New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

Scope of the NYC Rules

• Law targets deceptive subscription practices and “junk fees.”
• Core requirement: cancellation must be as easy as sign-up (“click-to-cancel”), mainly for gyms, online subs, SaaS, etc.
• Separate proposed rule would require total price (incl. mandatory fees) to be advertised upfront for any good or service.
• Some note overlap with existing FTC and California rules; others argue NYC is “catching up,” not inventing this.

Enforcement & Jurisdiction

• Debate over how much a city can really enforce against out‑of‑state or online companies.
• Argument that NYC’s population and wealth give it leverage similar to a small state.
• Legal discussion around “minimum contacts” and states enforcing consumer laws against out‑of‑state firms.
• Some expect lobbying and carve‑outs (as seen in California restaurant exemptions); others think NYC’s current political leadership is less likely to cave.

Junk Fees, Drip Pricing, and Tipping

• Strong dislike of restaurant “living wage” or “service” surcharges instead of simply raising menu prices.
• Many see such line items as political messaging or psychological price manipulation.
• Comparisons to hotels’ “resort fees,” telecom “recovery fees,” airline fuel surcharges, and hidden apartment costs.
• Several contrast U.S. à‑la‑carte fees and tax‑excluded pricing with Europe/Australia, where final prices (including tax) are standard and tipping is modest.

Subscriptions, Dark Patterns, and Payments

• Multiple anecdotes of hard‑to‑cancel services (notably newspapers, SaaS, Evernote) and even charges after cancellation.
• Developers describe billing platforms pushing “retention funnel” flows by default.
• Criticism of annual plans advertised as “per month” while billed upfront.
• Positive mentions of companies that email clear renewal warnings and allow one‑click cancel (Nintendo, some cloud services, app store subs).
• Suggestions that banks, card networks, or Stripe‑style platforms could enforce honest subscription handling from the top down.

Ethics and Politics

• Broad support for the law as “sensible” and an example of government protecting consumers against enshittification.
• Skepticism remains about actual enforcement and the risk of watered‑down rules.
• Heated subthread on the ethics of engineers implementing dark patterns: some defend it as job necessity; others reject “just following orders” as a moral excuse.