Mayor Mamdani announces "Click-to-Cancel" rules

177

tthisislife2 about 2 hours ago 53 commentsRead Article on nyc.gov

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Discussion (53 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

ChrisArchitect•about 2 hours ago

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48863464

gumby•about 2 hours ago

These rules are great but “landmark” seems like puffery, as California has had such rules for quite a while.

Ironically that has meant it’s hard to unsubscribe from the New York Times except in California.

aczerepinski•about 1 hour ago

I once wrote code that checks location before hiding/showing the cancel button. It’s really absurd that the nice experience exists on all subscription sites by now but you only get to see it if your state demands it.

Rebelgecko•about 1 hour ago

Same with websites like Airbnb. Last I checked, their search results only showed the 'real' prices (eg including fees) for certain states and countries. In some states you have to click into the listing before learning that there's an extra $500 cleaning fee on top of the nightly rate :)

ar_lan•about 1 hour ago

I have no context of who you are/your position here, but the responses you're getting seem absurd to me.

I just don't understand people placing the blame on you when it should be on your company. Most people in the world are just trying to keep their job - you did it. It wasn't something illegal, it was something that if you didn't do, you would have risked your job and then someone else would have done it anyway.

59percentmore•about 1 hour ago

Because the difference between what he's done and, say, the practice of the people who peddled opioids for a paycheck is one of degree, not kind.

atonse•about 1 hour ago

Exactly. Those low quality comments are an example of the sad erosion of quality of comments on HN that I and others have complained about in recent times.

forgetfreeman•about 1 hour ago

"I was just following orders" is not, and has never been, a credible defense of unethical behavior.

Larrikin•about 1 hour ago

Congrats on using your education to make the world a worse place

acdha•about 1 hour ago

I don’t like it either but blame goes to the top of the org chart. That’s not illegal or, by the standards of the field, flagrantly unethical so it’s a bit extreme to expect someone to resign over.

qmr•about 1 hour ago

Why would you do something so immoral?

jvanderbot•about 1 hour ago

To get paid, obviously. We're all self interested actors here.

nashashmi•about 1 hour ago

You should ask that question to the workers at palantir

IshKebab•about 1 hour ago

How does it feel to be at the epicentre of arseholery?

Genuine question. Not sure how I'd feel.

mschuster91•20 minutes ago

At the end, someone will be there desperate enough to follow the boss's whim. Always.

That is why regulation is so important.

woodruffw•about 1 hour ago

I think you, as the reader, are expected to mentally append “in NYC” when a link comes from nyc.gov. It seems very silly for a given municipality to need to qualify every sentence on its own website.

henryfjordan•about 1 hour ago

The municipality is already qualifying the sentence! Instead of "NYC announces click-to-cancel law" they qualify it with "landmark".

I think it's silly for a municipality to lie (by omission?) in their own press announcements.

woodruffw•about 1 hour ago

It’s a landmark change in NYC.

Again: this is NYC’s official website. It might (as a stretch) be a “lie by omission” on a national newspaper’s website, but this is a website that is solely dedicated to NYC itself.

dylan604•43 minutes ago

The ironic thing to me is that Mamdani is only the mayor of NYC. He is not the governor of NY state. So if you live in Buffalo, you will still have to suffer through shenanigans?

Edit: I see others with similar thoughts from further down the scroll

arjie•about 1 hour ago

It's just local NYC news. Thinks are landmark to them that are often commonplace elsewhere which makes sense since millions call that place home that are not acquainted with other places. It is truly America's one megacity so that sort of puffery is expected.

The advent of dumpsters was similarly hailed there, though almost no other cities in the US throw their trash on the sidewalk.

throwaway27448•about 1 hour ago

Oh, is new york in california?

tzs•13 minutes ago

Generally when a seller in state X in the US sells to a buyer in a different state Y the consumer protection laws of state Y apply.

Even if the seller in X does not have a presence in Y, and so you might think Y has no jurisdiction, purposefully conducting business within a state is sufficient to allow Y to assert jurisdiction in regards to that business.

throwaway27448•4 minutes ago

> Generally when a seller in state X in the US sells to a buyer in a different state Y the consumer protection laws of state Y apply.

