I expect more businesses will transition to this strategy to counter NYC's new rule. They won't necessarily lower the price, but you will have to sign up for a one-year term, then they will hit you with a massive cancellation fee if you "click to cancel".
NYC's "Click to Cancel" rule is now in effect (nyc.gov)
263 pointsby gregsadetsky4 hours ago122 comments
flowerlad 2 hours ago
This will have no impact on Adobe's shenanigans. They offer click-to-cancel, but then charge a cancellation fee equal to what you would have paid for the rest of the one-year term. Their clever justification is that you received a significant discount for committing to a year, so you still owe them for the remaining months if you cancel early. I didn't even realize I had signed up for a one-year commitment. I'm not sure where they buried that clause.
deadbunny 2 hours ago
I hate to defend Adobe but it literally says "Annually, paid monthly" right under the price.
They should for sure list the annual price and the monthly price but it's not "burried".
alistairSH 2 hours ago
So it's not really a cancellation fee, but is that how they message it?
If I see: "Annual Subscription - $120/year, billed $10/month" I assume I'm paying $120 even if I cancel after 6 months.
But, if I cancel after 6 months, and the message to me is "$60 cancellation fee", I'm very confused - I thought I was paying the remaining $60 I owe them...? The amount may be the same but it's confusing nonetheless.
firtoz an hour ago
Wait, so you'll pay the $60, and then, will you lose access?
gruez an hour ago
Probably? There are services that are relatively nice and will let you use your membership until the last day (even for trials!), but there's also others that are non-refundable and will just yank your access.
alistairSH an hour ago
Any time I've had a similar subscription, you retain access for the full period.
The messaging has usually been something like: "Annual subscription cancelled at the end of current period. Access ends on 12/31/2026" (even if today is 6/1/2026)
That's why the "cancellation fee" comment is weird to me - there's no need to message that way, since "pay the rest of the committed period" seems to be a common (and at least to me, very understandable) way to handle this.
Even with monthly services, I don't think I've ever had an immediate loss of access - it's there until the end of the billing cycle. As it should be, IMO. The only exception would be if I force-deleted my account as well as that's a very explicit "I'm done-done" signal to the service provider.
mathgeek an hour ago
The cancellation fee is usually the part that's buried.
gruez an hour ago
Maybe years ago, but today it very plainly says:
>Fee applies of half your remaining annual commitment if you cancel after Nov 01
and for the prepaid option
>No refund if you cancel after Nov 01
https://www.adobe.com/#mini-plans-web-cta-creative-cloud-car...
soulofmischief an hour ago
Seems intentionally manipulative.
ericd 31 minutes ago
Hm so you're saying all the SaaS runners should put "Lifetime, paid monthly" in small print under their price? Bam, goodbye churn.
adolph 16 minutes ago
> They should for sure list the annual price and the monthly price but it's not "burried".
Buried prices are the next frontier of consumer protection. I've gotten burned by looking up a store product online and then when attempting to purchase finding that unless you ordered it through the site for in-store pickup, you get a higher price. Car dealerships were the same the last time I bought one. And while I appreciate Tesla's challenge in expressing TCO, subtracting average fuel costs from the price of a car smells bad in the same way.
binlog 2 hours ago
With LLMs in the picture there’s no excuse for signing a contract without reading it because it was too long or hard to understand. Adobe makes its terms pretty clear. You are entering a one year commitment.
echelon 2 hours ago
> This will have no impact on Adobe's shenanigans.
Which is where AI comes in.
Companies that are user-hostile have no place in the future.
edit: love the downvotes for pro-user rights advocacy. Keep it real, HN.
Loughla an hour ago
I feel real dumb asking this but how will AI help here? I'm sick, so if this is a stupid question, let's say it's because of that.
aurelien_gasser an hour ago
AI makes it easy to replicate existing software. One can ask a LLM to replicate Photoshop functionalities and, to some extent, it will.
lexicality an hour ago
Anyone successfully done that recently?
aurelien_gasser an hour ago
vjvjvjvjghv 43 minutes ago
"to some extent" is the keyword here. There is a lot of fine tuning in Photoshop that's very hard to replicate.
footydude 42 minutes ago
Another way it would help is making it easier for users to analyse the T&Cs they are signing up for.
