It's unclear whether this junk fee law will have teeth. In theory, California has the same anti-drip pricing law, but restaurants have a specific carve out [1] which is bullshit because the drip pricing that most people complain about is the X% "service charges" and "lifestyle fees" that restaurants have at the bottom of their menu in small print.<p>From what I can tell online, NYC rules won't have this carveout, but I haven't eaten there recently so I can't confirm.<p>[1] <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1524" rel="nofollow">https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...</a>
Fees on one time services are not what this is targeting. This legislation is not meant to address that, and wouldn't apply to that.<p>They are going after recurring billing (that's what the headline means by "subscription"). It mentions things like gyms, online subscriptions etc.<p>It would be pretty wild if they had managed to get service fees at restaurants when they were not at all targeting service fees, restaurants or one time in person purchases.
From TFA:<p><pre><code> > Rule from Mamdani administration ... targets ‘junk fees’
> The city is also targeting so-called “junk fees” that raise the final price of everything from apartments to sporting events, with a proposed rule that requires sellers to “advertise the total price for any good or service, including all mandatory additional charges and fees, up front”, according to a release shared with the Guardian.</code></pre>
> proposed rule that requires sellers to “advertise the total price for any good or service, including all mandatory additional charges and fees, up front”<p>This is going to be tough to enact, anywhere in the USA, even New York. There is nothing quite as American as "not knowing what you're going to pay for something until you have to pay." Whether it's your doctor bill, restaurant bill with tips and service fees, your hotel stay with a hidden resort fee, or just general purchases where tax is computed at the very end right before you pay... We are culturally so used to this abuse.
> This is going to be tough to enact, anywhere in the USA, even New York.<p>You followed the link to the poll in the article, right? I haven't seen poll numbers that high on any poll in my lifetime. It shows people of all political affiliations know what junk fees are, and they are all hungry to have them banned.<p>Keep in mind that Mamdani's first "press conference" was nearly[1] all questions from influencers. I'm sure they are hungry to publicly record themselves encountering a junk fee should this rule pass, starting with the fitness influencer.<p>1: I counted one journalist ask a question. For free fake internet points, name that journalist. (Hint: it was a three-part question, and it wasn't a soft ball.)
You may find some bits of culture are easier to change than others and I wager this one falls squarely in the ‘surprisingly easy’ category.
FTC has mandated all-in pricing for hotels since last year.
I mean culturally we're used to it, but it seems really easy to test for and therefore fine businesses doing it in NYC? Just go ring up some purchase and see if they add a tax onto the listed price, and if they do report it.
The latest one for me is renting a new apartment, getting told it cost $XXXX a month, then being told I'm required to have $XXXXXX amount of renter's insurance at $XXX a month and oh, by the way, click here to use ours.
A requirement to obtain renter’s insurance is not an example of the type of fees this legislation is targeting.
The insurance requirement isn’t uncommon where I am (California). Though I would avoid whatever plan they are pushing. I got mine through my existing insurance provider and it worked out to ~$15 per month IIRC.
Renter’s insurance is not a fee.
i think drip pricing was already cracked down on by the FTC as of 2025
At least in CA they need to disclose them now. Previously some restaurants would just hit you with a surprise mandatory tip.
> CA<p>Wasn’t the argument for tips that tipped workers had a low minimum wage, but CA now has a minimum for tipped workers of $16.90 (actually the same minimum wage for non tipped workers too)?
Usually by the time people are seated and you read the fine print on the back of the menu, inertia has taken over.
Exactly. Already decided to eat there and sat down. At that point, "whatever", for any noticed or not additional charges.
Some people say they use the fine print as a reminder to cut back on the tips proportionally.
> which is bullshit because the drip pricing that most people complain about is the X% "service charges" and "lifestyle fees" that restaurants have at the bottom of their menu in small print.<p>I don't think I go to the same restaurants as everyone else.