I've found the person who lives in California lol, no it does not work that way.

browski•about 1 hour ago

Outsiders need to append a "for NYC".

They didn't here because for them as representatives of NYC that's all they are speaking to.

Technical pedantry like this just displays poor language and social skills.

mi_lk•about 1 hour ago

Just want to add to the pile that The New York Times is notorious for its unsubscription shenanigan

sandcat_•41 minutes ago

For what it's worth, I just tried cancelling my NYTimes subscription to see if it was still as bad as I'd remembered, and aside from desperately begging me not to leave, it was quite simple. No need to contact support. I wasn't planning to go through with it, but I still got a nice discount for the next year, so.. thanks!

jazzyjackson•43 minutes ago

Anything Condé Nast too, which is pretty much everything. Nice office in the World Trade Center tho so they’ve got revenue figured out.

aubanel•about 1 hour ago

Probably a great decision, but why/how can it be decided at a local level by a mayor, instead of a federal level?

woodruffw•42 minutes ago

I don’t think it would be a federal concern, but a state one.

However, in this case it’s because NYC law is typically allowed under NY state law to be stronger (but not weaker) than any corresponding state law.

ezfe•43 minutes ago

why: because the federal level is not doing it

how: by declaring it a law in that area

readthenotes1•17 minutes ago

And yet an executive action is not a law. It's a dictate.

Course, one should never underestimate the value of a benevolent dictator...

Esophagus4•about 2 hours ago

> When the Biden administration introduced a junk fee rule in 2024, the US Chamber of Commerce argued it was “an attempt to micromanage businesses’ pricing structures”, and apartment fees were cut from that federal rule after lobbying by the real-estate industry.

This drives me nuts to read, because it’s usually the same pattern.

Rule -> lobbyists descend -> politicians cave -> carve out that takes away the whole point of the rule -> everyone declares victory

make3•about 1 hour ago

I don't expect that Mamdani will cave in to real estate lobbyists lol. What you're describing is exactly why Establishment Democrats are losing to Mamdani and his ilk (DSA)

throwaway27448•43 minutes ago

I don't see Mamdani as somehow invulnerable to lobbyists; but they realistically have little leverage over him.

tamimio•about 1 hour ago

Should ban the tips if it’s not included in “hidden fees”, and force restaurants to pay proper wages like other workers.

seattle_spring•about 1 hour ago

The "and" is very important here. Places like Seattle now mandate servers get a real wage. It inexplicably hasn't changed tip culture at all, so now they get regular wages and still complain when someone doesn't tip 20%+ for a takeout order.

mmmattt•about 1 hour ago

The mandate stipulates that they can get minimum wage, I wouldn’t call that a “regular” wage, and certainly not a livable one.

paulfri•40 minutes ago

Seattle and its surrounding cities have among the highest minimum wages in the entire world (~$22/hour). You're maybe not renting a studio apartment by yourself but it is far from destitution.

FireBeyond•28 minutes ago

I mean it's still rough if you want to live close to downtown, but it's also $21.30/hr and going to go up in 2027.

bijowo1676•about 1 hour ago

for service workers, up to 25k in tips can be deducted from taxable income ("no tax on tips")

dmboyd•about 1 hour ago

Why should customers need to care about a store’s employees tax bracket

throwaway27448•42 minutes ago

Because that's the shithole we live in. If you don't like it, take your head out of your ass and crucify a politician or move

rafram•about 1 hour ago

From 2025 to 2028, in a specific list of qualified occupations, as long as your AGI is below $150,000.

GuinansEyebrows•33 minutes ago

to piggyback on your comment, $150000 is just barely a "comfortable" wage in a place like Seattle, especially when you consider that lots of service industry work does not include health insurance or group retirement plans.

IncreasePosts•about 1 hour ago

Is there something about serving people food that means you should get a tax break? Or is that just a holdover of cash tipping to kindly get servers to actually declare the full value if their tips as wages instead of just saying they magically weren't tipped all year

oulipo•about 1 hour ago

When a Mayor does more for the citizen than the government...

Cyclone_•about 1 hour ago

What do you mean? The mayor is part of the government.