The societal ethics of Ozempic are an example of this. We've created policies and subsidies that flood the food market with unhealthy processed food to the point that the cheapest option is an unnatural amount of calories (compare US obesity rates to the rest of the world), so the solution is a pharma product that takes an additional cut of your wallet. It's an expensive solution to an expensive problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.

The software analogy is it's always easier to slap on one more piece of duct tape tech debt than to do the difficult thing and refactor the whole thing (acknowledging that part of the refactoring difficulty is you're not guaranteed to end up in a better state than you started from...)

Are you sure you need to hire an electrician in your jurisdiction?

I know, for example, the town of Cripple Creek, CO requires all their buildings to be made out of bricks. Pretty annoying. But it's because the entire town burned down twice in the 19th century.

So, maybe, someone in the past killed a bunch of people with bad electrical work.

Realized that it was an annual renewal of Prime. No email notification or anything. Dig around, there is an option to get a reminder email, but it defaults to off.

This is a growing trend too, reduced or no notification of renewal, even on annual subscriptions, so you get hit with a three digit charge out of nowhere (not that it's not our responsibility to track these things, but many of us do so less than we'd like).

> FTC Proposes Rule to Ban Junk Fees: The proposed rule would ban businesses from running up the bills with hidden and bogus fees, ensure consumers know exactly how much they are paying and what they are getting, and help spur companies to compete on offering the lowest price. Businesses would have to include all mandatory fees when telling consumers a price

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/10/...

She may not be around for long (a travesty in my opinion if so). Neither presidential candidate is stumping for her kind of activism, even the Dem one. And the big money wants her gone.

Sure we can vote, but it seems big money has more influence regardless.

Harris hasn't outright said she would keep on Khan, but from a policy perspective I think they are very aligned, even to the point of Harris copying Khan's homework a bit (not in a bad way, just interesting). They have both explicitly called out grocery revenue growth exceeding total costs, both want to go after PBMs to lower drug prices, both want to go after junk fees, both have come out against algorithmic rent pricing, both have called out misclassification of workers.

If Harris does want to keep her on I still don't think it's in either of their interests for Harris to stake out a position. It opens the Harris campaign up to attacks on Khan's many court setbacks and erodes whatever bipartisan support Khan still has. Also, Harris doesn't have to do anything to keep her on, if she doesn't appoint anyone then by law Khan will remain acting commissioner indefinitely.

Obviously Khan is out if Trump is elected.

Heck, I would even take this a step further and say that taxes as well should always be fully included in the topline price. If a company wants to add a breakdown of how much went to taxes, I'm ok with that.

The sticker price should always be the full price.

one of the breweries i live by recently moved from non-tipped to tip, and it's generally a disliked change from what I hear because most of the time the brewery is open it's not busy enough to make up for the loss in wages, and then people fight over the really busy shifts.

I also think "plus Tax/Tax included" should be featured more prominently but I think that businesses would likely do that themselves given the conditions above so that, when comparing prices, you would very noticeably see that whether tax was included or not in your price. ie, Amazon would put in green letters near the price "Tax included" so when I compared their price to another place I would know why Amazon's price might be higher.

I definitely believe that you should be able to purchase something for the advertised price. Maybe that is "starting at" but you should be able to check out at that price.

I never said it was. In fact, I specifically said that there is work to do before making the rule about listing all prices inclusive of taxes.

Do the pre-work first, and then make a rule about displaying the final price.

Then the price may change at the checkout if you put in a different/unexpected delivery address.

It's a solved problem but we can't make it happen here. Why?

> Guests in California will see a fee-inclusive total price—before taxes—on all listings.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/3610

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...

Now they just need to fix that part.

Case in point: cost breakdown from the invoice of an online order a few months ago (with the dollar amounts removed):

> Subtotal

> Shipping (Economy)

> Tax (Solano County Tax 0.25%)

> Tax (Vacaville City Tax 0.75%)

> Tax (Solano County District Tax Sp 0.125%)

> Tax (Solano Co Local Tax Sl 1.0%)

> Tax (California State Tax 6.0%)

Once your address is known taxes can be calculated. At what point is an after-tax final price to be shown? On an ad? On a targeted Ad? Once you reach the storefront based on unreliable geolocation? (which would be wrong for me, because geolocation bundles two cities here together as one) Once you create an account? At the checkout when you've specified the shipping address? As things tend to happen today, its usually only at the last step.

As much as I'd like to see it, I don't see much chance of improving the visibility of final prices without comprehensive systemic tax reform first.

The obvious quick solutions aren't exactly fair in the current US system. Imagine a "quick fix" of requiring the vendors to price in-a generic taxes for everyone. Just like with credit card system fees, "simple" fixes like that that benefit the residents of high-sales-tax states to the detriment of no-sales-tax state residents. While such a system would work for physical stores, they would get hammered if they had to prices on the shelves or signs that were higher than online prices.