It's unfortunately somewhat common these days and personally I actively avoid any place which does this. At least it's only somewhat common rather than the standard so it's still possible. Couple of examples:<p><a href="https://sushiconfidential.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/sc_camp_fullmenu.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://sushiconfidential.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/sc_...</a> "3.5% Living Wage Surcharge added to each bill which allows us to provide the service you have always enjoyed!"<p><a href="https://www.pacificcatch.com/menu/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pacificcatch.com/menu/</a> "NorCal - A 3% surcharge (5% in San Francisco) will be added to all Guest checks to help offset the rising cost of wages and benefits. This is not gratuity."
Because increasing prices by that percentage is too hard?
Restaurant owners interviewed in the media here in SF are directly quoted saying they can’t do that because “customers would notice”, or think “oh that’s expensive, I can’t eat out twice a week”.<p>These are arguments for including the fees that make the customer __still pay the same higher price__, implying that the whole point is that they won’t notice. And reporters don’t seem to even register the absurdity of those remarks or question them in any way.<p><a href="https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/sf-restaurants-junk-fees-law-19436419.php#:~:text=People%20will%20notice%20that." rel="nofollow">https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/sf-restaurants-junk-fees...</a><p><a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11992412/californias-junk-fee-ban-begins-but-restaurants-get-a-pass#:~:text=You%20can%20raise%20the%20prices.%20But%20then%20we%20anticipate%20consumers%20will%20do%20what%20my%20husband%20and%20I%20do" rel="nofollow">https://www.kqed.org/news/11992412/californias-junk-fee-ban-...</a>
They're trying their best to make it seem that government policies and regulation compliance costs are responsible, hence the names of these charges.
Yea, it's basically restaurant owners trying to get their customers involved in their political whining.<p>Notice how you never see things like "Business License Fee" or "Restaurant Electricity Bill Surcharge" listed out as separate line items on customers' bills. Those are things restaurant owners have to pay, too, so why don't they get their own charges to customers? Why does only "Living Wage" get a line item on the customer's bill?
> Electricity Bill Surcharge<p>"Fuel surcharge" on flights. Which should be illegal: the cost of hedging fuel cost risk should be included in any ticket price.<p>A friend said that Uber was charging a fuel surcharge here in New Zealand, but that it wasn't passed on to the driver (who pays for the fuel). If true I would find that interesting.
> A friend said that Uber was charging a fuel surcharge here in New Zealand, but that it wasn't passed on to the driver<p>I did a bit of a dive on this and I think it’s not correct.
I have a low threshold for hating them, after the reports of how females staffers were treated a few years back, but this new thing seems to be untrue.<p><a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/128042303/uber-introduces-fuel-surcharge-citing-the-sting-of-recordhigh-prices-at-the-pump" rel="nofollow">https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/128042303/uber-introduces-f...</a>
Hey now, let's not get carried away, these jackass restaurant owners want to make it clear, the "Living Wage" guilt trip is the tip part, and the fees THEY put on are to pay for "benefits like healthcare" and you're not allowed to consider it part of the tip.<p>Nevermind that California doesn't even have a lower "tipped" min wage like some states do, so by supporting tipping, we're just saying that servers simply "deserve" more money for some reason than people who stock shelves or pick orders at Amazon or Walmart.
The elephant in the room would be an ‘employee salary surcharge’
Well, they are responsible.
If you want to claim "we have the lowest prices in town" in advertising, you can't increase the "price".
They need to price it in to the menu.<p>I run Union electrical jobs and I don’t list out every fringe benefit they receive on an itemized invoice. It’s $163/hr with everything baked in.<p>If restaurants want to pay a living wage, charge more money for food.
I tried searching for what a "lifestyle fee" is and all I could find is references to "living wage fee" which is essentially a forced tip added to the bill.<p>A service charge for large groups though is understandable as they typically will require much more attention and work from waitstaff than the typical small dining party.
I'm somewhat skeptical that they actually require more attention <i>per person</i>. Does an 8-person group require more than 2x as much attention as a 4-person group?
