New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/10/new-york-city-deceptive-subscriptions-ban

by randycupertino • 12 days ago

644 326 12 days ago

theguardian.com

https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/07/mayor-mamdani...

bell-cot2• 12 days ago

No mention of the New York Times, or its practices?

gruez• 12 days ago

Why should it be mentioned? The article doesn't call out any other specific company by name. Is the Times really that egregious of a offender compared to the other businesses? Does new york city have a history of selectively enforcing laws to favor local businesses?

wincy• 12 days ago

If anything, based on Louis Rossman’s experiences it’s quite the opposite - petty bureaucrats do their damndest to ensure it’s as difficult as possible to run a business in New York.

cm2012• 12 days ago

New York Times is one of the worst and most famous offenders of making it hard to cancel your subscription. There are companies that make it as hard or spammy but few with the reach of the NYT

bell-cot2• 12 days ago

I was thinking more of the Times and Guardian being in rather similar lines of work, and the opportunity to cast some shade on a rival.

IncreasePosts3• 12 days ago

NYT is the biggest brand that I know of that pulls these "easy to subscribe, hard to unsubscribe" antics. Especially galling because if you live in california, you can cancel with just a click, so obviously it is possible, but if you live in 49 other states you are forced to listen to a sales pitch from a human before being allowed to unsubscribe

lostlogin5• 12 days ago

Is the Times really that egregious of an offender compared to the other businesses?

Yes.

munk-a• 12 days ago

I suppose right now there is no federal preemption - but I fully expect gym & similar lobbying at the federal level to get a rule in place to allow preemption challenges.

sxp2• 12 days ago

It's unclear whether this junk fee law will have teeth. In theory, California has the same anti-drip pricing law, but restaurants have a specific carve out [1] which is bullshit because the drip pricing that most people complain about is the X% "service charges" and "lifestyle fees" that restaurants have at the bottom of their menu in small print.

From what I can tell online, NYC rules won't have this carveout, but I haven't eaten there recently so I can't confirm.

[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

dghlsakjg• 12 days ago

Fees on one time services are not what this is targeting. This legislation is not meant to address that, and wouldn't apply to that.

They are going after recurring billing (that's what the headline means by "subscription"). It mentions things like gyms, online subscriptions etc.

It would be pretty wild if they had managed to get service fees at restaurants when they were not at all targeting service fees, restaurants or one time in person purchases.

sxp2• 12 days ago

From TFA:

  > Rule from Mamdani administration ... targets ‘junk fees’
  > The city is also targeting so-called “junk fees” that raise the final price of everything from apartments to sporting events, with a proposed rule that requires sellers to “advertise the total price for any good or service, including all mandatory additional charges and fees, up front”, according to a release shared with the Guardian.

wnevets• 12 days ago

which is bullshit because the drip pricing that most people complain about is the X% "service charges" and "lifestyle fees" that restaurants have at the bottom of their menu in small print.

I don't think I go to the same restaurants as everyone else.

buzer• 12 days ago

It's unfortunately somewhat common these days and personally I actively avoid any place which does this. At least it's only somewhat common rather than the standard so it's still possible. Couple of examples:

https://sushiconfidential.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/sc_... "3.5% Living Wage Surcharge added to each bill which allows us to provide the service you have always enjoyed!"

https://www.pacificcatch.com/menu/ "NorCal - A 3% surcharge (5% in San Francisco) will be added to all Guest checks to help offset the rising cost of wages and benefits. This is not gratuity."

nkrisc• 12 days ago

I tried searching for what a "lifestyle fee" is and all I could find is references to "living wage fee" which is essentially a forced tip added to the bill.

A service charge for large groups though is understandable as they typically will require much more attention and work from waitstaff than the typical small dining party.

teaearlgraycold• 12 days ago

At least in CA they need to disclose them now. Previously some restaurants would just hit you with a surprise mandatory tip.

Rebelgecko2• 12 days ago

Usually by the time people are seated and you read the fine print on the back of the menu, inertia has taken over.

no-name-here• 12 days ago

CA

Wasn’t the argument for tips that tipped workers had a low minimum wage, but CA now has a minimum for tipped workers of $16.90 (actually the same minimum wage for non tipped workers too)?

wewtyflakes• 12 days ago

The fact that Scott Wiener made that carve out for restaurants via emergency legislation (SB 1524) made my blood boil and I vowed to vote against him in any election is runs in.

flyingshelf3• 12 days ago

The worst part of restaurant fees are the people (both owners and somehow the patrons) that will justify the existence of the fee as if it's too difficult to just print the final price in the menu.

