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Good. The worst experience I ever had was with NY Times when I wanted to unsubscribe I had to go through multiple call/chats with a person and it was almost imp

Good. The worst experience I ever had was with NY Times when I wanted to unsubscribe I had to go through multiple call/chats with a person and it was almost impossible since it was hard to get in touch with one. I am glad FTC is doing something others are afraid to do.

88913527 5y ago
Anyone with access to a public library (photo ID will get you a free library card) can access eLibrary services that get updated daily. No need to pay for NYT, for WSJ, or any major national newspaper. By paying taxes, you're already paying for digital access to this media. I applaud the FTC's decision but I wish people realized there's more practical means for accessing media that is more frequently locked behind paywalls these days. You fight it with a library card.
- badwolf 5y ago
  I always recommend folks get a library card, as they will generally provide free access to these as well as many other newspapers... However there's often 30-90 day embargo to access current issues/articles online.
- jcgoette 5y ago
  >photo ID will get you a free library card Results may vary.
  - rootsudo 5y ago
    No, Librarians are pretty liberal with this. Many in big cities, e.g. Chicago, Seattle, etc don't even need to see an ID, just a bill but if you show up and pester back and forth a few times they'll still give you one. No government identity needed. A bill helps.
    - OldHand2018 5y ago
      In large cities especially, libraries will have an "independent" charitable foundation attached to them. It is very prestigious in the local community to be on the board or to donate large sums to these foundations. Thus, large city libraries are typically excellent with plenty of funding and can afford to offer services to the poor and indigent which smaller libraries cannot. In the US, a lot of libraries are funded by property taxes, and the various laws that allow these taxes to be collected (for library purposes) will state that the library cannot offer services to people outside the geographic boundary for a lower cost than is charged to the people inside the boundary and are paying the taxes. That's why they need "proof" of where you live before giving you a card. But then you also have laws requiring services to be provided to the homeless regardless of proof of residence (how do you prove your residence when you are homeless?). How does the library resolve that legal conflict? It pretty much always comes down to money and local attitudes (see first paragraph).
- xattt 5y ago
  This depends on your library system. I am under a provincial library system which is woefully underfunded. We get “flavours of the month” services that are likely trial versions offered to libraries before lock-in. Some of the choices over the years were Freegal Music, Ancestry.com and some sort of language training thing. Our Overdrive tier is probably the cheapest and I occasionally use my parents’ library card for expanded Overdrive access, who live in a place with a much better funded library system.
  - devilbunny 5y ago
    Fully agree. My local library system is badly funded (as in, they let a building full of books rot rather than simply move them, and the main library has been closed for several years due to roof and sewage leaks) and we have no easy option to pay for a good one.
    - datavirtue 5y ago
      We should have funded libraries in the infrastructure bill. A rounding error would have been enough to supercharge them.
      - voakbasda 5y ago
        Governments have realized that an uneducated populace is easier to control. Or maybe that is too cynical a view for HN?
- koheripbal 5y ago
  Not only is this not true everywhere, it can also be much more cumbersome to access. Not to mention that supporting quality journalism is probably one of the best things you can do today to make the world better.
  - alisonkisk 5y ago
    I agree, and thats why I donate to ProPublica, which is free and doesn't use it's reporting as reputation laundering for an Opinion section that promotes billionaire profits ahead of humanity. Also, using the library is supporting journalism. The library pays for a digital license
    - chefandy 5y ago
      ProPublica does such good work. If anyone reading this hasn’t checked them out, I encourage them to, soon.
  - smabie 5y ago
    Honest question: where can I actually find quality journalism?
- chefandy 5y ago
