups to manage bits and pieces they self-organize in groups managing everything.
And Africa has about triple the population of Europe. So what makes Europe the default point of comparison? (More reporters having done a semester abroad at Barcelona than Lagos is not a valid answer.) Heck why restrict ourselves to the present? How about by the standards of all of human history? Even Fox News would be left wing in 1750.
The simple answer is that it’s very dumb to arbitrarily compare against a different society, with a different history and different culture. American institutions should benchmark on American mores, not grasp at politics from entirely different continents.
In the US, "left" tends to be centered around social and cultural issues, such as racism, sexism, immigrant rights, abortion rights, affirmative action, or increasingly things like white privilege - what is sometimes derisively called identity politics.
In Europe, "left" tends to be centered around the economic sense of the term, that is, socialism, communism, redistribution of wealth, social safety nets, etc.
By US standards, many European politicians are on the far right because of their social and cultural views. By European standards, most US politicians are on the right or even far right because of their economic views, whereas they're to a European perspective absolutely extreme on the social politics scale.
In general, while they're handy for bandying about in a very general sense, I don't think political axes between countries can be compared in a very meaningful way. There are all kinds of bizarre mismatches even in the same domains - for example, the VAT would be considered a very regressive tax favored only by the more extreme libertarian-conservative types in the US, but it's hardly seen that way in Europe.
It means something different to you. The US is a big country, and your understanding of the left is pretty shallow and certainly doesn't speak for the whole country.
That you say the left is centered on ID politics is evidence that you're out of touch with leftist politics. I would venture to say because there's not a loud leftist voice in the mainstream media.
Although I am leery of placing myself on a political axis for the same reason, I think most people would consider me a leftist. Certainly they would think so based on my voting record, with a couple of exceptions.
Firstly, it may be - and I think is probably - the case that the average self-described liberal or independent in the US does not prioritize most culture war issues, or identity politics issues. They might instead be more concerned about conventionally leftist economic policies, like raising the minimum wage or improving safety nets.
But that's not, by-and-large, what political campaigns, politicians, or the news media focuses on. Cultural issues and (increasingly) identity politics surrounding specific issues take up an immense amount of bandwidth in the US to a degree they do not in Europe - or if an analogous issue does, the battle lines are drawn and the conversation is framed in a totally different way. Even issues that are the 'same' are often downstream of US politics.
I don't think this is an argument that there's no loud leftist voice in the mainstream media. That is maybe true, in the conventional sense. But it's not because the media is conservative or reactionary in some sense - there's a similar problem on the right; if anything, this was strongly illustrated by Trump's success - Trump brought to the forefront issues like immigration restriction that had wide support among the voting base but very weak to no support in the conservative political and media establishment. It's because the "leftists" who are actually in power, and control large 'leftist' institutions, care more about identity politics and culture war issues than they do about conventional leftist economic policies. US politics on both sides is charged along different lines than in other countries.
There's no doubt similar phenomena in Europe - it's not as though politics as represented by politicians and in the news accurately reflects the desires of the people there, either. Nor is Europe a unified block either, so we're being a little sloppy. But this is still a substantial difference.
At any rate, there's still other issues I mentioned like VAT - VAT would never fly in the US even if the "left" took complete power because liberals would consider it horrifically regressive!
The problem is they are treating politics like fashion, where it's super specific and constantly changing. And they are bullying (or cheering it on, at least) anyone who doesn't conform.
Whether these specific fashions they promote are "left" or "right" or "center" was immaterial to my decision to cancel.
The NY Times promoted an extremely suspect hypothesis about the American Revolution (that it was fought in order to preserve slavery - there's essentially no evidence for this hypothesis), and got push-back from some of the top historians of the US. The NY Times' response was essentially, "You're wrong, and we're not changing anything." Then the NY Times' own fact checker published an article in Politico pointing out that she had warned the NY Times not to claim the revolution was fought in order to preserve slavery, but that the NY Times had ignored her. That finally prompted the NY Times to issue a slight modification of their claim ("some" of the colonists fought to preserve slavery - which colonists is completely unclear, but at least the updated statement is so vague that it can't be disproven).
All around, it was clear that the NY Times had an agenda to push, and they didn't care if historians disagreed. That didn't stop the 1619 Project from winning a Pulitzer, though!
Not saying if that's the right thing to do or not but personally it's not something I'd ever pay for.
It's a little amusing to see liberals trying to describe this for the first time. Harper's is unequivocally further left than NYT. It's also less grating.
To me, that's because the "left-ish" bias of NYT takes the form of telling the reader to be afraid of certain people or groups of people, whether it's Tom Cotton who wants to "send in the troops" or some little-known blogger. Which stands in direct contradiction to the ideals of what most people think of as leftism.
Bias is tolerable and probably inevitable; a politics of fearmongering is not.
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.
To quote the link you posted:
>"Racial and ethnic groups are designated by proper nouns and are capitalized. Therefore, use “Black” and “White” instead of “black” and “white” (do not use colors to refer to other human groups; doing so is considered pejorative)."
However, the NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/05/insider/capitalized-black...
>"The Times also looked at whether to capitalize white and brown in reference to race, but both will remain lowercase. Brown has generally been used to describe a wide range of cultures, Mr. Baquet and Mr. Corbett said in their memo to staff. As a result, its meaning can be unclear to readers; white doesn’t represent a shared culture and history in the way Black does, and also has long been capitalized by hate groups."
Edit. Side note. Maybe I should write to the NYT and tell them I'm a White African and they're not representing my cultural and historical identity!
First article had 12 paragraphs, and a grand total of 12 sentences. 7 of those are quotes/paraphrases of what people said/claimed. Oh and the page had 20 ad images.
60% of the article is "s/he said X". The remaining 40% are low-fat versions of something one can find on Wikipedia.
Another one:
10 paragraphs, 11 sentences. 5 are quotes/paraphrases. 15 (fifteen) ad images!
That is not journalism, that's Twitter with extra steps, masquerading as news. At this point, if I didn't know any better, I'd call Reuters a glorified ad farm!
> I should reiterate that this is not a right-left thing.
This very likely is a right-left thing:
* The NYT systematically avoided the term "torture" in everything except op-eds when describing the Bush admin's post-911 torture program[1]
It's difficult to think of a more dastardly use of political correctness than a newspaper employing a euphemism for torture that effectively softens the blow in their stories about a government torture program.