I live in a touristy part of the world and effectively all restaurants above baseline level will have a "+7% service +11% tax" line.

To me this is clearly deceptive practice.

mschuster913• 11 days ago

I live in a touristy part of the world and effectively all restaurants above baseline level will have a "+7% service +11% tax" line.

In Germany and Croatia, there is no % at all, the prices are final and include all taxes and fees by law and no one will bat an eye if you pay straight cash - however I personally always tip around 10%, simply because I was happy about that when I worked in hospitality myself.

Teever2• 11 days ago

What happens if a tourist refuses to pay the fee? Or asks for resolution by a neutral third party like law enforcement?

Seems like a kind of practice that could quickly become impractical if people simply DDOS it by disputing it.

drcongo2• 12 days ago

Any chance you could lend Mamdani to the UK? We have a vacancy.

xp843• 12 days ago

Depends who you ask!

Apocryphon• 12 days ago

Hasn’t Sadiq Khan been a similar story, from a Muslim immigrant family turned popular mayor of the nation’s largest city? Though from what I understand he’s from the more business-oriented center-left, in contrast with Mamdani.

drcongo2• 11 days ago

Yeah, he's much more centre left, but also the London Mayor has very little actual power. It's the PM vacancy we need a Mamdani in but we're about to get a near clone of the bloke who just resigned.

inigyou14• 10 days ago

There are thousands of Mamdanis in every country. Don't ask yourself if you can have that one - ask yourself why you don't elect one of your own.

econ• 12 days ago

Maybe it should be required to review quality laws in other countries in general. One advantage is that you don't have to pretend or imagine what will happen if it's been tested in the wild.

aioproductos• 12 days ago

I'm building a SaaS right now and made the "non-deceptive" choices this law wants: cancellation is one click from settings, no retention maze, no surprise renewal, 30-day money-back. What surprised me is how much the tooling assumes you want the dark patterns. Billing platforms ship "cancellation flow" templates that are really retention funnels — discount offer, pause offer, survey, guilt screen, then maybe the button. The default path is the deceptive path; you have to actively rip stuff out to be straightforward.

Which I think explains why this needs regulation at all. Every individual dark pattern is locally rational — it demonstrably improves net retention, so any PM optimizing a dashboard will keep it. The cost (people who feel trapped and tell everyone) never shows up in the same spreadsheet. Markets are bad at pricing "customers who quietly hate you."

The one-click-cancel requirement is the part with real teeth. Junk-fee rules die by carve-out (see California's restaurant exemption), but "cancel must be as easy as signup" is binary enough to actually enforce.

TylerE• 12 days ago

A big one I’ve been seeing a lot lately is advertising annual subscriptions as monthly rates. It isn’t $12/month subscription if I have to pay $120 in a lump sum up front. The actual monthly rate is often basically double what they’re advertising.

Jblx22• 12 days ago

$12/month subscription if I have to pay $120 in a lump sum up front.

Sounds like they are giving you two months free if you pay with a lump sum in advance.

nemomarx3• 12 days ago

Which is a fair discount, but it should be like "15 a month, 120 if you get a year up front" right?

arrowsmith• 12 days ago

Yes but it's always advertised as "$12/MONTH" in big letters with billed annually written somewhere small and non-obvous.

Razengan2• 12 days ago

Did a politician's kid rack up hundreds of dollars on some stupid game?

I still don't know why Apple, oft parading as the people's champion, automatically converts trials to subscriptions.

So many scummy apps exploit this by offering a 1 week trial and saying like "only $4/month!" but charging a 1 year's sub after the trial period ends.

expedition323• 12 days ago

Don't link a card or bank account to your play store account. They can't take money that isn't there.

Razengan2• 12 days ago

I load money on the App Store with gift cards, that's why unintended subs suck even worse

gumby• 12 days ago

These rules are great but “landmark” seems like puffery, as California has had such rules for quite a while.