As much as we all want a fair straight-forward system, I don't imagine it happening any time soon in the US. There are way too many unresolved zero-sum political fights and ideological differences standing in the way.

It certainly can be done (eg: Australia) but the circumstances there were very different.

My guess is the only solution (and it would suck and be met with much resistance) would be to make all the taxes based strictly on where the seller is, not where the buyer is. Then the buyer would have to be on hook for use tax instead of sales tax. States would not like this because most people skip paying use tax altogether.

Or just get rid of sales tax as a thing, and if you want localized taxes put them on property. That's what my state does (plus income tax).

I agree that we're unlikely to see any sane solution in the US in our lifetime.

Short of that, ban sales taxes levied by local governments; only allow states to levy them. It's easy enough to figure out which state someone is in.

Now if you get any extra, sure. But that's a different problem from Airbnb hiding 100% of the cost in mandatory cleaning fees.

Carry-on luggage. Meal/snack and beverage service. A pillow and blanket. A seat that's not a middle seat. Even the ability to choose your seat at all.

Airlines that want to tighten the screws on their passengers can, in theory, start charging for all of those, and calling them "paid add-ons", even under a "no junk fees" law, if we don't clearly define what passengers should be able to expect to be included in their ticket.

There are usually ways to filter out by seat types, though, both on airlines websites and in places like Google flights. In my experience those are also pretty accurate.

If some even cheaper airline wants to sell tickets without carry on or whatever then they’ll have to list the higher price and offer a pleasant surprise of a lower-than-advertised price when the customer completed the booking.

If I need luggage, I can do my own legwork to make sure that I factor that in.

You think everyone should be expected to pay extra not to

- fly with nothing but the clothes on their back

- separated from their family

- with no food or drink, on a 5, 10, 15-hour flight

- with no leg or elbow room

- and no pillow or blanket to make it even vaguely possible to sleep?

https://www.allaboutadvertisinglaw.com/2024/06/minnesota-joi...

That's why you basically need a third party if you run an ecommerce website, unless you have a team to track down every time a county or city changes their taxes.

Every ecommerce site already has to calculate taxes on checkout, already has a third party for this information (usually the payment processor).

This hasn't been true for at minimum 10 years. Paying for extra leg room is not a "junk fee"

And we short but not to that far from the average height.

Booking with Alaska, I get a fare listed that is only the outbound leg, and then I have to discover the inbound leg price.

This often gives the impression that fares are or will be cheaper with Alaska, and then after a few clicks, you realize that they're (mostly) the "same".

The marginal cost to a gym/ISP of the remaining duration of your contract is basically zero, especially if you're not going to use it, and they can get a few more dollars by being a jackass about it. In aggregate the incentives dominate.

A company has a simple avenue to avoid inadvertent cancellation, they just ask the customer "did you mean to cancel, please contact us by $date to continue your subscription".

But that's preferring the citizen over business interests.

But getting a discount in exchange for a longer-term commitment is often a benefit to consumers.

I just paid Visible for a year of cellular service up front and it was far cheaper than paying monthly – truly a great deal. I was able to front that money now, but if I paid a slightly higher per-month price in exchange for a year contract, that would be the same but with less money required up front.

A problem with our contract law is that if you get anything out of a contract it becomes really hard to terminate if the terms don't allow for it (a peppercorn). With contracts now being written in dense legalese with multiple pages of terms and conditions, it's not really feasible to expect the common contractor to have a full understanding of exactly what they are signing up for.

This is already framing it in marketing terms. You're not getting a discount but being charged an artificial price premium for less/no commitment. This can get especially obscene in places where gyms are required by law to offer monthly membership options but they charge a significant markup if you go that route.

All of this has the effect of suppressing competition.

Jump to "Pre-payments in the Restaurant Industry"

Money now is more valuable than money later, and guaranteed future money is more valuable than no guaranteed future money.

Just make it so that you can remove the authorization of vendors to charge you. You see a vendor charging you for a service you no longer want - click a button and remove their authorization to charge you.

Years ago at Key Bank I even argued with a teller and manager about blocking a recalcitrant merchant from charging our account, "But you have ongoing charges with them and if we decline the transaction..."

Yeah, that's between me and them, you shouldn't be inserting into this to 'obligate' me to pay.

As much as I'm not a big fan of PayPal¹ I use that rather than separate credit card payments/subs for online purchases including subs for things like hosting accounts. Stopping a payment from their web UI seems like it would be easier than arranging a chargeback or calling the CC company to put a block on future payments, and it reduces the number of companies that I hand my credit card details too. When I cancel a service I make sure that the sub is cancelled there as well. I always follow the cancellation procedure at the other end too, unless it is obnoxiously bothersome, as just cancelling the payment method feels like I'm being dickish².