Large groups are also the most notorious non-tippers.
The fact that Scott Wiener made that carve out for restaurants via emergency legislation (SB 1524) made my blood boil and I vowed to vote against him in any election is runs in.
[flagged]
These rules are great but “landmark” seems like puffery, as California has had such rules for quite a while.<p>Ironically that has meant it’s hard to unsubscribe from the <i>New York</i> Times except in California.
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.
I have no context of who you are/your position here, but the responses you're getting seem absurd to me.<p>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.
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.
Obviously the difference of degree on the spectrum between the two in this case does vary greatly, but your comment reminded me of an interview with a journalist who had compiled a collection of interviews with midtier drug dealers in various cartels and one thing that stood out to him was that almost all of them, when asked why they did what they did, would respond by saying that if they didn't someone else would.
Yeah, but it's multiple orders of magnitude apart.<p>Are we also going to start putting LLM engineers to the fire because they're accelerating the enshitification of our world? Probably not.
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.
It's perfectly valid in our increasingly enshittified world to be angry with <i>all those responsible for it.</i> As much as you're right to point the finger a the C-suites, ultimately ALL of these user-hostile features, every single one, only exists because devs keep putting fingers to keyboards in exchange for checks.<p>Tech workers had a time where unionization and getting a voice in our companies was very much on the table, and the biggest voices among us shouted down the others in the name of rockstar salaries and free beer at the office. The "top contributors" at huge companies were scared shitless that they might have to accept a wage too much like the REST of their software engineer coworkers. The horror.
"I was just following orders" is not, and has never been, a credible defense of unethical behavior.
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 :)
Congrats on using your education to make the world a worse place
All of my degrees are in jazz music. My education was not utilized for this particular task.
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.
Blame goes to everyone involved. From the decision makers to the implementors
Are you willing to show us your work history and let hackers news judge every single feature you have implemented in your career in exchange for money?
Mostly lack of competition and anti-trust regulation. Who would use a worse service when a healthy alternative exists?
You were just following orders, that's a great argument
Keep thinking about the parallel you’re drawing and you might hit the difference: that phrase gained notoriety in the Nuremberg trials for murder but somehow we do not give the same weight to, say, a pushy salesman or a debt collector or a government employee enforcing strict means testing laws. Is it possible that our moral sense can account for things being less severe than murder and draw a distinction between actual Nazis and people doing what they can to survive in an unforgiving country with few supports?
I don’t know what standards you are referring to, but yea I would call it flagrantly unethical for sure.
Why would you do something so immoral?
It used to be nobody could cancel online, and after my commit two states could. I think you may be overreacting here.
To get paid, obviously. We're all self interested actors here.
You should ask that question to the workers at palantir
How does it feel to be at the epicentre of arseholery?<p>Genuine question. Not sure how I'd feel.
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.
The ironic thing to me is that Mamdani is only the <i>mayor</i> of NYC. He is not the governor of NY state. So if you live in Buffalo, you will still have to suffer through shenanigans?<p>Edit: I see others with similar thoughts from further down the scroll
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.<p>The advent of dumpsters was similarly hailed there, though almost no other cities in the US throw their trash on the sidewalk.
This information about the NYT is out of date; it's now easy to unsubscribe from anywhere.
I took the "first" bit out of the title above - thanks!
Oh, is new york in california?
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.<p>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.
The NYC propaganda is strong right now with Mamdani.<p>California still S-tier for protecting its land and people.
Outsiders need to append a "for NYC".<p>They didn't here because for them as representatives of NYC that's all they are speaking to.<p>Technical pedantry like this just displays poor language and social skills.
I wonder if the bit about 'junk fees' will include undisclosed hotel fees. I just stayed there last week in a no-frills "hotel" which doesn't include daily room cleaning, has no staff at night, and has no amenities whatsoever, and they charged me a surprise-at-check-in $35 a night resort fee. This fee was not described in the booking.