Ironically that has meant it’s hard to unsubscribe from the New York Times except in California.

aczerepinski2• 12 days ago

I once wrote code that checks location before hiding/showing the cancel button. It’s really absurd that the nice experience exists on all subscription sites by now but you only get to see it if your state demands it.

Rebelgecko2• 12 days ago

Same with websites like Airbnb. Last I checked, their search results only showed the 'real' prices (eg including fees) for certain states and countries. In some states you have to click into the listing before learning that there's an extra $500 cleaning fee on top of the nightly rate :)

qmr2• 12 days ago

Why would you do something so immoral?

ar_lan2• 12 days ago

I have no context of who you are/your position here, but the responses you're getting seem absurd to me.

I just don't understand people placing the blame on you when it should be on your company. Most people in the world are just trying to keep their job - you did it. It wasn't something illegal, it was something that if you didn't do, you would have risked your job and then someone else would have done it anyway.

test6554• 12 days ago

Ohh, I need to VPN into nyc or california before trying to cancel my new york times subscription.

browski• 12 days ago

Outsiders need to append a "for NYC".

They didn't here because for them as representatives of NYC that's all they are speaking to.

Technical pedantry like this just displays poor language and social skills.

woodruffw5• 12 days ago

I think you, as the reader, are expected to mentally append “in NYC” when a link comes from nyc.gov. It seems very silly for a given municipality to need to qualify every sentence on its own website.

henryfjordan2• 12 days ago

The municipality is already qualifying the sentence! Instead of "NYC announces click-to-cancel law" they qualify it with "landmark".

I think it's silly for a municipality to lie (by omission?) in their own press announcements.

arjie• 12 days ago

It's just local NYC news. Thinks are landmark to them that are often commonplace elsewhere which makes sense since millions call that place home that are not acquainted with other places. It is truly America's one megacity so that sort of puffery is expected.

The advent of dumpsters was similarly hailed there, though almost no other cities in the US throw their trash on the sidewalk.

throwaway274484• 12 days ago

Oh, is new york in california?

tzs3• 12 days ago

Generally when a seller in state X in the US sells to a buyer in a different state Y the consumer protection laws of state Y apply.

Even if the seller in X does not have a presence in Y, and so you might think Y has no jurisdiction, purposefully conducting business within a state is sufficient to allow Y to assert jurisdiction in regards to that business.

dylan604• 12 days ago

The ironic thing to me is that Mamdani is only the mayor of NYC. He is not the governor of NY state. So if you live in Buffalo, you will still have to suffer through shenanigans?

Edit: I see others with similar thoughts from further down the scroll

testfrequency• 12 days ago

The NYC propaganda is strong right now with Mamdani.

California still S-tier for protecting its land and people.

returningfory22• 12 days ago

This information about the NYT is out of date; it's now easy to unsubscribe from anywhere.

ciabattabread2• 11 days ago

And that is courtesy of recent New York State law. [1]

[1] https://kr.law/news/article-detail/new-yorks-new-automatic-r...

dang• 12 days ago

I took the "first" bit out of the title above - thanks!

cyberax• 12 days ago

Nice. Now just force stores to display actual prices with tax.

summarybot5• 12 days ago

In Australia they call this price the price-"sorted."

"7 dollars sorted." for example.

tc43• 12 days ago

Australian here, never heard "sorted". It does sound very Australian though, probably a Queensland thing.

ChrisArchitect• 12 days ago

Official release: https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/07/mayor-mamdani...

jzer0cool• 12 days ago

Nintendo (subscription I have for my switch to access some older a classic games btw) is very good reminding me I have a subscription and whether I want to cancel (or renew). I don't have the email at hand but what I remember is thinking they really desire you to reflect to cancel (rather than a push to renew) if not wanting continued service. Sentiment of politeness and I find a good example what to do.

Also, not a subscription but seeing some dark practices after COVID onset at any fast-food like business (including cafes, juices, cupcakes, etc) where a preselected tip is selected. Default should be no.

Swizec• 12 days ago

where a preselected tip is selected. Default should be no.

A lot of this push to higher and higher and preselected tip options comes from POS software providers (Square et al) and credit card companies. They make money on transaction volume. Higher transaction -> more fees

nsagent• 12 days ago

The restaurants get to set those values though. A coffee shop near me puts the default options as $1, $2, $3 for low order totals. So if I go in and get a coffee (which is $4.50), the lowest tip option is 22% and the highest is a whopping 66%.