Most people aren't well versed in reading T&Cs and whilst LLMs won't do a perfect job, they would likely do a decent job at assessing and highlighting potentially unfriendly clauses such as this.
edoceo 20 minutes ago
There are a couple of vibe coded "alternatives" to Adobe Suite.
ToucanLoucan an hour ago
> Companies that are user-hostile have no place in the future.
All I can think of reading this is that bit from Futurama when Bender goes: AHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHA. Oh wait you're serious. Let me laugh even harder.
Yeah we've had near four decades of massive expansion of software, free and not, and AI is definitely what's going to finally make it so companies can't be user hostile. That was what we were missing. 100%.
echelon 22 minutes ago
Man, people on HN have no dreams. It's so sad and gloomy.
We can do so much good by just looking up instead of down. We can make the world better.
solid_fuel 2 minutes ago
Dreams are one thing. People here are tired of fantasies and wishful thinking. Looking at the problem here - Adobe treating customers like crap and exploiting them - most of us realize that the solution is simply regulation. Leveraging the power of society and government to force the company to behave properly.
Gesturing at LLMs and going “this and the free market will fix it” is laughably naive, especially in 2026. That is why people are reacting harshly. This is a problem that was created by the free market, it’s not magically going to be fixed by some new product.
oatmeal1 28 minutes ago
That falls under deceptive advertising.
SXX 23 minutes ago
Btw its likely still possible to change subscription with Adobe to different one and then cancel it free of charge due to new 14-days window. Not sure if it works right now, but worked like charm before.
tomnipotent 19 minutes ago
> discount for committing to a year
It's worth than that. They don't even offer a monthly subscription contract - it's purely annual, but they advertise and promote monthly with fine print.
user3939382 11 minutes ago
If you actually ask them and push a little they’ll forgo that fee. Disclaimer: Adobe is the worst and can’t wait to see them crumble. If Intuit could also go…
woodruffw 3 hours ago
It seems like a good rule, and I am eager to see what NYC’s enforcement is going to look like. I have historically been disappointed (as a life-long resident) by the discontinuity between the city’s eagerness to legislate and its recalcitrance around enforcement, particularly when public interest in any given topic fades.
(Compare the city’s historic problems around preventing illegal de-stabilization of rental units, inability to prevent the NYPD from parking on sidewalks, and so forth.)
1986 3 hours ago
NYPD parking on sidewalks is more of a "who watches the watchmen" problem unfortunately.
__float 2 hours ago
Corruption is part of the job description, for the NYPD.
woodruffw 2 hours ago
It doesn't have to be! Parking enforcement wasn't always within the NYPD's remit. Until 1996, NYCDOT was responsible for parking enforcement.
mikeocool 15 minutes ago
Sadly, even if this were the case, there is no mechanism for one NYC city agency to fine another one.
This is why the sidewalks next to city parks take forever to get shoveled after a big snow storm.
woodruffw 7 minutes ago
I would settle for a bit of towing, or even just fining the individual cops who park their personal cars on the sidewalk. Parking of city-owned vehicles is also a problem, but the former seems easier to enforce per your point.
andrewchilds an hour ago
Not to mention completely opaque tinted windshields and windows, and intentionally defaced or corroded license plates..
__float 2 hours ago
I've also been disappointed by the lack of enforcement, and it's not necessarily for violations with little harm.
Failing to provide salary transparency in job postings is another common one with zero enforcement.
ryandrake 2 hours ago
Not a NYC-only problem though. There are tons of federal, state, and local laws that go under-enforced or unenforced. Legislators love the performance art of writing these kinds of popular laws, but law enforcement often doesn't care enough to enforce most of them. In this case, the website says the penalty is "starting at $525" which is basically nothing to a corporation, and nothing to the police/government. So you can file a complaint but it will probably go to /dev/null. After a year of this people will give up on even filing complaints.