Obviously if you knew about this but still subscribed to NYT anyway while now unsubscribing for problems wrt left-thing political correctness, that's a "right-left thing." (And however bad we both agree their left-thing political correctness problem is, it can't possibly be worse than systematically dressing up torture.)
But even if you didn't know about it, it's still the same problem. At best your comment makes it seem like NYT gave in to its long-standing penchant for left-leaning fashions, and that ended up actually damaging its ability to do robust reporting. That interpretation makes a special case of the entire Keller period when the most important stories were scuttled in deference to the Bush administration. That period includes refusing repeatedly to run some of the most impactful stories-- like Jim Risen's on the Bush-Cheney domestic spying program-- because the government told them not to[2]. That period is in major "never forget" territory wrt to journalistic integrity.
Edits: clarifications
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/ju...
[2] https://theintercept.com/2018/01/03/my-life-as-a-new-york-ti...
Giving into left-leaning fashions is bad not because of the "left-leaning" part; its bad because of the "fashions" part. It's lazy groupthink at best, and bullying people into conformity at worst.
Have you noticed how narrow and specific all of the rules for reporting have become? Do you honestly believe that leftism is defined by these narrow rules, many of which are changing rapidly?
No. Most left-leaning people don't believe this stuff (how could a normal person even change their beliefs from one day to the next?). They go along with it because either they are too scared of getting bullied themselves; or because it's mostly hurting the right, and they believe they can regain control of the discourse after the right is diminished.
But it's easy to destroy good discourse and hard to rebuild it. After the right gets marginalized, we won't go to open-minded chats over coffee among left-leaning folks. It will be these same horrible tactics over the most minor differences of opinion on the left. Proponents of socialized medicine will be doxxing proponents of Medicare for all. There will be no end to the ridiculousness.
> But I can no longer do the work that you brought me here to do—the work that Adolph Ochs described in that famous 1896 statement: “to make of the columns of The New York Times a forum for the consideration of all questions of public importance, and to that end to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.”
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 messaged support asking them to not renew my subscription, and told them that the paper always arrived late. They responded back that they were going to give me a free subscription until they could figure out the paper delivery. I should have held firm and cancelled, but it seemed lke they were trying to provide good customer service.
Nothing changed with delivery, and I followed up a few times to see what was going on. I was told they were looking into it.
One day, out of the blue, I received a large bill from them. I called to see what was going on and I was told that my trial was up and since I hadn’t cancelled that it had renewed. A proceeded to tell the about my problems with delivery and that customer service was supposedly working on fixing the problem and not charging me until they could. The person on the phone told me that that’s not possible since they don’t provide same-day delivery to my address. I recounted exactly what had happened, and they basically told me I was a liar, and would not refund the charge because the user agreement says they don’t have to, even though I called within a few hours of the new charge and subscription renewal.
The part that really stung was that I was a PhD student and could get an entire year for less than what they charged me for a month. I’ve never had a company treat me so poorly before.
First time i bought it via Amazon Prime, when it was available and with Amazon i could cancel stuff directly via Amazon at any time, bypassing WSJ minefields.
Then WSJ got smart and start selling it directly in hope to force subscribers to go through their sales jerks in case they want to cancel.
This made me to turn away from WSJ for good.
https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-unsubscribe-easily-from-WSJ-o...
They are actively trying to scam me. Why would I want to be a "customer"?
and with a new subscription to the economist. tried to cancel a few months ago, mostly because i didn’t like how they would charge my card without warning or an invoice. it was all just super stealth. worst part was you couldn’t cancel online, you were supposed to call. but you couldn’t call either because their phone staff wasn’t working due to covid. so convenient for them. had to file a formal dispute with my card. also, never again.
ironically both free market publications. may the free market flush these awful, consumer hostile companies down the toilet.
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.
Maybe it's just what I was used to, but I think it's far more annoying in many European countries (not sure about the UK but at least the one I live in) where it's harder to return products without specific proof and following strict guidelines, virtually impossible to get a credit or debit card that covers all fees for normal international use, difficult to get a fraud or improper charge on a card statement immediately rescinded, etc.
I'm not sure how exactly it compares, but every credit card at least in my lifetime in the US has been bound by these same protections.
> What kind of cover for fees for international use are you talking about?
Sorry, this is more of a tangent that I should have denoted, as it's not specifically related to fraud or consumer rights. At least compared to the major European and Asian countries in which I've traveled or lived in, credit card and bank/debit card offerings in the US are extremely generous in benefits, rewards, fees, etc. I actually still sometimes use my US card in a European country because my US bank offers lower fees than my domestic bank (in the home country) for ATMs, currency exchange, card replacements, etc.
> Speaking from Australia, we have outstanding customer protection and rights, and no massive hoops or hurdles to go to get it that would be more significant than anything in the US.
I'm honestly not sure how this compares to the US or elsewhere as I've never been to Australia. I'm regularly surprised by how inflexible businesses seem in much of continental Europe, however.
That's true in my experience. It's hard to find a card that doesn't charge ridiculous fees for foreign transactions (even in local currency), for example.
There's the other side of the medal though. Which is that somebody is going to pay for this generosity by the card companies.
Either merchants pay ludicrous fees, which are severely capped in Europe. Or card companies outright rip off the less fortunate members of society by usurious interest rates and fees. Fees, which may be outright criminal[1] if charged in some of the European countries.
[1] That's not hyperbole. For example: Interest rates in Switzerland are capped at 15% annually. If you charge more than that for a loan it's usury, which is part of the criminal code.
I consulted with some lawyers and they told me since I had only done business on the phone (the only way the company does this business by the way) that was essentially my word against the companies. There was no way to email them and even when I did they refused to confirm or deny any account status unless I called them.
That's not to say consumer rights aren't important, I think America could do better, but I certainly do not feel protected in the UK. It's worth noting that the bulk of my exposure to UK based utility companies or government departments has suffered from similar problems, no easy way to paper trail requests made making these kinds of consumer rights ombudsmans worthless.
Keep a record of that and when it comes down to having to make a complaint you can present it to the ombudsman.
