EDIT: Oh, looks like the cancellation didn't go through and they charged me for one more month, sweet. I might just go to my bank and tell them to block the source. Or even better, I may have found a trick. You can switch your payment to Paypal, and then Paypal let's you block/cancel reccuring payment. Let's see if that works.
So are you also cancelling your cable subscription, any magazine subscriptions, physical newspaper subscriptions, no longer driving on toll roads with billboard...?
I'm not saying it's right, or good, or valid--but the standard practice, for as long as I can remember, for most mediums, is to still show ads for things you pay for. So I'm not sure how that makes it "backwards".
The other things you mention - magazines, newspapers, and billboards - usually don't track you and build a profile on you so they are less objectionable.
Magazines and newspapers may not track you to the extent that websites can and do. But they certainly sell your information to third parties. And they have at least some basic profile information about you (if you're subscribing to Cat Fancier, it's a pretty good bet you love cats). Even an address or zip code provides a likely income range, political leaning, etc.
Billboards.... well that depends what you consider a "billboard" and what you consider "tracking". There has certainly been stories here on HN about eyesight tracking, stores tracking you using cell-phone beacons to see where you are going. These things can and have been used in signage (i.e. "small billboards").
But that's not really the point, anyway. My original point was that it was not "backwards" to pay for a particular service and have it show you ads. It's very, very common. And in most cases it's actually the norm, in almost any type of media. So I stand by my original point: showing ads is not "backwards", it's the norm.
With toll roads keeping a record of who travels on them when, it's only a matter of time until this revenue source gets tapped.
Paying 15 euros per month to get a daily crossword + cooking section (or 9 euros per month to not get them) is something not a lot of people are interested in.
Whether or not you go out of your way to avoid ads isn't really germane to my point. I'm simply suggesting that it's not at all "backwards" to show ads for subscription services. That's just a fact. Are there exceptions? Absolutely. But it's just simply not the case that the concept is unusual or backwards.
Even if you think you aren't seeing ads, you're probably seeing product placements, or something similar.
Anyway, I'll leave you with one of my favorite NewsRadio clips:
Yep
>any magazine subscriptions
Yep
>physical newspaper subscriptions,
Yep
Don't forget about Hulu. Ads are my #1 reason for canceling most paid services.
(but I must admit, if I did pull the plug on cable the primary reason (besides we really don't use it much) would be the fact I pay big bucks to watch a fuckton of advertising)
Probably best to call and terminate the contract the right way.
Not paying is a sensible path in this case I would say.
This is illegal in Europe. By law, it has to be at least as easy to cancel subscriptions, as it is to buy them.
I love Europe. :)
FWIW, I have a "cancel subscription" link in my profile.
I see it's paid off commercially, no doubt, as it's seemed to have attracted a new wider user base as the lower quality comment sections now reflects on every political article. Including the NYT selected preferred comments which I used to find held a basic level of neutrality and civililty.
Business is business though, and it's always hard to balance scale with quality.
they decided to doubled down on being another partisan rag like WaPo, feeding off the outrage culture
P.s I have to phone the FT to cancel my subscription apparently.
Although they came out against him, if you actually watch the source videos I don't think they had a strong case. This was one of the key posts that made me lose trust in WSJ as an organization.
[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-severs-ties-with-youtube...
I’d say the most neutral news will come from news agencies (reuters, afp, etc). There you get the raw material (what happened) without the comments. For business news bloomberg is the (expensive) equivalent. But occasionally there is important original content in the FT so I am not contemplating cancelling my subscription for the time being.
Pertinent to this thread I had a subscription with The Times and the only cancellation option was by phone.
Anecdotally, it's very common with phone and utility providers too.
It's a slight hassle as you need to go to a web site to get a code every 3 days, but it's probably preferable for those who don't read it every day: https://sfpl.libanswers.com/friendly.php?slug=faq/166904
https://www.nytco.com/year-of-audience/
I̶ ̶g̶u̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶y̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶s̶p̶a̶p̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶d̶i̶v̶i̶d̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶.̶ [edit: that number isn't for physical newspapers, see replies]
She delivers about 500 papers a night. And she is just one of the 20+ drivers in our city of 180K people.
So people do still buy them.
I note that it is frequently sold out at those starbucks locations (after lunch, at least) so it appears that others buy them there as well.
FWIW, I am a sunday-only print version subscriber.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_by_circulat...
Buying traffic from cheap ads can easily get you millions of "readers" who just hit the page from various IPs and leave some cookies around.
Also that number is mostly quoting digital viewers, which are not audited at all.
I think this is why the media, in general and including the NYT, has become more partisan and more emotional. It's being used as a consumer retention mechanic. Impartial news done well is informative but not necessarily entertaining, which means it's probably not sustainable in the current zeitgeist of America.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_by_circulat...
I also tend to discount arguments that the NYTimes has shifted its tone due to economic pressure. Journalists, even some I know at lesser publications, consider it a point of pride to always do the opposite of what corporate management tells them to do. While the CEO can obviously redecorate the foyer etc., it's almost unheard of for management to get involved in editorial decisions.
I would attribute the NYT's changes to a general trend towards colloquial style (i. e. casual fridays). The Republicans' turn towards destructive populism has also made it far harder to pretend it's just business-as-usual.
They let me cancel via chat a few months ago. Obviously I'd have prefered the press of a button to cancel, but even via chat it was a quick and painless affair.
And everyone else gets to read or hear about the Time's work the next day, when every other news outlet copies their work.
Nobody appreciates the value of journalism, because we feel inundated in it. But it's only copying and distribution that are free. When you try following everything back to its original source, it's a surprisingly small number of publications doing most of the work.
[1] https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015852367-Digi...
I wonder if there's public numbers estimating how many people in total read the New York Times, and how it compares to emerging forms of media and entertainment like YouTube.
One criticism of New York Times that I've read online is that they won't allow you to cancel your digital subscription through their website. They force you to call them. I'm not sure if that has changed recently, but that's a pretty questionable dark pattern.