What needs to happen for rules like this is: 1. the complaint should be easy/automatic to validate and rule on, 2. hard for the company to appeal and stonewall, and 3. the fine money should go to the person who filed the complaint as a bounty to motivate people to look for violators.
woodruffw 2 hours ago
Naturally. I mean only that NYC is an instance of this.
(It's worth noting that the city does sometimes enforce new regulations well, and in a way that the public is aware of. For example, businesses in the city are required to accept hard cash as payment, and the penalties for not doing so can be significant. Friends have told me that the city is very proactive about responding to those complaints. Anecdotally, the city has also become much better about responding to some forms of illegal parking and idling over the past few years. It certainly helps when the incentives are aligned, i.e. the cost of the enforcement program is supported by the fines collected.)
the-smug-one 2 hours ago
525 bucks per cancellation sounds like a lot to me tbh
CPLX 2 hours ago
It's not clear why enforcement would be needed necessarily.
Assuming that you pay with a credit card, I would assume you could dispute the charge on the basis that they're violating the law and win any faceoff immediately on that basis.
tsimionescu an hour ago
If the business simply doesn't offer click-to-cancel, so you haven't actually canceled your subscription, how could you successfully claim the payment was made fraudulently? The law doesn't mandate that you can unilaterally exit any agreement, it mandates that businesses have to offer an easy way for you to do so.
The example of a yearly subscription paid monthly should make this obvious. You can't exit this arrangement after 6 months and expect to simply not pay the remaining 6 months, as the contract was for a whole year. All this law does is force the business to make it easy for you to cancel any auto-renew for a second year. But if the business doesn't do that and you dispute a payment, how hard do you expect your bank to work to figure out if this payment was for a part of the original contract, or for an auto-renewal you should have been able to easily canceled, but haven't?
woodruffw an hour ago
Surely we agree that paying with cash or a debit card should entitle you to equal treatment under the city's rules and laws.
Anonboxis 2 hours ago
Look out for the "Digital Fairness Act", which will be tabled by the European Commission in November. It is expected to include the same "Click to Cancel" principle continent-wide.
Source: I'm an EU digital policy analyst in Brussels.
snowpid 2 hours ago
According to https://digitalfairnessact.com/what-is-the-digital-fairness-...
fucking cookie banners will be a lot better. OMG
flexagoon 2 hours ago
Where does that page mention anything about cookie banners? I couldnt find it
ACCount39 2 hours ago
Probably this bit:
> “Dark patterns” (also called deceptive or manipulative design) are interface choices that steer users towards decisions they would not otherwise make, for example:
> Making the “accept all” option bright and prominent, but hiding “reject” or “manage settings”
Not a direct reference, but it's clear exactly what it's getting at.
Wouldn't call it a big win though. If it's not established as a browser level setting instead of some shitty per-website banner that expires every 3 weeks as the site adjusts its ad serving system once again? We're still in cookie law hell.
flexagoon an hour ago
> Making the “accept all” option bright and prominent, but hiding “reject” or “manage settings”
Isn't this already illegal? By law the websites are required to make full opt out single click. They just don't care.
ryan_glass 2 hours ago
I looked at the page you linked and could not see any reference to cookie banners.
snowpid 2 hours ago
Interessatingly according to https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/digitale-welt/onli...
games will be regulated and cant be easily shut down. Lets see what "Stop killing games" will say.
edit: According above website had too optimistic interpretation. Anyway it looks like Stop Killing Game transforms into pro-consumer video games association. And thats overdue and yet very interesting and missing.
hollow-moe 2 hours ago
Damn this looks too good to be real, where's the provision to make any kind of encryption illegal ?
gbin 42 minutes ago
It looks good reading it like this but I am always scared about the unintended effects. Like the ... cookie banners. Dynamic pricing absolutely has to go this is so unethical
Hnrobert42 2 hours ago
In the US, tabled means something is not going forward. Am I correct that it means the opposite there?
neilo40 an hour ago
Yes tabled means the opposite on either side of the Atlantic. Has caused me a lot of confusion over the years. Personally as a Brit I just can’t see the logic in the US meaning
ssl-3 an hour ago
As an American, I can't see the logic in having the relationship between a proposal (which is an idea that may be embodied in documentation) and a table (which is a thing that we rest our beer upon) as having any importance at all -- regardless of which way it goes.