  I’ve tried that workflow with multiple public and university libraries. While the experience varies from Library to Library— my current underfunded city seems not to have current non-archive digital newspaper access at all— and some new commonly adopted platform I’m not aware of might have solved the problem, the workflow isn’t compatible with the way most people discover news stories. It works decently, even if a bit clunky, if you are moderately database savvy and your use case resembles a print user’s— i.e. browse today’s headlines from a small number of sources and use them to decide which articles to read. (Which is also probably the best way to avoid algorithmic bias if your source choice is solid.) However, most people access their news on a whim through social media, web searches, and aggregators designed to provide only the most relevant and appealing selection of stories without having to think about it. While you say it’s more practical, that’s an extremely subjective metric. For many people, spending a few bucks a month for something that works with their current workflow and saves rather than costs time is far more practical. Also, I’ve never seen a Library setup that gives access to desirable paywalled extra features like podcasts or NYT Food. I’m sure that’s quite deliberate on the NYT’s part. I’m happy to give a few bucks a month to news orgs; in fact I wish they were nonprofits that would somehow let me pay enough more to abandon their asinine surveillance capitalism tendencies and expand free access, but I have no idea what that would look like logistically. If there was a network of newspaper-like organizations that operated like PBS and NPR, ideally with its own news wire, that would be a great start, IMO. People having free and easy access to news from non-government-run sources (PBS and NPR are not government-run, naysayers) is a public good. I wish we could figure out how to shape the industry to reflect that.
wonderwonder 5y ago
Strange that this hit HN today. 2 days ago I wondered what the cancellation policy was for the WSJ and checked. At the time I did not plan on cancelling but after finding out that it was "call to cancel" I called at that moment. I cannot stand the policy where it takes 3 seconds to sign up online but you have to call in to cancel. If I can help it I wont give money to companies that do it. In WSJ defense (barely) it was a quick process, probably took 5 minutes.
- beckman466 5y ago
  > Strange that this hit HN today. these 'exciting' new dark pattern strategies spread very quickly among firms. many people are suddenly dealing with them. not strange imo
- maskros 5y ago
  5 minutes is still 4 minutes and 55 seconds too long. There's no good reason it should take 59 times longer than it ought to.
  - wonderwonder 5y ago
    No argument from me. They asked why I was cancelling and I told them it was because I had to call to cancel.
    - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
      Next time pay for the subscription by check (mail it in). They can’t bill you again automatically.
      - jjnoakes 5y ago
        Is this legal? I assume if they wanted to (which admittedly is unlikely) they could send you to collections for not paying for the renewal that you agreed to when you subscribed.
silicon2401 5y ago
Stuff like this is why I'm a happy ad blocker and piracy user. Even if you want to play by the big corporations' games, they find a way to screw you over.
kemitche 5y ago
I've successfully cancelled my NYT sub online before. It's a little tucked away but it exists. I remember when I first subscribed that wasn't possible - because a few months in they sent me an email basically talking about how awesome their new "online subscription self management system" is.
cossatot 5y ago
I tried to cancel my NYT subscription a few weeks ago after my heavily discounted rate went up to normal, and the second web page in the process offered to cut the price by half, which was acceptable to me. Although it is still a pain to cancel, the no-haggle rate reductions are nice.
bakoo 5y ago
When I had to go through that about 7-8 years ago, actually on behalf of a boss of mine who couldn't be bothered sitting through the whole thing, it took a full 15 minutes. I will continue to bring it up when I can, no matter if they change their ways.
kwanbix 5y ago
I my home country the law says that you must be allowed to unsubscribe the same way you subscribed. Which makes sense.
blago 5y ago
I called their BS and told my credit card company that this subscription was no longer authorized. They were happy to cancel it on my behalf and refunded the last charge.
la6471 5y ago
Not only news sites , but all kinds of business should adhere to this. Good job!
tzs 5y ago