I've seriously gotten tip fatigue and have been working to move back to a sane standard. I've noticed the places that have these crazy tips, also pay their staff well.

dqv• 12 days ago

It goes

Subject: Information about Your Automatic Renewal
This is an automatically generated email from Nintendo for customers who have a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack individual 12‑month (365‑day) membership set to renew automatically.
Dear [user],
Your Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack individual 12‑month (365‑day) membership will automatically renew soon.
...
Deadline to turn off automatic renewal: [1 month from now]

It also does this right when you first sign up for automatic renewal except the deadline is [1 year from now].

littlecranky672• 12 days ago

Because this is mandatory in the EU probably.

bikelang• 12 days ago

I really appreciate companies that are transparent with renewals. I’m sure it cuts down on customer support load a lot too. Kagi goes as far as not billing you if you don’t use their service in the prior month. I was pretty shocked the first time I got that email. Made me a customer for life.

spiderfarmer• 12 days ago

Sadly, it's often just because they were forced by the EU and several other markets.

throwaw12• 12 days ago

Maybe their PMs haven't attended top MBA schools in the USA, yet

lokar• 12 days ago

GeForce NOW as well. Very straight forward and clear email every month.

lostlogin5• 12 days ago

Unless I’ve missed something, Nintendo seem to have really good business ethics.

antiframe2• 12 days ago

I agree. I do wish they would use replaceable batteries outside the EU, where they are mandated, though.

clonedhuman• 12 days ago

OH NO THIS IS THE SOCIALISMS!!!!!111

summarybot5• 12 days ago

How many legislative days did it take to get this policy in place, I wonder

josefritzishere• 12 days ago

This should be federal law.

Arubis• 12 days ago

Indeed. But the feds have picked a side, and right now, it's not yours.

petilon• 12 days ago

Will New York City residents be able to avoid AT&T's "Administrative and Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee"?

https://www.al.com/news/2026/07/att-customers-your-cell-phon...

gzer0• 12 days ago

Another one that belongs on this list: AI-generated photos in housing listings. You can no longer tell what the property actually looks like, and the images conveniently erase the problem spots you'd only catch in person. False advertising is getting completely out of hand.

nemomarx3• 12 days ago

It's crazy that people think they should get away with these. I've seen some examples where basic things like the number of windows or where the garage and driveway are was totally misrepresented - surely they'd at least look at the results?

CodingJeebus• 12 days ago

I agree, but how does one begin to enforce a ban like this? Bait-and-switch has always existed in real estate, which is all the more reason to do full due-diligence and inspect the property thoroughly and not just put in an offer sight unseen. If a seller is using AI to that extent, I'd be worried about what else they're hiding about the property.

plagiarist2• 12 days ago

Simply remove protections and deal out massive fines to platforms hosting obviously fraudulent listings, they will figure out solutions overnight.

simpaticoder• 12 days ago

I agree, but how does one begin to enforce a ban like this?

Look to something that works to modify behavior: credit reports. Make it easy to report an actor for malfeasance, assume they are guilty until proven innocent, and force them to defend themselves to the agency. Since we invent these tools for evil, we may as well use them for good.

everybodyknows3• 12 days ago

seller is using AI to that extent

Useful info for any later negotiation. They've revealed they are:

A: Dishonest

B: Not too bright

nadermx• 12 days ago

The irony with all this, is if a company makes it difficult to cancel their subscription, it's probably not a good product. Antidotically, I've found that making it easy for users to not only cancel, but refund, has given me eye opening things to fix in some products that made it so less people cancelled or refunded. So I try to always err on best user experience.

plagiarist2• 12 days ago

You are interested in providing something worth paying for. Other people are interested in maximizing ROI for ad spend.

jonahx• 12 days ago

Antidotically,

Anecdotally

lostlogin5• 12 days ago

The practice being discussed is poison, so it sort of works.

IncreasePosts3• 12 days ago

NYT made it difficult, and they are a pretty good product. If you didn't live in california and wanted to cancel your subscription, you were required to talk to a service rep who would try to get you stay by giving you some free period before normal subscription billing resumed

lostlogin5• 12 days ago

I know of 4 NYT subscriptions that have not been made due to the difficulty in cancelling.