That hotel may have broken an FTC rule that's been in effect for about a year now.<p>> Effective May 12, 2025, the FTC’s Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, 16 C.F.R. Part 464, prohibits bait-and-switch pricing and other tactics used to obscure and misrepresent total prices and fees for live-event tickets and short-term lodging.<p><a href="https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/rule-unfair-or-deceptive-fees-frequently-asked-questions" rel="nofollow">https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/rule-unfair-...</a>
Funny this should come up today.<p>I just got a notice from my credit card company that Evernote just charged my credit card after 2 'successful' cancellations of my subscription each of the last 2 years, and the complete deletion of my account several months ago.<p>Hopefully these will become more widespread - I'm not in NY or CA.
Bending Spoons acquired Evernote:<p>"What is Bending Spoons? The little-known AOL and Vimeo owner that's now public" <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48799966">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48799966</a>
yes, that is happening to me real-time, the article in the Economist reminded me (<a href="https://www.economist.com/business/2026/07/01/can-bending-spoons-thrive-as-a-listed-company" rel="nofollow">https://www.economist.com/business/2026/07/01/can-bending-sp...</a>), right down to Evernote being the one they are attempting to gouge me on at best and charge illegally at worst. so i had a closer look at bank and PayPal GLs<p>i found similar issues with Paddle (attempted to quit), Proton (double charged), Splashtop (attempted to quit), and Bloomberg via Apple (attempted to quit) and the common thread is PayPal. never Stripe.<p>my PayPal account is ancient (2002) and knowing what i know about payments (perhaps a little) i believe there is something akin to a hole regarding legacy pre-auth tokens in a PayPal architecture which is old enough to run for the US House. at least Bending Spoons would be willfully exploiting such a hole, because after i refunded / cancelled, 9 days later they were able to charge <i>again</i>. PayPal also seems to have an open marriage with PCI-DSS / SOC2
Sharks will keep eating easy prey until they hit an iron bar. I also hate this fact about the world by the way :) Just a [hardwon] observation.
There’s a reason they were used as a poster child of a bad actor when the FTC rule was made a few years ago, before the current administration shredded it.
A complimentary complaint is that payments are a "pull" operation with subscriptions. You can't decide who gets your money. How retro is that!
This is what legitimate government looks like. Leaders actually advocating for the people who are being deceived by those in power instead of helping those in power.<p>While this may be a trivial issue, being able to cancel a gym or newspaper subscription, it sends a signal. Companies need to view customers as partners in a business transaction and not objects to be exploited.
I have similar feelings.<p>I am sympathetic to a perspective that says this is not the responsibility of a mayor of a single city... But also; who else is going to do it?<p>Normal people have very little say over the politicians that govern them in larger electoral regions like states or provinces, and maybe this can signal to other levels of government that they should implement similar rules... If it works.
CFPB once played that role for financial services. Ah well.
>I am sympathetic to a perspective that says this is not the responsibility of a mayor of a single city... But also; who else is going to do it?<p>With a population of 8.5 million if NYC was a state it would be the 13th largest so I'm quite all right with the city going beyond the normal purview of a city government.
Mamdani has been doing great in NYC so far. The hope is that he will inspire similar behavior in others. And drive similar approaches to politics in other constituencies.
I'm actually struggling to believe he's done all this stuff. Like it's crazy to see it was possible to fix everything the whole time and all it took was slightly increasing taxes on billionaires and not being corrupt.
I'm all for it. Would be great to see exactly how all of his policies play out across a larger area.
Is there a website for New York City where people can petition for things like this?<p>If there's anybody from the mayor's office reading this, how about that all banks must provide their services at minimum on a browser through a web app and cannot mandate the use of a smartphone.
>This is what legitimate government looks like.<p>Do you mean good government? Or well-functioning? Any government that is formed legally is legitimate.
Lol wait for enforcement before declaring victory
> Leaders actually advocating for the people who are being deceived by those in power instead of helping those in power.<p>Who is deceiving who now? And I'm not sure who is in power here...
