New York City passed a law forcing companies to let you cancel subscriptions with one click. The same effort it took to sign up. Revolutionary stuff.
This joins California, Colorado, and a handful of other states that apparently needed legislation to solve the problem of grown adults being unable to navigate a customer service phone tree. The federal rule got shelved because nothing makes Washington happier than watching states do their job for them.
Here's what actually happened. Some guy named Derek spent forty-five minutes on hold with his gym trying to cancel a membership he hasn't used since February 2019. He gave up. Paid another eighteen months. Then wrote his city councilman a very passionate email with the subject line "this is theft." That councilman had an election coming up. Now we have a law.
The companies affected by this are acting shocked. Pretending they didn't design the entire cancellation process around the psychological principle that humans would rather lose money forever than make one uncomfortable phone call. They hired behaviorists for this. Ran A-B tests. Optimized the hold music to maximize rage-quitting.
Retail traders are thrilled because they think this means they can finally escape their Barron's subscription from 2008. They can't read the articles anyway. Just the headlines. Which they misunderstand. Then they buy three shares of a penny stock based on that misunderstanding and call it research.
The real joke is that everyone's celebrating easier cancellations while still signing up for seven streaming services they forget exist until the annual bill hits. You don't need a law. You need a calendar alert. But that would require taking responsibility for your own financial decisions, and we all know how Wall Street feels about that.
Derek's still paying for the gym.
Photo by Rafael Hoyos Weht on Unsplash
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