----

[1] I'm not sure that I'd risk a business account with them, and I hardly ever keep a balance there, due to the many stories of accounts being frozen for long periods with litle reason and inadequate review.

[2] You might argue that often they'd be more than happy to be dickish, hence the cancellation procedures, but I prefer not to stoop to that level whether they would or not.

I contacted PayPal, who opened a case, according to their agreement with Steam (which I'm not party to). PayPal found Steam to be in breach of their agreement (PayPal & Steam's). I was refunded.

Then Steam enacted petty revenge against me, and continue to do so.

PayPal acted laudibly, imo, but there seems to be nothing one can then do about any revenge a company might take against a customer.

A hypothetical might be that you return damaged goods to Amazon, then they refuse to sell to you in the future because you demanded your legal rights.

A computer retailer appears to have done similar. I had to return goods to them that were broken on arrival; they refunded, but closed my account (I have assumed that this was because of the refund request). They do have a general right to drop a customer, or refuse service (outside of protected characteristics) but it seems wrong that "making a reasonable demand in view of legislation" (a device was broken when it arrived) is apparently an allowable reason for refusal of future service.

What you really want is a system where a customer who issues a chargeback that isn't disputed gets the money back, but the merchant also doesn't get a chargeback fee because there is no dispute. And then if there is a dispute (and the customer still wants to do the chargeback), the chargeback fee is loser pays. Then you have a reasonable way for customers to issue legitimate chargebacks that still discourages illegitimate ones.

What we have instead is that if you do a chargeback, the merchant gets whacked with a chargeback fee in the range of $20-$50. Obviously the banks love this; they get the money. But the merchants respond by banning customers who do this, because if you make a $5 purchase with a $1.50 margin and then issue a chargeback, the risk that you do it again before you make enough purchases to even recover the first one is too large.

But if you prohibited merchants from dropping customers over that then there would be no deterrent to fraudulent chargebacks (or to using the chargeback system with the eye-watering fees instead of the merchant's RMA process), so there would be more of them, and merchants would have to raise prices on everybody else even more to cover the bank's fees.

Whereas if you had a balanced system that minimized fraudulent chargebacks while still allowing (and eliminating fees for undisputed) legitimate ones, that would minimize chargeback fees, which is exactly what the banks don't want.

If I've had to do a chargeback, I'm highly unlikely to want to spend further money with that company in future, so they can "ban" me all they like.

My original post in this trail described how I minimise the risk that I have to faf around because of the status quo, which also reduces the potential for my direct payment data leaking due to security snafus, in the absence of the virtual card option in my locale. The one you replied to questioned one point in your description, which seemed to suggest that being banned by a bad trader was a problem.

Though I'll grant that being blocked could be an issue if that merchant was the only supplier for something that you particularly need.

Of course they don't care about that, it's the £10s across millions of customers that they possibly retain unlawfully that makes it worthwhile.

Which feels like it defeats the purpose of getting a new generated card.

The thing is that sometimes you need to actually cancel the service, not just stop paying for it, to remove your financial obligations. Depending on the contract you signed.

Last year I had a company (DomainsPricedRight/OwnMyDomain aka GoDaddy) that I last did business (a one time purchase) with 18 years prior (2005), bill me under a new "subscription" with no input on my part.

PayPal sort of allows you to prevent that but it seems only with companies you have recently done business with.

PayPal did do a good job of email notification of the automatic payment and cancelling the "subscription" but there is no easy way to reverse the fraudulent payment, so in the end the consumer still gets burned for profit (it was only $1 but how many people had $1 stolen?)

Afterwards, 1) if per month amount is greater than a regulated threshold, manual confirmation is needed. [ This is friction ] , 2) cancelling can be as simple as going to your bank's website and deleting the "mandate".

In all honesty, this is probably a really balanced approach, but the roll out was a real pain, with banks and merchants collaborating on who supports whom, etc. International payments got screwed completely - to this day, I can't subscribe to nytimes, after almost 2.5 years of this.

(A good summary - https://support.stripe.com/questions/rbi-e-mandate-regulatio... )

I think we need a word for this work. Maybe disenshittification? :)

Trump will do away with the FTC because it stands in the way of their goal of dismantling the executive administration. The only thing JD Vance supports about keeping Lina Khan is keeping her captured and institutionally bound so she cannot bring legislation forward against their agenda as a citizen.

The solutions are not at all technically challenging, our political system just isn't effective anymore. That's why regulatory bodies do what they can to make rules while Congress and tech companies sit around counting their money.

Consumer protection

Regulation like this, as necessary and obvious as this one is, should happen slowly. There are way too many short sighted, reactionary laws and regulations to begin with.

Edit: Instead of downvoting how about you point me to the Republican platform that endorses consumer protections ?