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 officials entertain these businesses in visits, allow them to help write legislation, and accept contributions from them, it won't change.
Also, executive agencies have to put out proposals for new rule making and allow a period of public comment. The business in the sector have entire staffs and/or contract with firms whose job it is to watch these publications and craft intelligent responses backed up by fudged data to "prove" how "damaging" these policies would be to the industry.
The individuals who respond are mostly retired people/activist citizens who can only say "this is a bad idea and I don't like it at all."
Probably still better than US, but that's not saying much.
But it was a valuable lesson on looking at the exit strategy for a service before you sign up for it. And I try real hard to only do business with companies that make it as easy to stop spending money with them as it is to start.
Traditionally newspapers didn't make enough money from subscription revenue to cover their costs - advertising is where the money was, payment for subscriptions was nice but a big part of its importance was as an indicator "this person cares enough to pay for this news source" for selling advertising. That hasn't really changed that much.
I don't think they're really factoring in the "angry customer" aspect, however, or they'd stop. They turned me from an ambivalent customer who decided the ROI wasn't there, into an opinionated former customer who is willing to tell friends and family the horror show that will happen if they subscribe and then decide later it isn't for them. It's the opposite of good word-of-mouth advertising, and NYT is going to suffer for it. Even if they change their policy today.
For example you can sign up for recurring paid channels on the Amazon app on Roku, but have to log in on the computer to cancel.
What happens is my 80-year old parents try a week of HBO, Starz, Showtime, Britbox etc. Then can't figure out where they actually signed up. Was it under roku, under amazon, under a new app? What credentials did they use? Then they forget about it and are billed in perpetuity.
Of course, the law is only as good as it's enforced. A few years ago I wanted to cancel a mobile phone subscription and the cancellation procedure said I had to send a letter. Like, an actual letter. lol? I just sent an email quoting the law, and since I didn't get a reply I stopped payments. Never heard from it. I sent a notification to the consumer protection agency, but not sure if they actually did something with it.
Typically if don't pay a bill you'll get a few months to rectify with fees tacked on, then internal collections will happen or it'll be sold to a collection service.
In both cases you'll get letters and eventually if the amount is high enough or the debt other otherwise motivated, a summons for pre trial mediation and then a civil suit.
Which part of Europe are you from?
No problem, right? I'll pay up on the account, re-activate, and work out. Nope, they wanted to charge me a reactivation fee. I said "no" and left. Never paid them another dime.
What a stupid business.
For what it's worth I've never had trouble canceling anything I've subscribed to.
The contract may stipulate that the merchant is free to cancel the subscription if you don't pay for whatever reason (the card expires, the card does not have money, you chose to pay in cash and didn't have a card, whatever). However, the contract can (and usually does) stipulate that the merchant is not required to cancel the subscription in case of non-payment, and in that case the contract is valid, they owe you service and you owe them the contractually agreed payment.
On the other hand, contract law generally would assume that the subscription is cancelled if you sent them an unambiguous request in writing even if their standard process flow (e.g. requiring a phone call with a sales rep convincing you not to quite) wasn't followed - if you've sent a letter than that and stopped paying, that should be appropriate in most circumstances.
If you signed a contract for X amount of months, then I get it, you have to pay, but I always do month to month at the gym, they still make it impossible to cancel.
You probably don't subscribe to things that are hard to cancel!
Cards stop working due to fraud or lost cards all the time. Businesses must accept this as a fact of life. Forcibly dunning is a malicious business practice.
You have made cancelling through English difficult so I am communicating cancellation to you financially.
It’s funny how they listen more to the latter. The only dark pattern they have is credit reporting which has real risks if they cross a line.
Yes we all have a credit score - it's mainly used to measure your ability to borrow and repay debt and will influence whether a company loans to you and the interest rate on said loan.
It's not (yet) as aggressive as the social scoring system in China if that is what you were alluding to...
Do you not have a similar system where you are from? How would the above be decided for you?
Here in Norway you're evaluated/scored based on some metrics like income, job security, job prospects, education, assets, debt, defaulted debt in the past, fixed expenses, etc. I think when Americans talk about "credit score" they talk about something completely different, namely their insane system where your score is (positively) affected by taking on and managing credit card debt. In that fucked up world, two debt-free people with the same income will be "scored" differently if one of them happens to use a CC to buy all his groceries and pays off the card each month, and the other buys the same groceries on debit. Surely you don't have that insanity in the UK, do you?
Banks giving out loans will look at the data behind the score along with a bunch of other factors. It's very possible that if Experian say person A is average and person B is good, a bank may decide to give Person A a better rate on a loan based on different data, or different weighting of the data.
LMAO talk about bias! If anything he's describing the the credit scoring system implemented in the U.S. ...
Debt collectors got in touch years later asking for £50.
I said, "fine, send me a copy of whatever bill I supposedly didn't pay."
They didn't have it. "We don't have any documentation, just pay us."
Escalated to a complaint and they dropped it.
I'd do the same again, but could totally understand why some people wouldn't. YMMV.
how can that leave you with bad credit score if you never gave them your social security ( or equivalent) ?
What part of Europe has credit scores?
Also you can’t just send an collections agency with huge fees, there’s laws against that. At least in the Netherlands
I am in Germany, and basically they do not accept your cancellation via writing to the customer support, but require you to call a callcenter, which is extremly hard to reach (either they do not pick up, or the connection quality is so bad that they don't understand what you're saying). In short, I did not succeed in that.
Rejecting the written cancellation and requiring to call is both borderline illegal, and an insult to the customer. Everyone involved knows that this is a just a maneuver to nudge you to give up on it, and that this requires me to waste vast amounts of my time trying to call a shady callcenter – that is just an insult to me, and it also destroys the NYT brand.
Life's too short to jump through these hoops with abusive corporations.
Deepl translation of the law: Even to the extent that a deviation from the statutory provisions is permissible, the following shall be invalid in general terms and conditions: [...] 13. (Form of notices and declarations) A provision by which notices or statements to be given to the user or to a third party are bound a) to a form more stringent than the written form in a contract for which notarization is required by law; or b) to a form more stringent than textual form in contracts other than those referred to in point (a); or c) to special access requirements
Of course you could try to sue them, very propably even threatening does the job. But the idea is to have a hassle free cancellation process, and a court case is not really my idea of such a thing.
long live strong consumer protection laws
This reads as someone determined to get something juicy they could screenshot, or else someone who was already so annoyed from having to find the cancellation method on the site that they let it cloud their responses to what was a relatively painless process.