It seems like plain speech could be used, but this profoundly-irrational jargon was selected instead.
footydude 39 minutes ago
I think in the UK sense 'tabled' is borne out of a pretty literal meaning - based on the proposal literally being brought to the table where the committee are meeting to assess (and potentially vote) on its viability.
ssl-3 6 minutes ago
Yeah, perhaps. But the table also has all kinds of other things on and around it. Random papers of varying importance, microphones, Representative Smith's porn phone with the privacy filter, and maybe a ham sandwich.
A table (if there even is one present at all) seems like about the least important part of a group discussion of an idea.
Alifatisk 2 hours ago
Its incredible how much changes Mandani is doing to benefit the citizens. I start to wonder what the prior mayors was even doing.
01284a7e 2 hours ago
Why stop at mayors? How about legislators... city, state, and federal, hell, what about governors and presidents?
JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago
Cuomo is a morally-bankrupt man. But he was an effective governor in many respects.
tombert 2 hours ago
No, he was clearly always a corporate shill his entire time as governor. He tried to get NYC to pay for half the subway without giving us increased power of how it's run [1].
Then he lied about the COVID numbers so he could write a shitty book about how great of a governor he was around that time. That seems decidedly ineffective to me, unless the goal was to kill people I guess. He sucked, we're good to be rid of him.
He sucked. He probably still does.
[1] If the city actually ran the MTA I suspect it would be competent.
JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago
He kept the budget on time, played an equal role in getting the 2nd Avenue subway opened and presided over economic growth. He fumbled with COVID and was being a rapist in the background, which is unforgivable, but it’s not unreasonable to say he had positive impacts, even if I’m not sure whether he was net positive.
> the city actually ran the MTA I suspect it would be competent
I’m cautiously doubtful. We lost control for a reason. And the current MTA is pretty well run, especially if you include commuter rail in the mix.
tombert an hour ago
It was still under his role that the MTA became the strange slush fund that it is today.
I guess I don't concede that he did anything competently, or at least more competently than any other politician would be.
JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago
> start to wonder what the prior mayors was even doing
The last productive mayor New York had was Bloomberg. Then we had a leftist idiot (who did, granted, pass universal pre-K). Then we had a reactionary centrist muppet (who did, granted, pass some decent pro-development policies). So over a decade of bad executives coming to power with one or two good ideas that they implemented in their first year and then became pests.
yoyohello13 2 hours ago
The right is making him out to be the literal anti-Christ. Which is a strong signal that he will actually be effective at making positive change.
Vaslo an hour ago
It’s incredible how much virtue signaling this is. He has no power to enforce it - I’d just ignore him anyway, nothing he can do about it.
moomoo11 40 minutes ago
did it make you _feel good_ though?
irl_zebra 40 minutes ago
Fines to the non-compliant businesses and forcing them to refund are two major ways he will enforce this.
LeBit 13 minutes ago
I thought Yandex was taken out
ehsankia an hour ago
This was actually started federally under Biden, but thrown out as soon as Trump came in
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/10/...
So many other similar examples, like Bank Overdraft Fee Caps, Credit card late fees, personal data safeguards, and so much more.
apparent 3 hours ago
> A person making an automatic renewal or continuous service offer to a consumer must provide the consumer with the option to cancel at any time using a simple cancellation mechanism that is as easy to use as the mechanism that the consumer used to provide consent and that is through the same medium that the consumer used to provide consent
So if a startup lets someone sign up using Stripe, for example, does this mean that they need to have a way to unsubscribe that is as easy as Stripe? Lots of companies have a way to unsubscribe electronically, but it requires logging in to your account, going into settings, saying you want to unsub, and possibly declining various offers to stay.
Surely at some point a company could cross the line of "a simple cancellation mechanism that is as easy to use as the mechanism the consumer used to provide consent". But where is the line exactly? Surely you don't have to have a big red cancel button on every page of your platform, but at the same time surely it can't be hidden 8 levels down in the settings.
