The FTC puts off enforcing its 'click-to-cancel' rule

Delay and Political Framing

• Many see the FTC’s enforcement delay as anti-consumer “slow‑walking,” aligning government with corporate/“owner class” interests rather than the public.
• Others argue delays are common to give businesses time to comply, especially small ones without engineers, and that assuming bad faith is premature until July.
• There’s debate over whether this reflects a specific administration’s ideology or a broader structural bias toward wealth and corporations.
• Some point out the vote to delay was unanimous under the current FTC composition and note that an earlier (pre‑firing) commission had already supported deferral, suggesting this isn’t a simple partisan flip.
• Broader arguments emerge about whether US administrations are more or less “authoritarian,” whether agencies should be making rules at all versus Congress, and how much any administration truly serves ordinary voters.

Class, Wealth, and Incentives

• Discussion branches into “owner class” vs “people who seek power for self‑enrichment.”
• Several comments stress that high net worth politicians have strongly misaligned incentives, using rough numbers to show how asset‑pumping policies disproportionately benefit the very rich.
• Others note that once poor people gain power, their direct incentive to fix poverty evaporates, unlike immutable traits (race, gender, etc.).
• Proposals include paying elected officials the median national salary to align incentives better.

Visa/Mastercard and Private Enforcement

• Some argue card networks could unilaterally force subscription‑friendly rules through merchant standards, since most consumer businesses can’t operate without them.
• Pushback: networks profit from recurring charges and chargeback fees; they already tolerate high fraud levels and have historically abused their leverage (e.g., blocking legal but disfavored industries).
• Many commenters explicitly do not want unaccountable payment giants acting as de facto regulators.

Dark Patterns and Real‑World Harm

• Numerous personal stories highlight extremely hostile cancellation flows: long holds, repeated transfers, upsell pressure, “systems down” excuses, and failure to honor cancellations.
• People describe resorting to threats of legal action or regulators to secure refunds; some say they now avoid subscriptions and free trials entirely.
• Phone‑only cancellation is criticized as particularly exclusionary (e.g., for deaf users) and deliberately torturous rather than a genuine infrastructure limitation.

What “Click-to-Cancel” Should Look Like

• Strong support for the principle: cancel must be at least as easy, and via the same channel, as signup.
• Some want a prominent “Cancel” button, ideally next to price and renewal date; others prefer it living in a clearly labeled billing/subscription section to avoid UI clutter.
• Clarification that the actual rule text already aims for symmetric ease, not just “somewhere online.”
• Examples from other countries include centralized government portals for contract cancellation.

Business Incentives and Consumer Protection

• Multiple commenters say companies have tested this: adding friction to cancellation increases profit despite hurting goodwill.
• Others counter that you can’t easily measure lost sign‑ups or reputational damage with A/B tests, warning of “data‑driven” decisions based on narrow metrics.
• There’s a recurring theme that weak US consumer protections plus strong contract enforcement create fertile ground for these exploitative models, in contrast to many European experiences.