Is this something that cities can really enforce? Like I get that NYC is a bit of an exception but let's say a 5 person town in Wyoming decides that they want to make this practice illegal and they all vote to do so. It's not clear to me that would mean anything at all.
It ultimately depends on if there is overriding state or federal law. But yeah, it's something a city can enforce.<p>A small town in Wyoming could do the same and could sue (and probably win) against businesses that do business in that small town and break the law. What most likely happens in that case is that small Wyoming town ends up blacklisted by that business.
Your question answers exactly how enforceable it is. It’s directly linked to your population size and how much it can hurt the wallet of the company.<p>Edit: but also, who cares? Literally no solution to anything on earth works for EVERYONE
NYC has ~2% of the US population, and it’s a relatively wealthy slice compared to the mean. NYC has roughly 13x as many people as the entire state of Wyoming. I could see a company writing off Wyoming entirely (not likely, but possible) but not NYC.<p>States like CA, FL, NY, and TX can pass state laws that create defacto national regulations through sheer size, but smaller than that and you’ll have trouble.
Nintendo (subscription I have for my switch to access some older a classic games btw) is very good reminding me I have a subscription and whether I want to cancel (or renew). I don't have the email at hand but what I remember is thinking they really desire you to reflect to cancel (rather than a push to renew) if not wanting continued service. Sentiment of politeness and I find a good example what to do.<p>Also, not a subscription but seeing some dark practices after COVID onset at any fast-food like business (including cafes, juices, cupcakes, etc) where a preselected tip is selected. Default should be no.
I really appreciate companies that are transparent with renewals. I’m sure it cuts down on customer support load a lot too. Kagi goes as far as not billing you if you don’t use their service in the prior month. I was pretty shocked the first time I got that email. Made me a customer for life.
It goes<p>> Subject: Information about Your Automatic Renewal<p>> This is an automatically generated email from Nintendo for customers who have a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack individual 12‑month (365‑day) membership set to renew automatically.<p>> Dear [user],<p>> Your Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack individual 12‑month (365‑day) membership will automatically renew soon.<p>> ...<p>> Deadline to turn off automatic renewal: [1 month from now]<p>It also does this right when you first sign up for automatic renewal except the deadline is [1 year from now].
> where a preselected tip is selected. Default should be no.<p>A lot of this push to higher and higher and preselected tip options comes from POS software providers (Square et al) and credit card companies. They make money on transaction volume. Higher transaction -> more fees
The restaurants get to set those values though. A coffee shop near me puts the default options as $1, $2, $3 for low order totals. So if I go in and get a coffee (which is $4.50), the lowest tip option is 22% and the highest is a whopping 66%.<p>I've seriously gotten tip fatigue and have been working to move back to a sane standard. I've noticed the places that have these crazy tips, also pay their staff well.
Unless I’ve missed something, Nintendo seem to have really good business ethics.
GeForce NOW as well. Very straight forward and clear email every month.
Maybe their PMs haven't attended top MBA schools in the USA, yet
I suppose right now there is no federal preemption - but I fully expect gym & similar lobbying at the federal level to get a rule in place to allow preemption challenges.
Be careful of Paypal! Go info your subscriptions section and check it out - there's a decade of past ones, including companies in the grave. Some aren't, like Evernote, which renewed automatically for a year on an old email I don't have access to.
I remember trying to cancel NYT subscription a few years back and it was almost impossible. I didn't expect it from such a reputable establishment.
As someone who doesn’t live in the US, it was hilariously impossible: you had to call on the phone a number in New York, which never picked up, so you had to pay hours of internal call, or send a fax, something I hadn’t done in two decades…<p>Thankfully, I had a bank that used technology from this century, including a disposable credit card number. I stopped paying and that lead them to them calling me.
I ended up having to dispute credit card charges from Patreon because I couldn't solve captchas needed to log in <i>or</i> to talk to support. I won, but it was an annoying process, and now I use disposable/virtual cards.