A single chat interaction? Not horrible.
That’s not your problem if you want to cancel.
OP chose the chat route, was complaining to the virtual chat bot for a whole page in the screenshot, then presented technical issues as a reason for cancelation - which the human support rep correctly tried to help the customer with, and customer engaged in that discussion, and once OP said they want the subscription canceled regardless (just a few messages later) it got canceled.
If you were to run a business, and a customer tells you the only reason they no longer wish to remain your customer is because of technical issues that you know how to solve, would you just try to help them, or would you ignore it?
Let's say someone disabled javascript in their browser, and your website doesn't work because of it, would you just cancel their subscription or would you offer to help and if they still insist on canceling it then cancel it like the rep in the screenshot did?
For example: "Please tell us the reason for your call today?" Should be met with the answer, "Please cancel my subscription." "May I ask why you want to cancel?" "Please cancel my subscription." "Have you ever used reader mode?" "Please cancel my subscription."
Those writing the script are taking advantage of your aversion to skip social graces when they decide what questions the low-ranking representative will ask you.
The only winning move is not to play. It's not the individual's fault, but neither is it fair on you to play along. Be polite, but direct, and don't play the game.
The script they have doesn't work anymore. If it's designed to make you stay it has backfired in spectacular way.
Even with the system is a simple drop-down I always choose “other” and enter n/a in the comment box.
Period.
I give you money. You give me a service. I stop giving you money. You stop giving me the service.
Its just that goddamn simple.
Very few people actually determined to cancel are going to be convinced by something like this, I suspect. There's a whole cottage industry of mostly older, upper-middle class folks who call customer service lines once a year to get their rebate. I find the whole game rather reprehensible (on the part of the companies that allow it). It constitutes a kind of wealth transfer to the people who have the free time, energy, and ability to play the game. I'd much rather these companies just reduce the price across the board towards the "average" payment, and stick to their guns with the people who call in.
This would eliminate so many hours of pointless work and frustration.
It's price discrimination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
Usually, it's not worth the time to haggle over people to figure out the most they are willing to pay for low margin retail goods, so you don't see it at Walmart or the grocery store. But for high margin goods, such as cars, real estate, B2B sales etc, each buyer has a different amount they are willing to pay, and so you want to try and capture as much of everyone's capacity to pay as possible.
Actually, come to think of it, low margin retail and grocery does it too with coupons and whatnot that some people are willing to spend time on and others are not.
Yes! I was going to mention that this is really a pretty universal feature of "pricing", but decided that was too controversial an angle on what was a rather simple point.
I'm subscribed to NYT and WP to help support journalism; I'm using Samsung's Internet browser which is just great - no ads, easy on the battery, and a dark mode to boot.
Of course, this isn't particularly useful if you signed up via any other channel, but it definitely makes it easier next time around.
Even though I might cancel products, the cancellation isn’t always forever. I’ll gladly go back to companies that treated me well. However, companies that pressure me to stay I typically write off as scummy and won’t go back if the need arises.
I've been witness to a number of cold callers having their heritage and species loudly questioned for using this tactic.
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.
The rep understood but said she couldn’t cancel the account without verifying my identity. I reiterated that I was not the account holder but I literally own the home where it was being delivered. The rep wouldn’t cancel the account. Eventually he suggested putting it on a vacation hold (maximum 6 months) and then repeating the process every time it started coming again.
I wasn't a CSR but my office was next to theirs and what I heard was tragic. The commissioned nature of the CSRs and the penalties they received for cancelations created all sorts of perverse incentives.
I used to listen to reps who would drag out a particular person's cancelation for hours, days or even months. People would beg to cancel their service (usually because they were seniors who couldn't afford it) only to be given endless runaround.
A couple of nasty reps in particular would browbeat the customer for a while but then cancel them and note down the customer's information. Then at the end of the grace window that was built in for people to un-cancel service, they would go in and reactivate the person's subscription.
I'm pretty loathe to sign up for anything with recurring billing these days.
They were talking to this NYT employee after 3 minutes (not too long IMO). The employee wrote in the very first message:
> [...] May I ask why you are canceling?
At that point you should say:
> No. Cancel my subscription.
Then, they'll always give you a counter offer nonetheless:
> Are you sure? We can offer you xyz.
Then you explicitly say that you won't negotiate:
> I won't negotiate. Cancel my subscription.
Maybe they'll give it one more try, but if you don't budge they'll back off. And then, at the end, you write:
> Thank you for helping me, have a nice day!
Because these people don't want to be sleazy. They would get a better job if they could.
Turns out that California SB 313 changed the game https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
Online registration means you need online cancellation.
Actually, reading the bill, only the intro seems to imply that. The text doesn't. Either way, a pre-written email should suffice.
Personally, I stopped trying to write such letters after a couple instances where the recipient company claimed they never received any letter from me.
Then I learned you should always send a letter with a signature to have a proof of reception, which is a bit more expensive. And then one kept charging me anyway, and still claimed the letter didn't reach the right department (after more time spent on the phone with them).
Bottom line is if a company wants to make it difficult for you to leave the relationship with them, there are tons of tricks in the books for that. Therefore I blacklist them after any sign of dishonesty.
To answer the question, this service doesn't exist in any other country I've lived in -- Canada or Japan, in my case.
Even as an American I used to think this, but because I grew up in a large city where all mail collection was from a mail box at the corner of the block. It wasn't until I moved to a sprawling suburb did I have my own mailbox at the end of the driveway and I got to use that little flag thing for the first time.
In Australia, you post something by putting it in a post box, they're located in shopping areas and have specified collection times, usually daily on weekdays.
Of course, you can also go into the post office and deal with a human who will take the postage $ as needed.
These days, the number of times I've posted something can be counted in low single digits per year. Mostly dealing with government forms that need signatures because stupid reasons.
There is doorstep letter and parcel collection for less than a dollar.
The law applies to all companies and publishers with paying customers in the state.
It’s also funny how other publications are jumping on the bandwagon seeing NYT’s model. It’s like they are digging their own grave for long term retention.
