New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
New York City’s move to require “click‑to‑cancel” subscription options and upfront “all‑in” pricing is being welcomed as a long‑overdue curb on dark patterns such as hard‑to‑find cancellation flows and hidden junk fees. Commenters highlight notorious examples ranging from news sites and gyms to restaurant surcharges, hotel “resort fees,” and misleading “$X/month, billed annually” offers, noting how regulation often lags behind increasingly aggressive retention tactics. Many compare NYC’s rules to existing protections in California and the EU, debate how effectively such measures can be enforced at city level, and argue that strong, simple standards like “cancel must be as easy as signup” are among the few consumer protections that reliably work.
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.