This is where getting it via Apple’s App Store is nice for consumers.<p>I (a non-American) had a NYT subscription through the iOS app some years back and cancelling it (like any other subscription through the App Store) was as as simple as:<p>- Open Settings<p>- Tap my account<p>- Tap Subscriptions<p>- Tap the New York Times option (or whatever it’s called)<p>- Tap Cancel<p>While the gate keeper aspect of Apple may not be good in many ways, at least we get this kind of benefit from it.
Just want to add to the pile that The New York Times is notorious for its unsubscription shenanigan
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!
Anything Condé Nast too, which is pretty much everything. Nice office in the World Trade Center tho so they’ve got revenue figured out.
Will New York City residents be able to avoid AT&T's "Administrative and Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee"?<p><a href="https://www.al.com/news/2026/07/att-customers-your-cell-phone-bill-is-about-to-go-up.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.al.com/news/2026/07/att-customers-your-cell-phon...</a>
The irony with all this, is if a company makes it difficult to cancel their subscription, it's probably not a good product. Antidotically, I've found that making it easy for users to not only cancel, but refund, has given me eye opening things to fix in some products that made it so less people cancelled or refunded. So I try to always err on best user experience.
> Antidotically,<p>Anecdotally
NYT made it difficult, and they are a pretty good product. If you didn't live in california and wanted to cancel your subscription, you were required to talk to a service rep who would try to get you stay by giving you some free period before normal subscription billing resumed
I know of 4 NYT subscriptions that have not been made due to the difficulty in cancelling.<p>I’m sure they know the exact stats, and are getting more cash as a result of their BS.<p>Good site, trash business practices.
You are interested in providing something worth paying for. Other people are interested in maximizing ROI for ad spend.
Probably a great decision, but why/how can it be decided at a local level by a mayor, instead of a federal level?
Any jurisdiction can pass a law unless there's a law against doing so.<p>For example, you couldn't do this in Massachusetts. A city would first have to petition the state for a new law <i>allowing</i> the city to pass such a local law.
I don’t think it would be a federal concern, but a state one.<p>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.
why: because the federal level is not doing it<p>how: by declaring it a law in that area
> 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.<p>This drives me nuts to read, because it’s usually the same pattern.<p>Rule -> lobbyists descend -> politicians cave -> carve out that takes away the whole point of the rule -> everyone declares victory
How about banning the most deceptive practice that is advertising prices without taxes?
Wow, only in the US. In every other country, this is not a problem.
This is really a banking / credit card thing. CC suppliers put a lot of effort into packaging recurring subscriptions for their businesses because … people forget to cancel. So the real leverage here is not go to each individual website to one click cancel, but just cancel the direct debit / subscription from in your banking or credit card app.
Maybe it should be required to review quality laws in other countries in general. One advantage is that you don't have to pretend or imagine what will happen if it's been tested in the wild.
That's pretty much standard in the EU. Nice to see the biggest city in the US catching up.
Just compel Stripe to do it,* problem 99% solved.<p>*Direct click-to-cancel with subscription receipt.
I think there should be a day (e.g. Sylvester), where all subscriptions auto end and renewal should be a proactive choice by the user.
Is NYC the first just because every city in California does it by state rules? I'm confused.
Completely sensible legislation in my eyes.
Another one that belongs on this list: AI-generated photos in housing listings. You can no longer tell what the property actually looks like, and the images conveniently erase the problem spots you'd only catch in person. False advertising is getting completely out of hand.
It's crazy that people think they should get away with these. I've seen some examples where basic things like the number of windows or where the garage and driveway are was totally misrepresented - surely they'd at least look at the results?
I agree, but how does one begin to enforce a ban like this? Bait-and-switch has always existed in real estate, which is all the more reason to do full due-diligence and inspect the property thoroughly and not just put in an offer sight unseen. If a seller is using AI to that extent, I'd be worried about what else they're hiding about the property.