Or may be the shitty business tactics work and that’s the future. Just like how expedia pulls off every dark pattern to manipulate you into buying.
I would love to subscribe to the WSJ, but I cannot justify the cost at the moment.
Here is a free workaround for many periodicals. Get a library card. Access ProQuest through the library's website and find the RSS feed for the newspapers you like. Plug it into an RSS reader and get a daily feed of all news stories.
It is not as good as a digital subscription. No images or interactive features. But it is pretty good for $0.
Similarly, most popular magazines are available with a library card through apps like Libby.
It took me 10 minutes on the phone to cancel, and then I received 3 phone calls later that day from the Economist offering me special offers to re-subscribe. I have to admit that I may have answered rather rudely when the third caller asked how I was doing...
So maybe enough people complained, or someone in the subscription department ran across a conscience and tried it on for size.
This was some time back and I've simply cancelled since then, but it was a good little thing to do back then.
From that point onwards I decided I won't subscribe to any service again that doesn't offer PayPal; at least that way I can control my credit cards and only have to worry about PayPal getting compromised as opposed to worrying about twenty different service providers. More so, I won't even purchase anything with a credit card directly if it isn't through a wrapper such as PayPal.
> To: help@nytimes.com
> Hi, please cancel my subscription (account number ...). Thanks and regards.
Answer:
> Hello, ...
> Thank you for contacting The New York Times! I am sorry to hear that you would like to cancel your New York Times subscription today.
> I was able to locate your account under the email ... and I would like to thank you for your support as a Basic Digital subscriber. It is through the support of subscribers like you, that allows us to continue to pursue the truth, as the truth is more important now than ever.
> I was able to see that you are currently on our rate of $4 every 4 weeks for the Basic Digital Access and I would be very happy to help you with 4 weeks free for your subscription then stay at a 73% discounted rate for just $1.00/week for a full year, then returning to a discounted rate of $2.00/week, no commitments!
> By cancelling this subscription, you'll be missing out on unlimited access to all our published articles from 1851 until now; as well as access to exclusive features and Newsletters which are a big time saver as they are sent directly to your email with a summary of your preferred topics and sections such as the Morning Briefing, Arts and much more! Are you sure you would like to give up to these features?
> If you would like to apply for this new promotional rate, do not hesitate to reach us back! If we do not hear from you within the next 7 days, we will go ahead and cancel your subscription.
> As a reminder, you can always view/edit your account information online at myaccount.nytimes.com. If there is anything else we can do to help you, please chat with us at https://myaccount.nytimes.com/seg/cancel, text us at 855-419-6348 or call us at 1-800-NYTIMES (1-800-698-4637) from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday-Friday and 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday & Sunday (ET). Thank you for being the best part of The New York Times and have a fantastic day.
> Best regards, ...
That's it.
Any other company and I'd call them garbage, but the NYT does a lot of good. (Same would go for other top investigative journals that have published a lot of pieces revealing major information to the public.)
Unfortunately this is now a debatable topic. Their headlines have been trending towards the National Enquirer for years.
IMHO, they should crash and burn.
Yes, it sucks, but that’s how the free market works.
If NYT actually relied on these tactics to keep themselves afloat, then I wouldn’t call it “thriving”, simply because these kinds of techniques are not sustainable at all in the long run.
And a common definition of thriving is growing in profitability, for which stock price can often be a good metric. Their stock price gas increased 289% over the last five years.
Other, smaller papers are not doing nearly as well.
Shame too because I love the NYT, but I’m mostly able to scratch that itch with the economist, my local paper, and some smaller news outlets.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nytimes.an...
Thanks for the tip!
Regardless, you should check if your local library has an online subscription.
The re-registration process is annoying, but hey, it's free...
1. Create a virtual credit card for one merchant
2. Set the monthly payment limit just above the merchant's monthly charge
3. When you no longer feel like paying the charge, decrease the limit to $1 a month or just cancel the card.
4. Any future charges will be blocked!
5. Let the merchant's systems go through the hassle of terminating your account.
Can you use a VPN?
I'm not going to fraudulently open an account misstating my residence, that's breaking their ToS - you do promise thet you're a US resident when signing up.
Of course it's their choice who they want to take on as customers. They've been providing the service for ~6 years though, which is really not that new in context.
Is my local ice cream shop DISCRIMINATING by not serving ice cream in Norway and Osaka Japan?
No, they're not discriminating. They just don't have the resources to serve those locations.
I'm enjoying the hell out of Privacy.com. I'll think of you next time I use it!
Great that it works for you, but they won't take most people on the earth as a customer, including me. Even if I would be OK with illegally breaking their terms, my account would be subject to block and ban at any moment.
Completely straightforward, no hassle, no surprises.
It is of course completely unacceptable and dishonest to make it easy to subscribe or upgrade your subscription, but require this procedure to do the opposite, and I’m a lot less likely to ever become a subscriber again. But on the other hand, if you’re spending more than a few minutes in this chat it’s probably because you are engaging with their attempts to keep you subscribed.
Try cancelling the "monthly" Adobe Creative Suite subscription without paying out the remaining 11 months!
I also find that they're usually pretty willing to keep adding new customer promos if you threaten to cancel because their price went up.
The lockin of all my documents and content is enough to run me towards Free and Open Source software. Albeit the software may not be as polished, but I will not be subject to my data being hijacked and ransomed by a for-profit entity.
Poor Antonio too, stuck in the middle between a money-machine and disgruntled users.
I called my mobile phone carrier to cancel and they asked me why. I said "I don't like your TV advertisements". That put a quick end to that line of enquiry.
Answering their questions just makes it take longer. You don't owe them anything.
It’s the gym business model. I’m sure this shows incremental gains in revenue but I bet it’s at the cost of retarding growth.
I want to start and stop a subscription as I please. I want to do it without having to speak to a human being. I don’t want to be called by the provider to renew my subscription.
I will not reward or support scummy retention tactics.
If it saved you a couple of hours on the phone, was legally compliant and protected your credit, and forced the company to stop, and was just "point and shoot," would you use it?
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.
Ideally, the same kind of regulation could be put in place for stopping a service on the internet (like NYT).