I wonder if I somehow got on a super secret VIP list and get special treatment? I called, got through quickly, told them I did not want to renew because I found that I wasn't actually reading it all that much, and they promptly canceled. Somewhere in there I realized I should make sure they were only cancelling the paper so I told them I wanted to keep my crossword subscription and that I realized that this would mean I'd pay full price when my crossword renewed instead of the 50% off price paper subscribers get. They told me it was indeed only the paper that I had cancelled, but told me I was wrong about the crossword price. The offer for paper subscribers is to buy a half price crossword subscription and that's what I bought. It remains a half price crossword prescription as long as you keep it.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  Not being sarcastic, but what's special about the NYT crossword? Why not just go to a Barnes&Noble (or whatever) and grab a crossword book off the shelf?
  - mikeyouse 5y ago
    The NYT crossword subscription gets you full access to their app which has every crossword they’ve ever published, and a bunch of other crossword-like puzzles.
analog31 5y ago
My family just cancelled NY Times and our local paper, and switched to online-only for the NYT. It was quite a rigamarole. First, we had to call during business hours. Next, they went through a lengthy selling process before letting us cancel. We were simply filling the bin with too much paper every week, and the local paper raised its prices. I can get Prince Valiant online.
linspace 5y ago
Ah, lucky you. I read your comment on my phone and came to my desktop to type comfortably my rant. Have you ever tried to cancel a loan? The following story may or not apply to you. It happened in a small country called Spain: Some time ago I bought a car. They offer you a very nice discount if you, instead of paying upfront, finance the purchase. Why? I asked the seller, it makes no sense. He gave me a list of more or less valid reasons, leaving the most important out: the draconian interest rate, which I inmediatly noticed. Noticing also the lack of integrity I decided to play along and took the loan with the intent of cancelling it ASAP. To summarize: it took something like 10 calls and saying on the last one that I was going to send a certified mail and forbidding my bank to pay a single €. I paid the loan and saved several thousand euros, even after paying "cancellation costs". The whole enterprise has changed my view about regulation. It was regulation that gave me the right to cancel the loan against their will, and capped the cancellation costs, which I find it amazing they are even allowed, to compensate "for lost earnings". After the 2008 crisis a lot of regulation has been put in place affecting the banks. It's incredible they are allowing still this kind of scam to buy a car.
- Humdeee 5y ago
  > nice discount if you, instead of paying upfront, finance the purchase Save $3,000 today so you can spend $12,000 tomorrow!
- nickpp 5y ago
  You took a loan and "the draconian interest rate" was a surprise?! I would've thought that was the most important factor.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    You're missing the "car dealership game" that has to be played sometimes. Lots of places will offer you a cash discount and/or 0% interest if you finance with them. They get cash kickbacks and sometimes a cut of the interest. Now you, the savvy customer, see an opportunity here. You were going to buy the car in cash and so there's an obvious play; buy the car, take the financing, and then immediately pay off the loan (or when the 0% interest expires). It's a win-win right? Not for the bank unfortunately which is why nowadays there are early payoff fees and dealerships will try to make it annoying to pay them. Terrible terrible incentives but the discount can be worth the headache -- the discount is almost always more than the early payoff fee.
havelhovel 5y ago
The Economist does this as well. Very frustrating to have to explain multiple times over chat that I just want to cancel and that no I don’t want any deals and that yes I understand the terms of the offer being made and that no I still don’t want the deal even though I understand you are telling me that this deal really is in my best interest. And yet I didn’t need to talk to any employees at all before giving them my money.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  The economist also does not have unsubscribe links in their marketing emails, the ones that you get after you’re a subscriber.
  - ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
    That's why I mercilessly hit the spam button on such emails. Any email which is slightly uncalled for is spam in my books.
- JacobThreeThree 5y ago
  Yep, I had this experience with The Economist as well. It was very difficult to cancel and it was by phone only.
bborud 5y ago
I cancelled NYT by simply emailing them and telling them that I would be stopping payment. I was curious to see if they'd do anything. I never heard from them (and my subscription was miraculously cancelled). I'm not sure if it's a factor that I live in Europe? I don't think I ever want to give NYT my money again though. I have no wish to deal with scummy businesses.
bigmattystyles 5y ago
When they want you to call, tell them you’re deaf. Works every time.