<i>>I agree, but how does one begin to enforce a ban like this?</i><p>Look to something that works to modify behavior: credit reports. Make it easy to report an actor for malfeasance, assume they are guilty until proven innocent, and force them to defend themselves to the agency. Since we invent these tools for evil, we may as well use them for good.
Simply remove protections and deal out massive fines to platforms hosting obviously fraudulent listings, they will figure out solutions overnight.
No mention of the New York Times, or its practices?
I don't understand because I'm not American but how does New York the city have such powers? At least where I am, cities aren't really "real" in that they are constructs the provincial government creates (and can uncreate). A city here could never make such a ban.
Should ban the tips if it’s not included in “hidden fees”, and force restaurants to pay proper wages like other workers.
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 <i>and</i> still complain when someone doesn't tip 20%+ for a takeout order.
The mandate stipulates that they can get minimum wage, I wouldn’t call that a “regular” wage, and certainly not a livable one.
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.
You can get a pretty decent 1 bedroom apartment in the U district of Seattle on $22/hour, such as [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://collegeplaceapartments.managebuilding.com/Resident/public/rentals/29302" rel="nofollow">https://collegeplaceapartments.managebuilding.com/Resident/p...</a>
A full-time job should allow at least for a moderate place of living alone, otherwise it's not a minimum wage.
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.
I hate tip culture too, but I don’t blame the employees for it. I never tip for takeout, counter service, retail, etc, and I’ve never actually had anyone complain or so much as make a face.
for service workers, up to 25k in tips can be deducted from taxable income ("no tax on tips")
Why should customers need to care about a store’s employees tax bracket
From 2025 to 2028, in a specific list of qualified occupations, as long as your AGI is below $150,000.
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
This should be federal law.
Official release: <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/07/mayor-mamdani-announces-landmark--click-to-cancel--consumer-prot" rel="nofollow">https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/07/mayor-mamdani...</a>
A big one I’ve been seeing a lot lately is advertising annual subscriptions as monthly rates. It isn’t $12/month subscription if I have to pay $120 in a lump sum up front. The actual monthly rate is often basically double what they’re advertising.
Any chance you could lend Mamdani to the UK? We have a vacancy.
Depends who you ask!
Hasn’t Sadiq Khan been a similar story, from a Muslim immigrant family turned popular mayor of the nation’s largest city? Though from what I understand he’s from the more business-oriented center-left, in contrast with Mamdani.
Nice. Now just force stores to display actual prices with tax.
And then a million private equity, venture capitalists, management consultants, and other aspiring grifters cried out in terror.<p>Hopefully they stay silenced.
Long overdue, enshittification reaching SaaS undermines trust in all tech in the long term.
Did a politician's kid rack up hundreds of dollars on some stupid game?<p>I still don't know why Apple, oft parading as the people's champion, automatically converts trials to subscriptions.<p>So many scummy apps exploit this by offering a 1 week trial and saying like "only $4/month!" but charging a 1 year's sub after the trial period ends.
I'm building a SaaS right now and made the "non-deceptive" choices this law wants: cancellation is one click from settings, no retention maze, no surprise renewal, 30-day money-back. What surprised me is how much the tooling assumes you want the dark patterns. Billing platforms ship "cancellation flow" templates that are really retention funnels — discount offer, pause offer, survey, guilt screen, then maybe the button. The default path is the deceptive path; you have to actively rip stuff out to be straightforward.<p>Which I think explains why this needs regulation at all. Every individual dark pattern is locally rational — it demonstrably improves net retention, so any PM optimizing a dashboard will keep it. The cost (people who feel trapped and tell everyone) never shows up in the same spreadsheet. Markets are bad at pricing "customers who quietly hate you."<p>The one-click-cancel requirement is the part with real teeth. Junk-fee rules die by carve-out (see California's restaurant exemption), but "cancel must be as easy as signup" is binary enough to actually enforce.
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OH NO THIS IS THE SOCIALISMS!!!!!111
When a Mayor does more for the citizen than the government...