Some examples would be helpful to let businesses and consumers know what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.
simpaticoder 3 hours ago
There's a funny thing when people don't like something where they can intentionally misunderstand it or impart artificial complexity onto it painting a picture like the rule is hard to comply with. I suppose to variation of a straw man argument. I honestly don't think this is one is hard to understand at all. If you can sign up through the web you should be able to cancel through the web. If you can sign up through the phone you should be able to cancel through the phone. Companies knowingly an intentionally make it harder to cancel than to sign up for obvious reasons that have nothing to do with doing right by the consumer. This is a very good law and it should be adopted everywhere.
Vortigaunt 3 hours ago
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
― Upton Sinclair
cwillu 3 hours ago
And if you didn't have to click through a bunch of offers to subscribe, you shouldn't have to to cancel.
calvinmorrison 2 hours ago
so in order to unsubscribe from go daddy, you must also opt out of the 9.99/mo virus scanning?
notimetorelax 3 hours ago
I think the point of the law is - the same medium. If you signed up online, you should be able to cancel subscription also online.
cosmic_cheese 3 hours ago
I suspect that something as simple as 2-3 emails prior to renewal, each with a one-click (no auth needed) clear, unobscured "unsubscribe" button would be sufficient.
calvinmorrison 2 hours ago
next we need to end captive portals. Don't tell me there's an invoice, fucking send it to me!
LoganDark 25 minutes ago
"There's a new [some thing] that needs your attention" where the only email content is a log-in button needs to genuinely die.
calvinmorrison 4 minutes ago
Right? I understand maybe there are concerns about security, but at least let me opt in. Email delivery != email notification. I should be able to receive, digitally or not, mail from you, to my inbox!!!
dcrazy 3 hours ago
Maybe those people who’ve spent so much time A/B testing where to put the signup buttons can use those skills to figure out where to put the cancel buttons so that they are as easy to find.
whycome 3 hours ago
Worse. We are going to see signup flows that are initially simple but take the user through several steps to do it but not in a way to make them abandon the process.
expedition32 3 hours ago
In my country the rule is "unsubscribe the same way you subscribed". So no bullshit with having to write a literal physical letter through the mail (yes really this happened) or having to call a callcenter in India and having to explain why you want to your stop subscription.
wat10000 3 hours ago
I don’t think anyone will have trouble figuring out a good way to comply with this. It’s not clear exactly where the line is, so just don’t go near it. Make it easy to cancel, job done. If a company wants to push the boundaries by making it as difficult to cancel as the rule allows, they’re running the risk of being on the wrong side of the line and suffering the consequences, and that’s their choice.
The only reason any company would have trouble complying with this rule is if they want to abuse customers to keep them from canceling when they want to cancel. The amount of sympathy I have towards such companies requires advanced scientific notation to quantify.
rlpb 3 hours ago
> ...and possibly declining various offers to stay
Unless there were several efforts to get you to think twice before subscribing, clearly trying to get you to think twice before unsubscribing is not as easy to use.
dfxm12 3 hours ago
But where is the line exactly?
This is what courts are for. There is no exact line because many situations are different.
Surely you don't have to have a big red cancel button on every page of your platform
Why not?
Some examples would be helpful
The text you quoted is clear enough to me, and it's probably clear to any reasonable person (most rules are written this way). If you're worried about gaming the system to find the exact process that just on the "legal" side of things, you probably aren't reasonable.
pixl97 2 hours ago
Ya, a reasonable interpretation would likely mean that where you sign in and manage your accounts and payments you have the means to discontinue further service. Anyone trying to push these boundaries will likley find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
calvinmorrison 2 hours ago
well we have done it before, cookie banners. Notwithstanding that a users software running on their system (ostensibly a web client), chooses to store cookies, which are not in fact edible... now we have to suffer through it.
happyopossum 2 hours ago
> This is what courts are for. There is no exact line because many situations are different.
So now you’ve opened a bunch of businesses up to liability from an upset customer who files a complaint, even if they are making a good faith effort to follow this law.