88913527 5y ago

Anyone with access to a public library (photo ID will get you a free library card) can access eLibrary services that get updated daily. No need to pay for NYT, for WSJ, or any major national newspaper. By paying taxes, you're already paying for digital access to this media. I applaud the FTC's decision but I wish people realized there's more practical means for accessing media that is more frequently locked behind paywalls these days. You fight it with a library card.

badwolf 5y ago
I always recommend folks get a library card, as they will generally provide free access to these as well as many other newspapers... However there's often 30-90 day embargo to access current issues/articles online.
jcgoette 5y ago
>photo ID will get you a free library card Results may vary.
- rootsudo 5y ago
  No, Librarians are pretty liberal with this. Many in big cities, e.g. Chicago, Seattle, etc don't even need to see an ID, just a bill but if you show up and pester back and forth a few times they'll still give you one. No government identity needed. A bill helps.
  - OldHand2018 5y ago
    In large cities especially, libraries will have an "independent" charitable foundation attached to them. It is very prestigious in the local community to be on the board or to donate large sums to these foundations. Thus, large city libraries are typically excellent with plenty of funding and can afford to offer services to the poor and indigent which smaller libraries cannot. In the US, a lot of libraries are funded by property taxes, and the various laws that allow these taxes to be collected (for library purposes) will state that the library cannot offer services to people outside the geographic boundary for a lower cost than is charged to the people inside the boundary and are paying the taxes. That's why they need "proof" of where you live before giving you a card. But then you also have laws requiring services to be provided to the homeless regardless of proof of residence (how do you prove your residence when you are homeless?). How does the library resolve that legal conflict? It pretty much always comes down to money and local attitudes (see first paragraph).
xattt 5y ago
This depends on your library system. I am under a provincial library system which is woefully underfunded. We get “flavours of the month” services that are likely trial versions offered to libraries before lock-in. Some of the choices over the years were Freegal Music, Ancestry.com and some sort of language training thing. Our Overdrive tier is probably the cheapest and I occasionally use my parents’ library card for expanded Overdrive access, who live in a place with a much better funded library system.
- devilbunny 5y ago
  Fully agree. My local library system is badly funded (as in, they let a building full of books rot rather than simply move them, and the main library has been closed for several years due to roof and sewage leaks) and we have no easy option to pay for a good one.
  - datavirtue 5y ago
    We should have funded libraries in the infrastructure bill. A rounding error would have been enough to supercharge them.
    - voakbasda 5y ago
      Governments have realized that an uneducated populace is easier to control. Or maybe that is too cynical a view for HN?
koheripbal 5y ago
Not only is this not true everywhere, it can also be much more cumbersome to access. Not to mention that supporting quality journalism is probably one of the best things you can do today to make the world better.
- alisonkisk 5y ago
  I agree, and thats why I donate to ProPublica, which is free and doesn't use it's reporting as reputation laundering for an Opinion section that promotes billionaire profits ahead of humanity. Also, using the library is supporting journalism. The library pays for a digital license
  - chefandy 5y ago
    ProPublica does such good work. If anyone reading this hasn’t checked them out, I encourage them to, soon.
- smabie 5y ago
  Honest question: where can I actually find quality journalism?
chefandy 5y ago
I’ve tried that workflow with multiple public and university libraries. While the experience varies from Library to Library— my current underfunded city seems not to have current non-archive digital newspaper access at all— and some new commonly adopted platform I’m not aware of might have solved the problem, the workflow isn’t compatible with the way most people discover news stories. It works decently, even if a bit clunky, if you are moderately database savvy and your use case resembles a print user’s— i.e. browse today’s headlines from a small number of sources and use them to decide which articles to read. (Which is also probably the best way to avoid algorithmic bias if your source choice is solid.) However, most people access their news on a whim through social media, web searches, and aggregators designed to provide only the most relevant and appealing selection of stories without having to think about it. While you say it’s more practical, that’s an extremely subjective metric. For many people, spending a few bucks a month for something that works with their current workflow and saves rather than costs time is far more practical. Also, I’ve never seen a Library setup that gives access to desirable paywalled extra features like podcasts or NYT Food. I’m sure that’s quite deliberate on the NYT’s part. I’m happy to give a few bucks a month to news orgs; in fact I wish they were nonprofits that would somehow let me pay enough more to abandon their asinine surveillance capitalism tendencies and expand free access, but I have no idea what that would look like logistically. If there was a network of newspaper-like organizations that operated like PBS and NPR, ideally with its own news wire, that would be a great start, IMO. People having free and easy access to news from non-government-run sources (PBS and NPR are not government-run, naysayers) is a public good. I wish we could figure out how to shape the industry to reflect that.

wonderwonder 5y ago

Strange that this hit HN today. 2 days ago I wondered what the cancellation policy was for the WSJ and checked. At the time I did not plan on cancelling but after finding out that it was "call to cancel" I called at that moment. I cannot stand the policy where it takes 3 seconds to sign up online but you have to call in to cancel. If I can help it I wont give money to companies that do it. In WSJ defense (barely) it was a quick process, probably took 5 minutes.

beckman466 5y ago
> Strange that this hit HN today. these 'exciting' new dark pattern strategies spread very quickly among firms. many people are suddenly dealing with them. not strange imo
maskros 5y ago
5 minutes is still 4 minutes and 55 seconds too long. There's no good reason it should take 59 times longer than it ought to.
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  No argument from me. They asked why I was cancelling and I told them it was because I had to call to cancel.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    Next time pay for the subscription by check (mail it in). They can’t bill you again automatically.
    - jjnoakes 5y ago
      Is this legal? I assume if they wanted to (which admittedly is unlikely) they could send you to collections for not paying for the renewal that you agreed to when you subscribed.

silicon2401 5y ago

Stuff like this is why I'm a happy ad blocker and piracy user. Even if you want to play by the big corporations' games, they find a way to screw you over.

kemitche 5y ago

I've successfully cancelled my NYT sub online before. It's a little tucked away but it exists. I remember when I first subscribed that wasn't possible - because a few months in they sent me an email basically talking about how awesome their new "online subscription self management system" is.

cossatot 5y ago

I tried to cancel my NYT subscription a few weeks ago after my heavily discounted rate went up to normal, and the second web page in the process offered to cut the price by half, which was acceptable to me. Although it is still a pain to cancel, the no-haggle rate reductions are nice.

bakoo 5y ago

When I had to go through that about 7-8 years ago, actually on behalf of a boss of mine who couldn't be bothered sitting through the whole thing, it took a full 15 minutes. I will continue to bring it up when I can, no matter if they change their ways.

