4 ms·

Knowingly optimizing your business to maximize my chances of forgetting, or making it difficult to unsubscribe, is absolutely unethical.

crazygringo 3y ago
Difficulty in unsubscribing sure, but that's a totally separate issue. That has nothing to do with not being aware of your subscriptions. But otherwise, what are businesses doing to "maximize your chance of forgetting"? That's not a thing. That's not something they have control over or can maximize. For monthly subscriptions, you see it every month on your credit card. For yearly subscriptions, companies generally send a notice a ~week before, reminding you that you'll be charged, and then you get a receipt emailed. That seems entirely reasonable to me. The rest is called personal responsibility. When you sign up for a subscription, you know full well what you're doing. You know it will continue until you cancel. There's absolutely nothing unethical about it being your responsibility to cancel.
- omginternets 3y ago
  The premise of this discussion is that another HN user has observed that companies routinely rely on people forgetting to unsubscribe. Again, the idea is that this is part of the core business model. As I've already mentioned, we agree that personal responsibility is important. I believe we can also agree that some people are unable to be fully responsible for reasons that escape them (depression, severe ADHD, other more pressing responsibilities like children who aren't doing well, etc.) I think it takes a special kind of misanthropy to suggest that it's fine for companies to base their business model on the fact that such people will pay for a service they aren't using. I am not arguing for legislature or anything of the sort, but I still think it's unambiguously unethical. It is, in the most literal sense, exploitative.

4 ms·

Knowingly optimizing your business to maximize my chances of forgetting, or making it difficult to unsubscribe, is absolutely unethical.

by omginternets 3y ago

crazygringo 3y ago
Difficulty in unsubscribing sure, but that's a totally separate issue. That has nothing to do with not being aware of your subscriptions. But otherwise, what are businesses doing to "maximize your chance of forgetting"? That's not a thing. That's not something they have control over or can maximize. For monthly subscriptions, you see it every month on your credit card. For yearly subscriptions, companies generally send a notice a ~week before, reminding you that you'll be charged, and then you get a receipt emailed. That seems entirely reasonable to me. The rest is called personal responsibility. When you sign up for a subscription, you know full well what you're doing. You know it will continue until you cancel. There's absolutely nothing unethical about it being your responsibility to cancel.
- omginternets 3y ago
  The premise of this discussion is that another HN user has observed that companies routinely rely on people forgetting to unsubscribe. Again, the idea is that this is part of the core business model. As I've already mentioned, we agree that personal responsibility is important. I believe we can also agree that some people are unable to be fully responsible for reasons that escape them (depression, severe ADHD, other more pressing responsibilities like children who aren't doing well, etc.) I think it takes a special kind of misanthropy to suggest that it's fine for companies to base their business model on the fact that such people will pay for a service they aren't using. I am not arguing for legislature or anything of the sort, but I still think it's unambiguously unethical. It is, in the most literal sense, exploitative.