Put it this way wouldn't mind buying a national geographic on the iPad but I don't want a subscription for this very reason and it seems like a waste of money paying for something I might not get into.
Thanks for posting
Disclaimer: I created YourDigitalRights.org precisely for this sort of cases. We now send about 500 deletion request a day.
That’s right. They have your credit card forever if you put it in once.
Otherwise, be European :)
If you are American in the living room, what are you in the bathroom? you're-a-peein....
With any luck you credit card will expire before you do :)
They initially refused to issue any refund and eventually gave a prorated one after a long time on the phone. It was a nightmare. (I had subscribed to magazines in the past and they do not autorenew as a rule, I was used to getting "you have 2 issues left! Last issue!" reminders and I thought newspaper was the same). Anyway their "using credit card = opt in to autorenew" was sleazy in my opinion. I certainly will never do business with them again.
Be the binary choice you want to see in the world — copy and paste ad infinitum until they acknowledge, then take a screenshot / save the call recording:
“Thanks, I want to cancel my subscription (Jo Doe jdoe94@gmail account 155234) please acknowledge”
(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 real work. Strange business model!)
When the WSJ rep asked me why I was canceling, one of the reasons I gave was how bad the op-ed section is. A little while ago the news room writers actually put together an open letter complaining about the lack of accuracy in the op-ed section, and also asking for the labeling on the op-eds to be more clear, because it was affecting the news rooms' credibility.
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.
When you tell them you have a problem with distraction, I can’t blame them for offering you a solution.
You rejected their solution but I don’t blame them for offering you one. It is actually a good thing.
If you are intent on canceling, just say so and skip the part where they legitimately try to fix your issue.
That’s no excuse though, ideally we would be able to cancel any service we want through an online form, but in reality that is a pipe dream.
Most companies will take this as a opportunity to make a pass on you with a sales person. And honestly, it is their prerogative to do so I think. Once you’re gone you’re gone. I don’t blame them for attempting to retain your business.
While I don’t blame them, I wish it wasn’t the case.
Any person who lines up in the queue to cancel is just a ‘lead’ for the sales people assigned to this task. And they are sales people. Don’t be fooled and think you’re talking to a customer service agent.
In this case, it was a pretty weak attempt by ‘Antonio’.
https://fredrikdeboer.com/2021/02/15/scott-alexander-is-not-...
Offering discounted or free months is a good sales tactic for them because the cost for them to keep you on is basically zero. Then they hope you will forget/ or lose the motivation to call back in six months to cancel and keep paying.
If you do actually leave, the chances of you coming back are approaching zero as far as they are concerned. Any good sales person will throw you a card just on that slim chance it will generate a commission in the future.
Not if you use a service like Apple Pay or google play. They don’t let companies hold your financial information hostage.
I meant it’s a pipe dream, because many companies will put a lot of effort into paying sales people to try and retain your business. So I wish it was the case, but easy cancelation of a service without getting a talk from the sales department is a rare find.
I always tell them I'm moving out of their service area. Sometimes it's the truth, but if not, they're not going to expect to convince me to move somewhere else, and I'm not going to be able to convince them to start service somewhere they don't cover; although sometimes they do ask for the address. If you're not actually moving, it may help to have a known non-covered area in mind; although I like the upthread suggestion of incarceration.
Maybe people that have an issue with google wants to fix this issue, and a machine is the wrong option for this.
Whereas to cancel a service there’s no reason ever for having to talk with a human?
Incidentally, NYT can make it easy. I'm in Europe and canceled my NYT subscription last week – it was really easy, just a click on my NYT account page.
The process was so abysmal I vowed never to do business with them. It’s a shame.
I dealt with a lot of print companies for some of my business back in the day. The business people would always complain that the editorial boards hated what they did... but then they just replied, “who’s going to pay your salary to write your articles”.
I still think journalism needs a better business model. Ads conflict with honest content, and subscriptions don’t pay the bills when it’s easy to get free news from other less reputable sources.
As many cards as you need
So I send a signed letter via email to the company. I ignore all their forms, procedures, intimidations. If they don't want to accept it, just threaten them with a credit card dispute (which you will win).
I have no idea about the laws in the US though, if that's possible. And yes, it's annoying. But you just need to figure it out once, and use the same standard procedure for any services/subscription.
Anyway, I cancelled my NYT subscription a few months ago and received no push back from the specialist. While this tactic might be something that's expected from management, I don't think everyone is willing to do it... or maybe the specialist I chatted with met their retainment quotas for the month (if that's a thing.).
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)_/¯
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.
I'm a supporter of the guardian, but actually buying NYT or some other high quality journalism I've given up on.
If I feel like I'm getting scammed when I'm buying the product, then I don't want to buy it!
Low introduction price without telling me what the real price is IMO criminal fraud. I might put up with it from an essential service provider because I have no choice, but not from a newspaper vendor.
https://blogs.findlaw.com/common_law/2018/07/what-to-know-ab...
It seems to imply the subscription had to be a "click" affair.
"If the subscription was started online, consumers must be able to cancel it online. No more dealing with fruitless or contentious phone calls with these businesses! One click of a button, and the service is canceled."
(b) A business that makes automatic renewal or continuous service offers shall provide a toll-free telephone number, electronic mail address, a postal address if the seller directly bills the consumer, or another cost-effective, timely, and easy-to-use mechanism for cancellation that shall be described in the acknowledgment specified in paragraph (3) of subdivision (a).
Edit: I do see a later clause that says transactions that start online have to be endable online. But there's no stipulation that it be a simple "click". Even though I think this is scummy, I think they're within the letter of the law.
It should be easy enough to setup a business that sends cancellation letters for you with the proof you need if there are any issues. $10 to cancel your internet. $20 to cancel your NYT subscription!
Even with larger companies like YouTube I 'suspended' my subscription thinking it was suspended indefinitely. It is not.
So they went to work charging again, on the day I tried to contact them about it and wow it was easily a good hour of my time just making sure i cancelled correctly this time.
Then they got back to me a couple weeks later saying they didn't know what payment i was reffering to.
I genuinely just gave up. Which is exactly why its designed that way.
On the payments side, wouldn't be nice if Visa and Mastercard enforced easy-cancel subscription policies and punished businesses who didn't comply?
