This will have no impact on Adobe's shenanigans. They offer click-to-cancel, but then charge a cancellation fee equal to what you would have paid for the rest of the one-year term. Their clever justification is that you received a significant discount for committing to a year, so you still owe them for the remaining months if you cancel early. I didn't even realize I had signed up for a one-year commitment. I'm not sure where they buried that clause.<p>I expect more businesses will transition to this strategy to counter NYC's new rule. They won't necessarily lower the price, but you will have to sign up for a one-year term, then they will hit you with a massive cancellation fee if you "click to cancel".
Worth keeping an eye on ArtCraft (<a href="https://getartcraft.com/apps" rel="nofollow">https://getartcraft.com/apps</a>).<p>They're building a free, open-source Adobe Creative Suite alternative entirely in Rust. It runs super fast with minimal overhead, works completely offline, and aims for near 1:1 feature parity with Adobe products like Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and After Effects. It also supports command-based actions, making it easy to integrate into AI agents and automated workflows. They have Microsoft Office alternatives too.<p>Their Photoshop clone, PhotoCraft (<a href="https://github.com/storytold/photocraft" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/storytold/photocraft</a>), has around 47k GitHub stars right now.
How does this compare to Affinity Products? (I know I can ask "AI" but I'm asking you, though no pressure to respond).
Canva now owns Affinity. So regardless of the answer to that question, more options are nice. I have 0 faith that Canva will be good stewards of Affinitys original mission, despite making all of the Affinity products free (for now)
Why wouldn't they point their LLM tools at forks of gimp and inkscape (for raster and vector work), which already have many of the necessary features?
Btw its likely still possible to change subscription with Adobe to different one and then cancel it free of charge due to new 14-days window. Not sure if it works right now, but worked like charm before.
That falls under deceptive advertising.
> <i>you received a significant discount for committing to a year, so you still owe them for the remaining months if you cancel early. I didn't even realize I had signed up for a one-year commitment</i><p>Does this law apply retroactively?<p>You wouldn't have a claim under the "straightforward cancellation process" part–same way this law doesn't enable one to walk away from a long-term lease for shits and giggles. But you may under the "clearly explain subscription terms to you" bit.
If you buy an annual subscription of course you have to pay for the whole year. They offer a monthly subscription for people who don't want to lock in for such a long time.
If you actually ask them and push a little they’ll forgo that fee. Disclaimer: Adobe is the worst and can’t wait to see them crumble. If Intuit could also go…
> discount for committing to a year<p>It's worse than that. They don't even offer a monthly subscription contract - it's purely annual, but they advertise and promote monthly with fine print.
Yes they do, but they hide it. On the plans page,[0] if you click "see all plans", a <i>true</i> monthly subscription option appears. But the prices are unreasonably large to force you into the "annual, billed monthly" trick. For example, the full creative suite (Creative Cloud Pro) is $35 "a month" with the annual contract, or... <i>$105</i> on a monthly contract!<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html</a>
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This is brilliant news, I can't wait for a future without OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and the like.
I feel real dumb asking this but how will AI help here? I'm sick, so if this is a stupid question, let's say it's because of that.
> <i>how will AI help here?</i><p>I've been using Claude in what I call iKaren mode. Basically, all the little complaints where I know I'm in the right against a large corporate other but don't want to get emotionally invested into a petty dispute go to it.<p>I recently had a room in Milan where they were rude at the rooftop–I was ignored after being seated for thirty minutes–and then refused to enable A/C (which they could do remotely) until I called twice, finally yielding at 1AM. I had a terrible night's rest and, resultantly, difficult day of travel the next day. It was a single night at an expensive hotel–I'd ordinarily ignore it.<p>This time, I passed my booking details and a short blurb to Claude. Between the flight and ferry to my next destination, it negotiated first, a night's free stay (which I rejected) and then a 25% reïmbursement.<p>(Granted, OP might be imagining that one can replicate everything one does with Adobe's software with an image-generating AI. Which one might be able to. But it's not going to be cost competitive with anything Adobe offers for at least half a decade given current power- and chip-buildout schedules.)
I'm imagining we own our iPhones, Androids, and John Deeres.<p>That every robot out of Figure or Unitree gets its Verilog popped on day one.<p>A world where Instagram and YouTube and Reddit -- everything -- have no moat anymore. Where these become protocols.<p>And eventually Anthropic and OpenAI are caught up with and abundant open weights models are everywhere.<p>This future is not only possible, it's close.
