Being able to unsubscribe without any friction is also a bit of an issue.
For a while I was known amongst coworkers and friends as "that guy who will cancel or reduce your Boston Globe subscription fee for 10 bucks." They make you call during business hours and go through a whole guilt routine where a human tells you statements implying you'd be a bad person for missing out on important news and not supporting local journalism, followed by questions prompting you to justify why you want to exhibit these antisocial traits by canceling your subscription. Then, if you didn't yield to that tactic, they beg to reduce your cost to a promotional rate of first half off, then 90% off, for 6 months. Then, finally, you can cancel and the agent says goodbye in such a way as like you just stepped on a puppy. I never found a way to get the call center to go off this script. My 'clients', empathic and intellectual Bostonians, simply could not bear to partake in this shame and/or degradement of the Globe.
This single-mindedness unwillingness to engage in their dialog might be interpreted as rude. But then again, their scripting is absolutely exploiting your unwillingness to be rude. Screw that.
I am aware of Trim, [1,2] which has an interesting proposition. You give it your comcast type login and it pretends to be you in a support chat window. Then it repeatedly attempts to secure a reduced rate. If it succeeds, you pay Trim a portion of the long term cost savings.
[1]: https://www.asktrim.com/blog/trim-a-money-saving-chatbot-rai...
From their terms [0]: "Unless otherwise stipulated in the Special Conditions, the cancellation of a Subscription must be sent by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt to the Customer Service department.
"A Customer who wishes to terminate their contract must print out (or copy on plain paper):
- For a digital subscription, the cancellation form is available here
- For a paper subscription or a mixed subscription (paper + digital), the form is available here
Cancellations received by Le Monde before the 15th of the month will take effect at the end of that month. Cancellations received after the 15th of the month will take effect at the end of the following month.:"
Back when the UK was in the EU, I also had to call long-distance to British newspapers to unsubscribe.
It's the same for many Canadian and US subscriptions. It's not cultural, it's common practice by newspapers. The best way to protect oneself consumer is to carefully read cancellation terms before subscribing to any newspaper or periodical and purchase subscriptions through Apple's App Store if you own an Apple device (as it lets you cancel without hassle) when you can.
Though I guess that isn’tEU anymore either
given how crappy the ads ecosystem has become to browsers, if I'm paying for something, I want out of all of that
legislation should make a bright line here. I don't want to see an ad in a taxi, on an airplane, in the dentist's office, and certainly not if I've paid for nyt
maybe carve out limited 1st party tracking, maybe not