I’m sure they know the exact stats, and are getting more cash as a result of their BS.

Good site, trash business practices.

pixel_popping• 11 days ago

I doubt so, I think a large amount of serious companies do it as well because it's a very simple way to earn much more money (and strangely improve the service), many businesses (even "good") often rely solely on this, Gym businesses is the typical example of this and many gyms will just not be able to make money at all if people actually used their membership correctly, literally space-wise, it can't fit, many businesses are entirely based on "failure", however, we can acknowledge that some Gyms are exceptional in quality, but will still bank on the fact that the user will just stop going, ideally as soon as possible.

I'm not saying it's right, but the reality is that probably half the gyms would close immediately if this is enforced.

xp843• 12 days ago

I wonder if the bit about 'junk fees' will include undisclosed hotel fees. I just stayed there last week in a no-frills "hotel" which doesn't include daily room cleaning, has no staff at night, and has no amenities whatsoever, and they charged me a surprise-at-check-in $35 a night resort fee. This fee was not described in the booking.

criddell• 12 days ago

That hotel may have broken an FTC rule that's been in effect for about a year now.

Effective May 12, 2025, the FTC’s Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, 16 C.F.R. Part 464, prohibits bait-and-switch pricing and other tactics used to obscure and misrepresent total prices and fees for live-event tickets and short-term lodging.

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/rule-unfair-...

stingraycharles• 12 days ago

What the hell is a resort fee?

pards• 11 days ago

Every hotel I've stayed at in Hawaii charges one - usually to the tune of $50+/day - even if the hotel has no resort-like facilities. It's a bullshit fee.

inigyou14• 10 days ago

It's a money extraction technique of either last or first resort.

Esophagus4• 12 days ago

When the Biden administration introduced a junk fee rule in 2024, the US Chamber of Commerce argued it was “an attempt to micromanage businesses’ pricing structures”, and apartment fees were cut from that federal rule after lobbying by the real-estate industry.

This drives me nuts to read, because it’s usually the same pattern.

Rule -> lobbyists descend -> politicians cave -> carve out that takes away the whole point of the rule -> everyone declares victory

make3• 12 days ago

I don't expect that Mamdani will cave in to real estate lobbyists lol. What you're describing is exactly why Establishment Democrats are losing to Mamdani and his ilk (DSA)

throwaway274484• 12 days ago

I don't see Mamdani as somehow invulnerable to lobbyists; but they realistically have little leverage over him.

bkeyes• 12 days ago

Funny this should come up today.

I just got a notice from my credit card company that Evernote just charged my credit card after 2 'successful' cancellations of my subscription each of the last 2 years, and the complete deletion of my account several months ago.

Hopefully these will become more widespread - I'm not in NY or CA.

summarybot5• 12 days ago

Sharks will keep eating easy prey until they hit an iron bar. I also hate this fact about the world by the way :) Just a [hardwon] observation.

puchatek• 12 days ago

People who forget to cancel are easy prey.

Cancelling then being charged anyway is something else. Something akin to being robbed IMHO.

vvpan• 12 days ago

A complimentary complaint is that payments are a "pull" operation with subscriptions. You can't decide who gets your money. How retro is that!

brookside• 12 days ago

Bending Spoons acquired Evernote:

"What is Bending Spoons? The little-known AOL and Vimeo owner that's now public" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48799966

The_Blade• 12 days ago

yes, that is happening to me real-time, the article in the Economist reminded me (https://www.economist.com/business/2026/07/01/can-bending-sp...), right down to Evernote being the one they are attempting to gouge me on at best and charge illegally at worst. so i had a closer look at bank and PayPal GLs

i found similar issues with Paddle (attempted to quit), Proton (double charged), Splashtop (attempted to quit), and Bloomberg via Apple (attempted to quit) and the common thread is PayPal. never Stripe.

my PayPal account is ancient (2002) and knowing what i know about payments (perhaps a little) i believe there is something akin to a hole regarding legacy pre-auth tokens in a PayPal architecture which is old enough to run for the US House. at least Bending Spoons would be willfully exploiting such a hole, because after i refunded / cancelled, 9 days later they were able to charge again. PayPal also seems to have an open marriage with PCI-DSS / SOC2

MBCook2• 12 days ago

There’s a reason they were used as a poster child of a bad actor when the FTC rule was made a few years ago, before the current administration shredded it.

