For me: Cancelling paid subscriptions should be as easy as subscribing. I hate the fact that they actively hide the unsubscribe option or that you sometimes should have to write an e-mail if you want to unsubscribe.
For subscriptions, I highly recommend using disposable cards like Privacy.com (no affiliation, just a customer). If I want to try out Prime, or Starz, or a “free until…” promotional offer, I just spin up a card. It’s connected to my bank account, locked to that single merchant, and they can’t charge more than whatever spending limit I put on that card. Honestly, I don’t always even sign in to a service to cancel, it’s much easier to just pause or delete a card, and then they can’t charge you anymore. It’s free for us because they collect a small portion of the transaction amount (like Visa, PayPal, etc)…
A free trial automatically rolling into a paid subscription.
Shooting plainclothes cops that execute a no-knock warrant on your home.
Seriously.
All states–ALL states–have a castle doctrine that allows you to use lethal defense to protect yourself inside your home. A no-knock warrant being executed by cops out of uniform means that you have a reasonable belief that your home is being invaded, and that your life is at immediate risk. Now, admittedly, you probably aren’t going to survive that exchange of gunfire. But the state is going to have a really hard time charging you with shooting at/killing a cop if you do.
About dozen States do NOT have a castle doctrine, and have duty to retreat laws instead.
No, castle doctrine exists in all states. You do not have a duty to retreat when it’s inside your own home in almost all cases.
police being able to lie to you
I think in the eu we have some legislation about it. I have the feeling of reading about a law like that before. Subscription buttons needing to be as clear as unsubscribe.
Capitalism
Dating sites besieging their users with bots and fake profiles.
I don’t know how this works in the US, but where I live after a year subscription (let’s say for your internet provider or something). They can only renew per month. So if the year subscription is over you can cancel any service every month and they can’t hit you with any fees.
Back in the day if you’d forgot to cancel your plan you’d be stuck with them for another year. It sucked!
The FTC under Biden was actually craking down on that. It was called the “Click to Cancel” rule, but that was literally a month before the election. :/
Lina Khan was a perhaps once in a lifetime bureaucrat doing good for the people at a rapid pace on normal government timelines and now she’ll probably never get that job or a better one again.
In the US, unsubscribing from email spam is legally required to be easy under the CAN-SPAM act. For paid subscription services, I believe they also are required to be as easy to leave as they are to join in the EU and California.
Somewhat related, many dark patterns are treated like fraud.
the CAN-SPAM act
I once wrote a community college paper for my friend in exchange for some work on my car. He had to write a paper on the CAN-SPAM act.
I did the assignment, covered all the requirements, explained it and whatnot. I then wrote a SECOND paper, appended to the end of the first. This second paper also met the length requirements, but was a parody. About the Hormel meat product, Spam. In cans. Can-Spam. I was very proud of it. It was funny.
I kept asking my friend if he ever got feedback from the professor. He never did. It was then that I learned professors often don’t read papers like this, they just assign them to get students to read and practice writing. It made me sad.
Loaning money to your own political campaign and then paying yourself back, including an interest rate set by you, using donor funds.
There are a number of things that are legal here in the US, which would count as corruption in other places.
Companies changing the terms of the contract on you.
Yes, but - in many of those contracts (particularly end-user license agreements) you agreed to them changing the terms of the contract. You also have an “out” - not using the product any more.
You’re right though: it’s slimy. Anything slimy thing can be put into a contract!
Source: I’m not a lawyer, but worked in an office with a lot of them, and worked with software license agreements in particular.
I’m so curious now. Do you know how those apply? I mean, can they change the terms on you without notice or is that notice legally required? And say they want to feed all your data of however many years to AI. If you accidentally use it once, do they get permission for everything? What if you agree only because you want to delete your data?
I have so many questions. lol
You usually get an email saying something is changing. Problem is, you’ve already paid and if it’s a material change, now you have to agree to continue using your property. Sometimes you don’t get a notice and it’s a “software update” that now pushes ads onto a product you bought and are now shit outta luck since you can’t return it. Samsung and Roku are bad for this.