Wall Street Journal is much worse, where you literally can’t cancel via chat, only phone.
This rep asked why the person the cancelling and suggested an alternative to alleviate their pain points, and when the customer declined they cancelled it anyway. The only thing they could have done better is reading the previous transcript so the customer wasn’t forced to repeat themselves.
I typed 2 x "I want to speak with areal person". regardless of the question of the bot, then NY Times account number. After that, to the real agent I typed "I can't afford the NY Times subscription".
The "it's me not you" approach is perfect in persuasion.
(It wasn't completely straightforward. I did have to search for how to do it -- I wouldn't have found the option otherwise!)
I remember being similarly disgruntled by canceling Prime. Lots of misleading calls-to-action across multiple screens. But something about being forced to talk to a human being really rubbed me the wrong way with the Times.
It is absolutely unacceptable to have to chat to someone in order to cancel your subscription and I lost all my respect for the publication since.
It is very sad to see this is industry-wide.
Of course you may have timing requirements (engagement for X months, or cooldown period, ...) but beside that it is very simple.
Once you cancel the direct debit, the bank is not allowed to send money anymore and it is now a problem between you and the company if they do not get paid.
How about WIX tonedeafness AND stupidity:
offer 1: get "this" and enjoy 10% off.
Next week: get same "this" for 25% off.
The next week: get the same "this" for 50% off.
How would you feel if you bought in week one? Then saw week 2 offer, and realize in week 3 you were just rickrolled by WIX? Tonedeaf idiots...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/business/media/new-york-t...
Maybe HN and other crowd activism will make them change?
Specifically, if you subscribe to the NYT via the app store, unsubscribing is a quick, no-bullshit process. You can even do it from your Apple Watch.
If so, that's known as account updater or card refresher.
https://developer.visa.com/capabilities/vau
https://www.americanexpress.com/us/merchant/cardrefresher.ht...
Note that chargebacks should be a last resort, as if you use it too much, they may just close your account. It may be worth raising the issue with th se subscriptions saying that they should cancel or you will just start issuing chargebacks.
On the contrary, canceling my yearly membership with Barnes and Noble was a breeze.
You can subscribe online but in order to cancel, you need to chat to a human.
It took several attempts by me to tell them I don’t want to change my subscription plan to a cheaper one - I wanted to cancel.
It’s a really bad process for a magazine that considers itself a reputable news source.
Won’t be signing up again.
Initially it sounded like you had to call them or fax your cancellation, so I was already happy when I found the chat option.
It wouldn't surprise me if this actually originated as an EU regulation instead of national law.
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.
It’s certainly easier than canceling Amazon Prime.
Make proof (recording, screenshots, mails, etc.) that you requested them to cancel subscription. I typically record the call and tell them I am recording. Then threaten them with lawsuit if they don't cancel.
Works like a charm.
Because of a California law that says they must.
https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cance...
Takes 5 seconds to cancel , even got a Duolingo refund after 3 months ( duolingos language education is so poor it's borderline malicious) by emailing Duolingo directly.
But, looking at the timestamps, from the point of first message to actually cancelling the subscription was 14 minutes. Not too outrageous?
I've purchased and canceled NYT and other papers several times. One phone call does it.
Where are the account managers gate-keeping NYT subscription to make sure it's really what you want?
Also, the subscription was $15 a month?! Don't remember seeing that number when I was subscribing.
Usually, hitting # like crazy will do that trick.
in fact, they've made it so easy that we've resubscribed plenty. if anything, the netflix model is one to emulate. that being said, we've never tried removing my credit card.
Incidentally they also appear to honor their data deletion policy. If I stay unsubscribed for more than six months, my account ceases to exist and I need to create a new one to resubscribe.
I would have thought Netflix would be the gold standard for how to do this properly. I'm sure they have lots of people like me who subscribe a few months a year just to check out whatever's new. If I ever ran into a problem like this I would never sign up again.
This will teach them a lesson.
https://qbix.com/QBUX/whitepaper.html#DIGITAL-MEDIA-AND-CONT...
If you’re interested to get involved to build this, get in touch via my profile
I just canceled NYT's subscription, and it took two messages. 1. I want to cancel. 2. I don't want your discount.
I’m a strong believer in not paying any bills that don’t make financial sense for me to pay; worst case with enough disputes and drama almost anything can get taken off a credit report.
I think this just beat it.
Info: How can I help you today?
21:33, Feb 16
You: Cancel my subscription
Info: Welcome! We're excited to offer you messaging, allowing you to reply to us in your own time. An advocate should reply within 5 minutes To view The New York Times Privacy Policy and California privacy notices, please visit nytimes.com/FLLy_Agy
Info: You are now connected to The New York Times Virtual Assistant.
21:33,Feb 16
New York Times virtual agent: Hi, I'm the New York Times virtual assistant.
21:33,Feb 16
New York Times virtual agent: Please answer the following questions and I will connect you with the appropriate Customer Care advocate.
21:34, Feb 16
New York Times virtual agent: What is your full name?
21:34, Feb 16
You: (hidden)
21:34, Feb 16
You: Digital Subscription
21:34, Feb 16
New York Times virtual agent: >
21:34, Feb 16
New York Times virtual agent: What is your email address?
21:34 Feb 16
You: (hidden)
21:34, Feb 16
New York Times virtual agent: What is your billing zip code?
21:34, Feb 16
Your: (hidden)
21:34, Feb 16
New York Times virtual agent: >
21:34, Feb 16
You: Other
21:34, Feb 16
New York Times virtual agent: Please briefly describe the reason you are contacting us today.
21:35,Feb 16
You: Way too many ads. Beats the point of paid subscription.
21:35,Feb 16
New York Times virtual agent: Please wait one moment while I transfer you to an account specialist.
Info: You are now connected to Antonio.
21:35,Feb 16
You: Why do I need to speak with someone to cancel a subscription???
21:35,Feb 16
Antonio: Hi! My name is Tony. I'm an account specialist here at the New York Times. I will be happy to assist you. I'm sorry to hear you would like to cancel your subscription today. May I ask why you are canceling?
21:36,Feb 16
Antonio: The New York Times doesn't give customers the option to cancel on their own which is why you have to go through an account specialist such as myself in order to do so. This allows the customer to be canceling properly.