JSR_FDED• 12 days ago

I was so annoyed with how slimy Evernote had become and how the product regressed and they were clearly not spending money on it, I switched to Apple Notes and have been very happy.

inigyou14• 11 days ago

Chargeback time! Hopefully they get banned from the payment networks for too many fraudulent payments.

summarybot5• 12 days ago

Just compel Stripe to do it,* problem 99% solved.

*Direct click-to-cancel with subscription receipt.

CSMastermind2• 12 days ago

Is this something that cities can really enforce? Like I get that NYC is a bit of an exception but let's say a 5 person town in Wyoming decides that they want to make this practice illegal and they all vote to do so. It's not clear to me that would mean anything at all.

kulahan• 12 days ago

Your question answers exactly how enforceable it is. It’s directly linked to your population size and how much it can hurt the wallet of the company.

Edit: but also, who cares? Literally no solution to anything on earth works for EVERYONE

quickthrowman2• 12 days ago

NYC has ~2% of the US population, and it’s a relatively wealthy slice compared to the mean. NYC has roughly 13x as many people as the entire state of Wyoming. I could see a company writing off Wyoming entirely (not likely, but possible) but not NYC.

States like CA, FL, NY, and TX can pass state laws that create defacto national regulations through sheer size, but smaller than that and you’ll have trouble.

CSMastermind2• 12 days ago

Sure but say some company based in Lousiana has a website that violates NYC law.

What exactly will NYC do about it? Is there some mechanism to for them to block the website inside of NYC? The company would presumably have no property they could seize or employees they could imprison.

If it were a state passing the law then they could sue for enforcement in federal court but I don't think a city could?

cogman10• 12 days ago

It ultimately depends on if there is overriding state or federal law. But yeah, it's something a city can enforce.

A small town in Wyoming could do the same and could sue (and probably win) against businesses that do business in that small town and break the law. What most likely happens in that case is that small Wyoming town ends up blacklisted by that business.

dfxm122• 11 days ago

This is one way how "states rights" types of policies will favor large corporations at our expense. We need strong advocates for regular people at the highest level of law/enforcement. Having advocates at all levels is good, of course.

j45• 12 days ago

Long overdue, enshittification reaching SaaS undermines trust in all tech in the long term.

tamimio• 12 days ago

Should ban the tips if it’s not included in “hidden fees”, and force restaurants to pay proper wages like other workers.

seattle_spring• 12 days ago

The "and" is very important here. Places like Seattle now mandate servers get a real wage. It inexplicably hasn't changed tip culture at all, so now they get regular wages and still complain when someone doesn't tip 20%+ for a takeout order.

mmmattt• 12 days ago

The mandate stipulates that they can get minimum wage, I wouldn’t call that a “regular” wage, and certainly not a livable one.

senordevnyc• 12 days ago

I hate tip culture too, but I don’t blame the employees for it. I never tip for takeout, counter service, retail, etc, and I’ve never actually had anyone complain or so much as make a face.

bijowo1676• 12 days ago

for service workers, up to 25k in tips can be deducted from taxable income ("no tax on tips")

dmboyd• 12 days ago

Why should customers need to care about a store’s employees tax bracket

IncreasePosts3• 12 days ago

Is there something about serving people food that means you should get a tax break? Or is that just a holdover of cash tipping to kindly get servers to actually declare the full value if their tips as wages instead of just saying they magically weren't tipped all year

rafram• 12 days ago

From 2025 to 2028, in a specific list of qualified occupations, as long as your AGI is below $150,000.

kombine• 12 days ago

I remember trying to cancel NYT subscription a few years back and it was almost impossible. I didn't expect it from such a reputable establishment.

bertil• 12 days ago

As someone who doesn’t live in the US, it was hilariously impossible: you had to call on the phone a number in New York, which never picked up, so you had to pay hours of internal call, or send a fax, something I hadn’t done in two decades…

Thankfully, I had a bank that used technology from this century, including a disposable credit card number. I stopped paying and that lead them to them calling me.

jonathanlydall2• 12 days ago

This is where getting it via Apple’s App Store is nice for consumers.