Samsung and Roku are bad for this.
You’re buying the hardware; they provide the software as a service. Oh, sure, no agreeing to a unilateral change of conditions on the software means that your hardware is rendered worthless, but still… And yeah, that’s pretty much the way that actually works.
IP law can start getting pretty strange.
all i’m going to say is whatever shit adobe is pulling because i could yap about this forever with anyone
Which particular part? I’m interested and somewhat outside of the situation.
the fact that they decided to charge $90 a month and $65 to cancel is truly evil
Any type of exit fee like account closing. Any costs for leaving should be charges before leaving as part of business costs either at the start or part of monthly or whatever. Leaving should be free.
Looking at you, Adobe.
Advertising. At what point did we as a society decide that it was perfectly acceptable for companies to manipulate us - especially children - into buying shit we don’t need and didn’t even want until the ad sold us on it? It’s fucking wild.
Marketing wasn’t really a thing until sometime around the Industrial Revolution and post-WW1. Before then, we didn’t really have the capacity to produce more than what people needed. Marketing basically just consisted of “here’s my product, here’s why it’s superior to others.” But with the post-war boom and the rise in manufacturing, producers were suddenly able to out-produce the demand. So they invented marketing, to get people to buy things that they didn’t actually need. The idea of “create a problem so you can sell the solution” was born.
Adblocking feels to me like it should be illegal, but isn’t. I have adblockers on all my devices and haven’t seen an ad for years; it feels like a secret super power and stopped the web from looking like a trashy back alley.
I am always shocked when I have to use a browser without an ad blocker. How do people tolerate it?
I mean, I get it. I know many people have no idea about adblocking, etc. But goddam. It’s so awful without it.
I love how I’ve lost all perspective on what a “normal” ad is. Whenever I see one I’m often either super confused at the approach or it’s so bland I just don’t care. Once you stop seeing them routinely they feel so ridiculous
Right! It’s kinda wild when you do see them. I always equate it to the feeling of being in a casino.
What really throws me is tv commercials. When I do see one, like in a waiting room or something, all I can think is, “people fall for this?”
They usually depend on just making you remember them (the most extreme example I can think of is the “I’m on a horse” old spice ad from like 15 years ago, which admittedly is very clever/funny/well executed), regardless of the message or context. They just want brand recognition a lot of the time. You’re at the supermarket, you see 10 of basically the same cereal, but this one brand of cereal feels more legit or just “draws you in” because of a subconscious association. In that way unfortunately it works most of the time, especially if you don’t have a strong opinion on a product.
I’m in the same boat, but you also have to remember that blocking ads typically involves blocking tracking too. You’re right they the ads are much more bland or misdirected but that’s because there’s little to no targeting data (probably just your IP address).
I’m mostly talking about the stuff I see on a TV when I’m in a waiting room or an airport or something
You should rawdog fox news sometime. Their cookie pop-up is WILD
It’s weird they don’t put more effort into stopping them, TBH. I’ve heard it’s because they’d rather collect extra analytics than do any foolproofing that might interfere with it.
And the fact that a lot of children’s TV shows are nothing but thinly veiled toy commercials. Hilariously parodied in Dinosaurs
Worst part is, those are usually the best ones.
Ordered food at Sonic on their app. After I ordered, it popped up with ads for travel, various credit cards, etc. Completely crazy to me that they’re triple dipping on monetization now (sell me food, sell my data and then sell me other shit while trying to sell me food.)
I recently went to Sonic, didn’t use the app, and ended up with norovirus for free.
You can thank Sigmund Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays
Specifically his 1928 book Propaganda which basically created PR and modern advertising.
It happened gradually, like frogs in a kettle.
When it was just a guy putting up a sign in front of his smithy it was kind of harmless. Ditto for having a single text-only paper ad for people who are new to town. But, it was a slippery slope.
Frogs will not stay in the kettle :)