AI makes it easy to replicate existing software. One can ask a LLM to replicate Photoshop functionalities and, to some extent, it will.
Another way it would help is making it easier for users to analyse the T&Cs they are signing up for.<p>Most people aren't well versed in reading T&Cs and whilst LLMs won't do a <i>perfect</i> job, they would likely do a decent job at assessing and highlighting potentially unfriendly clauses such as this.
In addition to disrupting big software that’s now easy to clone, AI makes it easy to be very persistent as a dissatisfied customer.<p>I never used to bother with asking for discounts and refunds because of the hassle. Now when Instacart delivers crappy produce or the heat press controller tracks to a different temp than a thermometer shows, I just have Claude deal with opening, tracking, responding to support.
There are a couple of vibe coded "alternatives" to Adobe Suite.
I think the idea is you'll just ask Claude to make a photoshop and you won't need adobe
> <i>love the downvotes</i><p>You're being downvoted, perhaps, for throwing out a generic (albeit literal) <i>deus ex machina</i>. I flagged for the "comment[ing] about the voting on comments" [1]. Happy to undo if fixed.<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a>
> Companies that are user-hostile have no place in the future.<p>All I can think of reading this is that bit from Futurama when Bender goes: AHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHA. Oh wait you're serious. Let me laugh even harder.<p>Yeah we've had near four decades of massive expansion of software, free and not, and AI is definitely what's going to finally make it so companies can't be user hostile. That was what we were missing. 100%.
I hate to defend Adobe but it literally says "Annually, paid monthly" right under the price.<p>They should for sure list the annual price and the monthly price but it's not "burried".
So it's not really a cancellation fee, but is that how they message it?<p>If I see:
"Annual Subscription - $120/year, billed $10/month"
I assume I'm paying $120 even if I cancel after 6 months.<p>But, if I cancel after 6 months, and the message to me is "$60 cancellation fee", I'm very confused - I thought I was paying the remaining $60 I owe them...? The amount may be the same but it's confusing nonetheless.
Hm so you're saying all the SaaS runners should put "Lifetime, paid monthly" in small print under their price? Bam, goodbye churn.
The cancellation fee is usually the part that's buried.
Maybe years ago, but today it very plainly says:<p>>Fee applies of half your remaining annual commitment if you cancel after Nov 01<p>and for the prepaid option<p>>No refund if you cancel after Nov 01<p><a href="https://www.adobe.com/#mini-plans-web-cta-creative-cloud-card" rel="nofollow">https://www.adobe.com/#mini-plans-web-cta-creative-cloud-car...</a>
> They should for sure list the annual price and the monthly price but it's not "burried".<p>Buried prices are the next frontier of consumer protection. I've gotten burned by looking up a store product online and then when attempting to purchase finding that unless you ordered it through the site for in-store pickup, you get a higher price. Car dealerships were the same the last time I bought one. And while I appreciate Tesla's challenge in expressing TCO, subtracting average fuel costs from the price of a car smells bad in the same way.
Seems intentionally manipulative.
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With LLMs in the picture there’s no excuse for signing a contract without reading it because it was too long or hard to understand. Adobe makes its terms pretty clear. You are entering a one year commitment.
It seems like a good rule, and I am eager to see what NYC’s enforcement is going to look like. I have historically been disappointed (as a life-long resident) by the discontinuity between the city’s eagerness to legislate and its recalcitrance around enforcement, particularly when public interest in any given topic fades.<p>(Compare the city’s historic problems around preventing illegal de-stabilization of rental units, inability to prevent the NYPD from parking on sidewalks, and so forth.)
NYPD parking on sidewalks is more of a "who watches the watchmen" problem unfortunately.
It doesn't have to be! Parking enforcement wasn't always within the NYPD's remit. Until 1996, NYCDOT was responsible for parking enforcement.
Sadly, even if this were the case, there is no mechanism for one NYC city agency to fine another one.<p>This is why the sidewalks next to city parks take forever to get shoveled after a big snow storm.
I would settle for a bit of towing, or even just fining the individual cops who park their personal cars on the sidewalk. Parking of city-owned vehicles is also a problem, but the former seems easier to enforce per your point.
Not to mention completely opaque tinted windshields and windows, and intentionally defaced or corroded license plates..
Corruption is part of the job description, for the NYPD.