21:36,Feb 16
You: You asked that already!
21:36,Feb 16
You: Way too many ads.
21:36,Feb 16
Antonio: Are you successfully logged into your account underneath the correct email address?
21:37,Feb 16
You: yes
21:38,Feb 16
Antonio: What kind of advertisements are you seeing?
21:38,Feb 16
Antonio: Also are you using a apple product to see the news?
21:38,Feb 16
You: Can you please cancel my subscription?
21:39,Feb 16
You: Its impossible to read an article without the screen jumping to allow an add make space in the middle of the article
21:39,Feb 16
Antonio: Do you use a iphone or macbook?
21:40,Feb 16
You: And, the one that takes the top 1/3 of the homepage
21:40,Feb 16
You: yes, both ^
21:40,Feb 16
Antonio: Apple products have a special feature called readers mode where it gets rid of all of the advertisements and miscellaneous pictures across the website or application.
21:41,Feb 16
Antonio: All you have to do is click on the lowercase and uppercase a in the top of the website and it changes the entire website to readers mode.
21:41,Feb 16
You: Antonio, thank you for educating me on web technologies. Can you please just unsubscribe me??
21:42, Feb 16
Antonio: So just to clarify you would still like to cancel even though readers mode would solve the advertisements issue?
21:43,Feb 16
You: My conversation right now with you makes me even more determined to do so.
21:43,Feb 16
You: So please YES - CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION
21:43,Feb 16
Antonio: We thank you for your feedback, and I'm sorry you feel that way. I will make sure that your thoughts get sent through the proper channels. Your experience with us helps make us better.
21:44, Feb 16
You: Please also forward this feedback - this unsubscribe process makes me much much much less likely to resubscribe ever again.
21:44, Feb 16
Antonio: The New York Times doesn't give customers the option to cancel on their own which is why you have to go through an account specialist such as myself in order to do so. This allows the customer to be canceling properly.
21:46,Feb 16
Antonio: We appreciate your support as a Basic Access subscriber. This grants you unlimited article access on nytimes.com and on the go with the NYT mobile app. You are on the best deal of $4 a month for a whole year! Are you sure you want to cancel?
21:46,Feb 16
You: Yes.
21:47,Feb 16
Antonio: You will continue to enjoy all your subscription benefits for the rest of your billing cycle, which ends on Thursday, February 18th, 2021. Unfortunately we cannot issue any credits or refunds for the remainder of this billing cycle.
21:48,Feb 16
You: That's fine.
21:48,Feb 16
You: Can I get the transcript of this chat? I'm sure other users would value a lot from learning what this process looks like.
21:48,Feb 16
Antonio: You can email yourself a transcript of this chat, which will also serve as confirmation of our conversation today. The option to receive this transcript will be when our chat session ends. Make sure to select yes to receive your transcript and it will be emailed to you.
21:49,Feb 16
You: Cool thanks.
21:49,Feb 16
Antonio: (thumbs up)
21:49,Feb 16
Antonio: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
21:49,Feb 16
Antonio: If you do not need any further assistance, I will close this chat in approximately 1 minute.
21:50,Feb 16
You: Nope, good night
21:50,Feb 16
Antonio: Thank you for being the best part of The New York Times. Have a wonderful day!
Info: Conversation closed by the agent
21:50, Feb 16
case closed
If it were easy to cancel I'd definitely re-up my subscription when I want to read an article they have. Now when I hit the paywall I just move on or look for another source.
Firefox/Chrome users: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
For educational uses only, it helps make the news fit to print.
The value is way higher than some inconvenience.
For me it is and I stated why.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_controversies_involvin...
So much for your "paper of record". It's the Paper of the Establishment. And always has been.
Institutions have completely squandered what little trust the public once had in them.
I think we're living through a very specific period of history in which we're going to see some sort of new paradigm emerge and become dominant. Citizen journalism has been on the rise - I don't know how long, I admit I don't pay much attention to it - and established journalists like Matt Taibbi are moving to Substack.
I don't know what the future might hold, but I don't think the next 100 years will look at all like the past 100 years, at least insofar as the concept of "news" is concerned.
There's tons of decent news sites.
It isn't just their rabid anti-conservative bias, which I'm more or less fine with as its pretty clear their possessed by their ideologies, but its their fascism of banning anyone who has a different opinion, while hilariously hiding behind "fighting fascism". I guess it makes sense though... fight fire with fire, fight fake fascism with real fascism...
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/14/967917822/author-on-trumps-ac...
National NPR shows tend to be more cautious but local shows have been much more explicit:
https://www.kalw.org/post/rise-fascism-united-states-how-sho...
Rarely read/listen to BBC but they seem a bit less hyperbolic than NPR.
There is NO single site that gets it correct.
Maybe you're being too hard on the news media.
Maybe the problem is with human's inherent intellectual laziness.
Maybe instead of visiting numerous sites and forming their own opinion people wait for a single news source to spoon feed them their thoughts for the day.
You can be lazy or you can get closer to the truth.
If these news agencies are relying on fraud in various ways to retain customers, then it's better that they never have their claws in you to begin with.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypass-paywal...
Once a month they mailed me a postcard to sign up, I called them to ask them to stop mailing me a post card, after a few back-and-forths, the person said, okay, we won't mail you anything for two years. I said don't mail me ever, I will never ever use them. The person said okay, they've taken me off their list. We shall see...
Is it even legal to ask for a zip code to cancel when there was no zip code in their system?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypass-paywal...
A good tactic to avoid retreating into one's own news bubble.
3 pages of pointless chat over 17 wasted minutes to cancel a sub that could be a single click and losing a customers business forever.
About what you’d expect.
They refused to do it over the phone so I reported my credit card as lost and their charges as fraudulent.
WSJ's Opinion page is total crap but the rest is good. NYT's Business page is okay and their Arts&Culture are good, but the news is fucking garbage. Their rare centerfold articles are great but everything else is trash news. Just the lowest quality of journalism.
The WSJ reports much more accurately on way more issues than the NYT. It's not about the politics. They wrote about subversion attempts against the CA EPA and the laws in CA keeping the coast free. The NYT is just a lot more like those American news anchors you see who have this obvious slant to their reporting.
If you're foreign, you know what I'm talking about.