I (a non-American) had a NYT subscription through the iOS app some years back and cancelling it (like any other subscription through the App Store) was as as simple as:

- Open Settings

- Tap my account

- Tap Subscriptions

- Tap the New York Times option (or whatever it’s called)

- Tap Cancel

While the gate keeper aspect of Apple may not be good in many ways, at least we get this kind of benefit from it.

everybodyknows3• 12 days ago

Does buying through the Apple store also get you access to the web site (in case you're disloyal enough to also use non-Apple hardware)?

phyzome2• 12 days ago

I ended up having to dispute credit card charges from Patreon because I couldn't solve captchas needed to log in or to talk to support. I won, but it was an annoying process, and now I use disposable/virtual cards.

Animats• 12 days ago

That's pretty much standard in the EU. Nice to see the biggest city in the US catching up.

jjuhl• 12 days ago

Wow, only in the US. In every other country, this is not a problem.

mi_lk• 12 days ago

Just want to add to the pile that The New York Times is notorious for its unsubscription shenanigan

jazzyjackson• 12 days ago

Anything Condé Nast too, which is pretty much everything. Nice office in the World Trade Center tho so they’ve got revenue figured out.

sandcat_2• 12 days ago

For what it's worth, I just tried cancelling my NYTimes subscription to see if it was still as bad as I'd remembered, and aside from desperately begging me not to leave, it was quite simple. No need to contact support. I wasn't planning to go through with it, but I still got a nice discount for the next year, so.. thanks!

dredmorbius2• 11 days ago

Are you in California, or another locale with protections against difficult cancellation procedures?

aubanel• 12 days ago

Probably a great decision, but why/how can it be decided at a local level by a mayor, instead of a federal level?

ezfe2• 12 days ago

why: because the federal level is not doing it

how: by declaring it a law in that area

readthenotes1• 12 days ago

And yet an executive action is not a law. It's a dictate.

Course, one should never underestimate the value of a benevolent dictator...

woodruffw5• 12 days ago

I don’t think it would be a federal concern, but a state one.

However, in this case it’s because NYC law is typically allowed under NY state law to be stronger (but not weaker) than any corresponding state law.

nonethewiser2• 12 days ago

NY law already requires easy cancellation https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/527-A?utm_sour...

phyzome2• 12 days ago

Any jurisdiction can pass a law unless there's a law against doing so.

For example, you couldn't do this in Massachusetts. A city would first have to petition the state for a new law allowing the city to pass such a local law.

oulipo• 12 days ago

When a Mayor does more for the citizen than the government...

Cyclone_• 12 days ago

What do you mean? The mayor is part of the government.

lifeisstillgood• 12 days ago

This is really a banking / credit card thing. CC suppliers put a lot of effort into packaging recurring subscriptions for their businesses because … people forget to cancel. So the real leverage here is not go to each individual website to one click cancel, but just cancel the direct debit / subscription from in your banking or credit card app.

SkipperCat2• 12 days ago

This is what legitimate government looks like. Leaders actually advocating for the people who are being deceived by those in power instead of helping those in power.

While this may be a trivial issue, being able to cancel a gym or newspaper subscription, it sends a signal. Companies need to view customers as partners in a business transaction and not objects to be exploited.

amazingamazing• 12 days ago

Lol wait for enforcement before declaring victory

gib444• 11 days ago

Right!

Some British media / reddit 'users' did the same over-the-top congratulatory puffery for some laws passed in the UK.

Like hello, Parliamentary supremacy and a whopping majority, the Lords who will at most suggest a few tweaks for anything that's been sold well, a Prime Minister who was a Barrister - passing laws is the easy part!

Call something the Renter's Rights Act for example and people lose their minds falling over congratulating the Government and Parliament before it even passes.

(In defence of some of our media, they did write one or two articles about all the people who got kicked out prior to the law coming into effect - just a couple of weeks before it coming into effect...)

We're software devs - we should know writing code (particularly now) is frequently the easy part. Tests, deployment, versioning, monitoring, logs, effect on revenue etc, bit trickier.

jafo1989• 12 days ago

Leaders actually advocating for the people who are being deceived by those in power instead of helping those in power.

Who is deceiving who now? And I'm not sure who is in power here...

ianmarcinkowski• 12 days ago

I have similar feelings.

I am sympathetic to a perspective that says this is not the responsibility of a mayor of a single city... But also; who else is going to do it?