That is why clear and specific details should be in the law, not vague hand wavy things that require lawyers and judges to interpret.
foltik 2 hours ago
Making it more specific only invites malicious compliance. If businesses TRULY make a good faith effort, they’ve got nothing to worry about.
walt_grata 2 hours ago
Heres what you should do to be safe.
On the user's settings/profile/whatever user page you have, add a cancel button. When the user clicks it say "are you sure? Yes/no". If the user clicks yes, cancel the account.
No extra hoops at all.
tzs an hour ago
I've seen people count clicks and complain that is not as easy as signup.
To signup they just went to foo.com and there was list of plans with links to their sign up pages right there, so click one of those, fill out the one page form, click submit.
To cancel, they have to go to foo.com, click the login link, full in the login form, click to submit, then on their home page click on the profile icon to get the profile menu, click account in that menu, and then click the cancel button on the account page.
That's 2 clicks to sign up and 5 to cancel--6 if the cancel button asks if you are sure.
blakeashleyjr 3 hours ago
While I think this is a good idea, we already have so many different regions to comply with, now we're adding cities....
woodruffw 3 hours ago
As far as added complexity goes, a rule for a city the size of NYC doesn’t seem like that far of a bridge to cross.
ssl-3 17 minutes ago
Indeed. NYC's population is greater than that of a bunch of whole countries, like Denmark, Singapore, or New Zealand (to name just several).
It's a really big chunk.
dominotw 3 hours ago
its hard being a dick
joshuat 3 hours ago
To avoid the overhead, we could simply adopt pro-consumer practices across the board? Easier than segmenting users and deciding which cancellation mechanisms are available to them based on region.
ignoramous an hour ago
When folks subscribe, we make it a point to highlight the fact that the app would always have a big red button the users could tap at will to either get a full refund (within 30 days) or stop the subscription payments (if after).
Not sure if it was the only cause, but in a month since then, conversion rates 2x'd (~100/mo to ~250/mo), while % of cancel/refund requests have stayed the same.
derektank 41 minutes ago
Pro-consumer practices are not inherently compliant practices
wat10000 3 hours ago
It’s an easy rule to comply with and nothing stops you from complying with it everywhere.
We will see a patchwork regime, where companies make it easy to cancel if you’re in NYC or another jurisdiction with similar rules, but difficult otherwise. When you see this, you must remember that the easiest thing would have been to make it easy for everyone to cancel regardless of location. That would be perfectly legal and it would be the cheapest option to build. If a company didn’t do that it’s because they made a deliberate choice to spend more money just so they could continue screwing some people over.
mananaysiempre 3 hours ago
Alternatively, let people cancel easily everywhere. If you think it’s worth the extra revenue to geofence easy cancellations, then—well, you do you, but you are making a business judgment that the additional development cost is justified. This is different from VAT/sales tax etc., where it is in fact impossible to comply everywhere without discriminating by jurisdiction.
pixl97 2 hours ago
Worse by following NYC laws and putting everyone else in a different harder to get away from bucket you may be setting yourself up for future legal problems. You now have a chain of documentation on your evil practices rather than them just being a norm you may have verbally agreed on before.
Projectiboga 3 hours ago
Nothing from stopping them from making it this easy to cancel for everyone. We all see cookie banners due to the EU's rules.
romanovcode 2 hours ago
EU is pushing browser settings instead of cookie banners. Maybe after 10+ years of trial and error consumers will actually get something viable.
Then again, the lobbying and resistance from Chrome must be unreal because it would be pretty huge blow for them to enable such setting.
georgemcbay 3 hours ago
> While I think this is a good idea, we already have so many different regions to comply with, now we're adding cities....
Lina Khan's FTC passed a rule to make click-to-cancel nationwide in 2024.
It was killed on procedural grounds by the highly conservative Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The take-away from how it was killed boils down to "we (companies) know that we'd lose more than $100 million dollars if people could reasonably unsubscribe rather than deal with our dark patterns".
The old FTC would have been able to fix the procedural problem, but then Trump took office and gutted the FTC and destroyed all the good work it was doing.
