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> This is a shitty, clickbait title which I'm sorry about, It's a really unfortunate strategy the Atlantic has taken. They do the same thing on the cover of

> This is a shitty, clickbait title which I'm sorry about, It's a really unfortunate strategy the Atlantic has taken. They do the same thing on the cover of the print magazine, choosing the most provocative thing they can come up with. It's one of the reasons I stopped renewing my subscription. The other being that they stopped accepting checks for subscriptions. I won't stand for opt-out credit card renewals on magazines. It's an abusive practice. All this makes me sad because the Atlantic's writers still produce good articles like this one, but they're running the rest of the magazine in the worst possible way.

xoa 8y ago
>I won't stand for opt-out credit card renewals on magazines You are entirely morally justified in this, and even though a lot of consumer facing businesses find actual checks themselves troublesome at scale that's not excuse not to offer one-time CC transactions at least (and preferably a full range of e-payment methods). FWIW though there is a sort of hack a lot of cards offer that can be helpful for this sort of service (at least when you find it too important to be practical to just write off): virtual card numbers. They go under different branding at different places, Bank of America for example calls it "Shop Safe" or something like that IIRC. Effectively though you access the card provider's tool, put in a balance and expiration date, and it then generates a credit card number (including 'security code') that has that expiration and balance, and of course can be trivially cancelled at will. You can use it anywhere any other credit card would work. That allows creating a maximum budget payment upfront that you can then entirely forget about, it won't auto-rollover, and it can never be charged more then the balance set. I think the way most (all?) places have it set up the VCC also binds on first use, so even if it was leaked it can't be utilized anywhere else. It's a useful tool for this sort of situation since it puts the buyer back in the driver's seat. Rather then having to fight to cancel something, it's up to them to get more money out of you since they don't actually have a real card. Can also be handy for buying online from places you're not 100% confident in, you can set a balance at just the price and at least know your loss is limited there. Regrettably I don't know of any places that make this nearly as central and easy a feature as it should be, and not all banks offer it, but it comes in handy sometimes anyway.
- sevensor 8y ago
  Thanks for the tip! This might get me subscribing to magazines again.
- sp332 8y ago
  Legally, you would still owe them money for the continued subscription even if you cancel a specific credit card. It's just that usually they take the hint and cancel the subscription if they can't collect.
freyir 8y ago
> It's a really unfortunate strategy the Atlantic has taken. The Atlantic's title is "Killer Tulips Hiding in Plain Sight." Or did they change it?
- xoa 8y ago
  The mods here gave it a better title which I appreciate, I didn't want to violate the HN guidelines though and editorialize the title myself. As far as the Atlantic (and lots of other publications) yes, look at the title in the URL. "Clickbait" isn't just a derogatory term, it's literally an algorithm driven technique now. Many publishers these days do automated A/B title testing, where they make an A and B (and could C/D/whatever if they wanted), serve it to a random slice of visitors for a brief time period, then pick the one that got the most clicks. Sometimes though you can still see hints because even if the B is selected the A lingers in the CMS somewhere. On Ars Technica for another example that appears on HN with some frequency, if you go directly to the old style original forum for the front page ( https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewforum.php?f=2 https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewforum.php?f=2 ) you can see a lot of titles won't match what you'll see on the front page itself.
aklemm 8y ago
On the other hand, I'm glad they successfully got aggressive on the Web a few years ago or they'd probably be gone.

xoa 8y ago

>I won't stand for opt-out credit card renewals on magazines You are entirely morally justified in this, and even though a lot of consumer facing businesses find actual checks themselves troublesome at scale that's not excuse not to offer one-time CC transactions at least (and preferably a full range of e-payment methods). FWIW though there is a sort of hack a lot of cards offer that can be helpful for this sort of service (at least when you find it too important to be practical to just write off): virtual card numbers. They go under different branding at different places, Bank of America for example calls it "Shop Safe" or something like that IIRC. Effectively though you access the card provider's tool, put in a balance and expiration date, and it then generates a credit card number (including 'security code') that has that expiration and balance, and of course can be trivially cancelled at will. You can use it anywhere any other credit card would work. That allows creating a maximum budget payment upfront that you can then entirely forget about, it won't auto-rollover, and it can never be charged more then the balance set. I think the way most (all?) places have it set up the VCC also binds on first use, so even if it was leaked it can't be utilized anywhere else. It's a useful tool for this sort of situation since it puts the buyer back in the driver's seat. Rather then having to fight to cancel something, it's up to them to get more money out of you since they don't actually have a real card. Can also be handy for buying online from places you're not 100% confident in, you can set a balance at just the price and at least know your loss is limited there. Regrettably I don't know of any places that make this nearly as central and easy a feature as it should be, and not all banks offer it, but it comes in handy sometimes anyway.

sevensor 8y ago
Thanks for the tip! This might get me subscribing to magazines again.
sp332 8y ago
Legally, you would still owe them money for the continued subscription even if you cancel a specific credit card. It's just that usually they take the hint and cancel the subscription if they can't collect.

freyir 8y ago

> It's a really unfortunate strategy the Atlantic has taken. The Atlantic's title is "Killer Tulips Hiding in Plain Sight." Or did they change it?

xoa 8y ago
The mods here gave it a better title which I appreciate, I didn't want to violate the HN guidelines though and editorialize the title myself. As far as the Atlantic (and lots of other publications) yes, look at the title in the URL. "Clickbait" isn't just a derogatory term, it's literally an algorithm driven technique now. Many publishers these days do automated A/B title testing, where they make an A and B (and could C/D/whatever if they wanted), serve it to a random slice of visitors for a brief time period, then pick the one that got the most clicks. Sometimes though you can still see hints because even if the B is selected the A lingers in the CMS somewhere. On Ars Technica for another example that appears on HN with some frequency, if you go directly to the old style original forum for the front page ( https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewforum.php?f=2 https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewforum.php?f=2 ) you can see a lot of titles won't match what you'll see on the front page itself.

aklemm 8y ago

On the other hand, I'm glad they successfully got aggressive on the Web a few years ago or they'd probably be gone.