Normal people have very little say over the politicians that govern them in larger electoral regions like states or provinces, and maybe this can signal to other levels of government that they should implement similar rules... If it works.

voidhorse• 12 days ago

Mamdani has been doing great in NYC so far. The hope is that he will inspire similar behavior in others. And drive similar approaches to politics in other constituencies.

colechristensen• 12 days ago

I am sympathetic to a perspective that says this is not the responsibility of a mayor of a single city... But also; who else is going to do it?

With a population of 8.5 million if NYC was a state it would be the 13th largest so I'm quite all right with the city going beyond the normal purview of a city government.

hughw• 12 days ago

CFPB once played that role for financial services. Ah well.

nonethewiser2• 12 days ago

This is what legitimate government looks like.

Do you mean good government? Or well-functioning? Any government that is formed legally is legitimate.

SkipperCat2• 12 days ago

Good question.

Government should represents and advocate for the best interests of the entire population. It should legislate for both people and companies to behave fairly towards each other.

Consider the gym membership. You join and sign a one year contract. The terms are that you can cancel after that period, but if the gym hides or dark-patterns the cancel procedure, are they really offering you the contractually agreed upon ability to cancel? They are not.

We all know what fair is. Just because companies (and sometimes individual people) have outsized power against their customers, it does not give them the moral right to abuse that power.

So, I believe in this case Mamdani is engaging in both good and well-functioning governance. And that to me is morally legitimate.

inigyou14• 11 days ago

Not every law is legitimate. Governments used to be formed legally by a hereditary succession, was that legitimate?

aizk• 12 days ago

Completely sensible legislation in my eyes.

taeric• 12 days ago

Is NYC the first just because every city in California does it by state rules? I'm confused.

warumdarum• 12 days ago

I think there should be a day (e.g. Sylvester), where all subscriptions auto end and renewal should be a proactive choice by the user.

morkalork• 12 days ago

I don't understand because I'm not American but how does New York the city have such powers? At least where I am, cities aren't really "real" in that they are constructs the provincial government creates (and can uncreate). A city here could never make such a ban.

SpicyLemonZest• 11 days ago

Cities are similarly not "real" in the US, but there's a strong tradition of local governance, so some states (including New York: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/MHR/10) issue blanket authorization for any city to pass any law that doesn't contradict the state's general laws.

jsrozner• 12 days ago

And then a million private equity, venture capitalists, management consultants, and other aspiring grifters cried out in terror.

Hopefully they stay silenced.

dgudkov• 12 days ago

How about banning the most deceptive practice that is advertising prices without taxes?

mc32• 12 days ago

If taxes were uniform across geography (political boundaries) you could argue that, but as it is, taxes are not uniform.

wpm2• 12 days ago

The store is uniform across geography, in the sense that it doesn't move and a system within the store is capable of calculating the taxes. If there was a simple flat "10% sales tax" on every single item in a store, the store could simply print price tags with that included. Marketing materials posted in the store could have the advertised price slapped on a sticker by the store too.

The issue is really that taxes in most places are not uniform in application, not necessarily just because of geography, but also all of the specific carve outs and exceptions and so on that America tends to have, e.g., SNAP and WIC often don't pay sales tax. So its actually hard to know what someone is going to pay without communicating with them personally beforehand.

mancerayder• 12 days ago

Be careful of Paypal! Go info your subscriptions section and check it out - there's a decade of past ones, including companies in the grave. Some aren't, like Evernote, which renewed automatically for a year on an old email I don't have access to.

DANmode4• 11 days ago

Doesn’t everybody want random db tokens that represent authorization to charge their credit card account stored on major platforms like PayPal and Netflix?

No?

Tough shit!

bradley13• 12 days ago

Requiring companies to state the actual price you will pay? Makes total sense. What I don't understand, is why thus is not already the case.

Why do hidden fees not fall under deceptive advertising, which is already actionable?

jaimex2• 12 days ago

So this is the end of the New York Times I guess?

paulbjensen• 12 days ago

Fantastic, this is brilliant.

I have tried to cancel a newspaper subscription in the UK a few times, which is only possible by telephone, and they have a serious churn-reduction program in place where I end up getting a major discount on the subscription.

EasyMark• 11 days ago

While this is good, I wish California would do it. It will never happen under a MAGA regime since the rights of corporate persons override those of real persons.

New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

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