Since the federal government is failing us, I support local governments doing the right thing. If enough do, companies will eventually be forced into compliance nationally because it won't be worth the complexity to have hundreds of regional carve-outs.
Analemma_ 3 hours ago
You can't seriously think this makes you sound like a sympathetic party, right? "Oh no, we have to maintain two codepaths now: the pro-social one for places with functional governments, and the slimy anti-consumer fuck-you one for everywhere else. Won't anyone think of our plight?"
artursapek 2 hours ago
just remember, any amount of churn rate reduction your dark patterns earn you will be paid for many times over in the afterlife
fg137 2 hours ago
cvs.com doesn't allow me to delete my account unless I provide an address in certain states.
So I provided a fake address in California, and it was done.
Unfortunately that's how things work these days sometimes.
_false 2 hours ago
Nine states (incl. CA) already require click to cancel. This is largely a non-event
MathMonkeyMan 2 hours ago
But now, as a New Yorker, I can complain. And we love to complain.
irl_zebra 43 minutes ago
This is a very bad thing and very, very scary. Very anti-capitalist. My KPIs that go into my annual review are going to be thrashed, and without the raise I was expecting, I am unlikely to be able to continue to afford my second family. This is literally going to take food out of their mouths. I do not deserve this.
clickety_clack 2 hours ago
I like this rule. I feel like most of the apps I use are relatively easy to unsubscribe from, but it seems like it should be a requirement.
ourmandave 2 hours ago
Why not the State of NY instead of just the city?
IL has had click-to-cancel since 2022. (Actually 2000, but updated in 2022, with continuous amendments being put forward all the time.)
SpicyLemonZest 2 hours ago
The rule is mostly, although not entirely, a restatement of existing New York State law requiring cancellation to be easy (https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/527-A).
artursapek 3 hours ago
New York Times in shambles over this one
GalaxyNova 32 minutes ago
What? A city can have jurisdiction over these things?
cyberclimb 3 hours ago
You can only submit my snail mail or Fax.
So close yet so far
robertlane0 3 hours ago
There's a big blue button on the homepage that says "File a complaint" - I presume that goes through the web.
ChrisArchitect 3 hours ago
Previous discussion on the announcement:
New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
privacyfixed 2 hours ago
For anyone worried about complying with a different rule in every jurisdiction: the practical answer for a small SaaS is to build once to the strictest version and stop thinking about it. Cancel from the same account page where people pay, in no more steps than signing up took, no retention offer they have to click past, and a confirmation email that states the end date. Most billing providers' hosted customer portals already do this out of the box, so it's usually less work than the dark-pattern flow it replaces. The cases that get hard are the ones where signup was online but cancellation was deliberately routed to phone or chat.
nemomarx 2 hours ago
What's the justification for the phone or chat cancellation anyway? I get why they do it to make more money but it seems like it would be kind of nakedly extractive to explain the policy to anyone.
the_gipsy 3 hours ago
When are NY and California going to secede and join the EU?
tomnipotent an hour ago
I imagine both states would end up with single-payer healthcare pretty quickly, and both already have GDP greater than all but 3 EU countries... what exactly would the EU bring to the table?
ghm2180 3 hours ago
One abstract idea is to convert every digital event into a hook. The hook then goes into a local LLM that has a rule to figure out what to do with it. I use DDG or mozilla email aliases as much as I can. All my emails go to a local email client and for the non-spam classified mails I have a few rules(**) I am toying with right now:
1. If non-money sub, categorize its content and create a P1 watch event and a set of follow up actions.
2. If its a money/trial sub, create a P0 watch event and its own set of followup actions.
All watch events are queued for me by priority where i ask on the weekend: "Tell me P0 events", it then asks me what action. The ergonomic factor here is I the human can tune this valve on the information hose. There is also a dashboard for P0 notifications and an android push notification that notifies me of P0 events, but they aren't "consumed" until i decide. There are tons of places this can be useful: make progress on non-work related todos, systematic investment, writing year-end reviews.
None of this is rocket science.
**Local service webhooks are the key: Every web-hook has some kind of decision maker in it - an LLM + deterministic logic.