kwanbix 5y ago

I my home country the law says that you must be allowed to unsubscribe the same way you subscribed. Which makes sense.

blago 5y ago

I called their BS and told my credit card company that this subscription was no longer authorized. They were happy to cancel it on my behalf and refunded the last charge.

la6471 5y ago

Not only news sites , but all kinds of business should adhere to this. Good job!

tzs 5y ago

I wonder if I somehow got on a super secret VIP list and get special treatment? I called, got through quickly, told them I did not want to renew because I found that I wasn't actually reading it all that much, and they promptly canceled. Somewhere in there I realized I should make sure they were only cancelling the paper so I told them I wanted to keep my crossword subscription and that I realized that this would mean I'd pay full price when my crossword renewed instead of the 50% off price paper subscribers get. They told me it was indeed only the paper that I had cancelled, but told me I was wrong about the crossword price. The offer for paper subscribers is to buy a half price crossword subscription and that's what I bought. It remains a half price crossword prescription as long as you keep it.

colejohnson66 5y ago
Not being sarcastic, but what's special about the NYT crossword? Why not just go to a Barnes&Noble (or whatever) and grab a crossword book off the shelf?
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  The NYT crossword subscription gets you full access to their app which has every crossword they’ve ever published, and a bunch of other crossword-like puzzles.

analog31 5y ago

My family just cancelled NY Times and our local paper, and switched to online-only for the NYT. It was quite a rigamarole. First, we had to call during business hours. Next, they went through a lengthy selling process before letting us cancel. We were simply filling the bin with too much paper every week, and the local paper raised its prices. I can get Prince Valiant online.

linspace 5y ago

Ah, lucky you. I read your comment on my phone and came to my desktop to type comfortably my rant. Have you ever tried to cancel a loan? The following story may or not apply to you. It happened in a small country called Spain: Some time ago I bought a car. They offer you a very nice discount if you, instead of paying upfront, finance the purchase. Why? I asked the seller, it makes no sense. He gave me a list of more or less valid reasons, leaving the most important out: the draconian interest rate, which I inmediatly noticed. Noticing also the lack of integrity I decided to play along and took the loan with the intent of cancelling it ASAP. To summarize: it took something like 10 calls and saying on the last one that I was going to send a certified mail and forbidding my bank to pay a single €. I paid the loan and saved several thousand euros, even after paying "cancellation costs". The whole enterprise has changed my view about regulation. It was regulation that gave me the right to cancel the loan against their will, and capped the cancellation costs, which I find it amazing they are even allowed, to compensate "for lost earnings". After the 2008 crisis a lot of regulation has been put in place affecting the banks. It's incredible they are allowing still this kind of scam to buy a car.

Humdeee 5y ago
> nice discount if you, instead of paying upfront, finance the purchase Save $3,000 today so you can spend $12,000 tomorrow!
nickpp 5y ago
You took a loan and "the draconian interest rate" was a surprise?! I would've thought that was the most important factor.
- Spivak 5y ago
  You're missing the "car dealership game" that has to be played sometimes. Lots of places will offer you a cash discount and/or 0% interest if you finance with them. They get cash kickbacks and sometimes a cut of the interest. Now you, the savvy customer, see an opportunity here. You were going to buy the car in cash and so there's an obvious play; buy the car, take the financing, and then immediately pay off the loan (or when the 0% interest expires). It's a win-win right? Not for the bank unfortunately which is why nowadays there are early payoff fees and dealerships will try to make it annoying to pay them. Terrible terrible incentives but the discount can be worth the headache -- the discount is almost always more than the early payoff fee.

havelhovel 5y ago

The Economist does this as well. Very frustrating to have to explain multiple times over chat that I just want to cancel and that no I don’t want any deals and that yes I understand the terms of the offer being made and that no I still don’t want the deal even though I understand you are telling me that this deal really is in my best interest. And yet I didn’t need to talk to any employees at all before giving them my money.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
The economist also does not have unsubscribe links in their marketing emails, the ones that you get after you’re a subscriber.
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
  That's why I mercilessly hit the spam button on such emails. Any email which is slightly uncalled for is spam in my books.
JacobThreeThree 5y ago
Yep, I had this experience with The Economist as well. It was very difficult to cancel and it was by phone only.

bborud 5y ago

I cancelled NYT by simply emailing them and telling them that I would be stopping payment. I was curious to see if they'd do anything. I never heard from them (and my subscription was miraculously cancelled). I'm not sure if it's a factor that I live in Europe? I don't think I ever want to give NYT my money again though. I have no wish to deal with scummy businesses.

bigmattystyles 5y ago

When they want you to call, tell them you’re deaf. Works every time.