> <i>the discontinuity between the city’s eagerness to legislate and its recalcitrance around enforcement</i><p>For consumer-corporate disputes, learning to leverage New York's regulatory state is a bit of a superpower. Basically, sending in a written complaint with the regulator copied and then having them open a regulatory-investigatory file is real leverage because even if you're full of shit, it's going to burn legal dollars on the other side. That, in turn, makes a letter to the company threatening regulatory escalation as the next step land seriously.
Not a NYC-only problem though. There are tons of federal, state, and local laws that go under-enforced or unenforced. Legislators love the performance art of writing these kinds of popular laws, but law enforcement often doesn't care enough to enforce most of them. In this case, the website says the penalty is "starting at $525" which is basically nothing to a corporation, and nothing to the police/government. So you can file a complaint but it will probably go to /dev/null. After a year of this people will give up on even filing complaints.<p>What needs to happen for rules like this is: 1. the complaint should be easy/automatic to validate and rule on, 2. hard for the company to appeal and stonewall, and 3. the fine money should go to the person who filed the complaint as a bounty to motivate people to look for violators.
Naturally. I mean only that NYC is an instance of this.<p>(It's worth noting that the city <i>does</i> sometimes enforce new regulations well, and in a way that the public is aware of. For example, businesses in the city are required to accept hard cash as payment, and the penalties for not doing so can be significant. Friends have told me that the city is very proactive about responding to those complaints. Anecdotally, the city has also become much better about responding to some forms of illegal parking and idling over the past few years. It certainly helps when the incentives are aligned, i.e. the cost of the enforcement program is supported by the fines collected.)
525 bucks per cancellation sounds like a lot to me tbh
I've also been disappointed by the lack of enforcement, and it's not necessarily for violations with little harm.<p>Failing to provide salary transparency in job postings is another common one with zero enforcement.
It's not clear why enforcement would be needed necessarily.<p>Assuming that you pay with a credit card, I would assume you could dispute the charge on the basis that they're violating the law and win any faceoff immediately on that basis.
If the business simply doesn't offer click-to-cancel, so you haven't actually canceled your subscription, how could you successfully claim the payment was made fraudulently? The law doesn't mandate that you can unilaterally exit any agreement, it mandates that businesses have to offer an easy way for you to do so.<p>The example of a yearly subscription paid monthly should make this obvious. You can't exit this arrangement after 6 months and expect to simply not pay the remaining 6 months, as the contract was for a whole year. All this law does is force the business to make it easy for you to cancel any auto-renew for a second year. But if the business doesn't do that and you dispute a payment, how hard do you expect your bank to work to figure out if this payment was for a part of the original contract, or for an auto-renewal you <i>should</i> have been able to easily canceled, but haven't?
Surely we agree that paying with cash or a debit card should entitle you to equal treatment under the city's rules and laws.
California has had this for a while, and it's a pretty good feature. Until then it was a nightmare to unsubscribe from newspapers like the WSJ or the NYT. Now (well, for a few years now) it's trivial. Hopefully this will be federally available in the next few years.
Look out for the "Digital Fairness Act", which will be tabled by the European Commission in November. It is expected to include the same "Click to Cancel" principle continent-wide.<p>Source: I'm an EU digital policy analyst in Brussels.
This looks really great, thank you for your work! However, "Entry into force" really is expected only around 2030? I'm not even sure most people will be consuming the internet using a browser then. It's sad to see that a process like this, which is very much needed, starts at 2020 and ends 10 years later. Clearly not your fault, but I'm just a little shocked.
In the US, tabled means something is not going forward. Am I correct that it means the opposite there?
According to <a href="https://digitalfairnessact.com/what-is-the-digital-fairness-act" rel="nofollow">https://digitalfairnessact.com/what-is-the-digital-fairness-...</a>
fucking cookie banners will be a lot better. OMG
Damn this looks too good to be real, where's the provision to make any kind of encryption illegal ?
I looked at the page you linked and could not see any reference to cookie banners.
I made that website!
Where does that page mention anything about cookie banners? I couldnt find it
Probably this bit:<p>> “Dark patterns” (also called deceptive or manipulative design) are interface choices that steer users towards decisions they would not otherwise make, for example:<p>> Making the “accept all” option bright and prominent, but hiding “reject” or “manage settings”<p>Not a direct reference, but it's clear exactly what it's getting at.<p>Wouldn't call it a big win though. If it's not established as a browser level setting instead of some shitty per-website banner that expires every 3 weeks as the site adjusts its ad serving system once again? We're still in cookie law hell.
Interessatingly according to <a href="https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/digitale-welt/onlinedienste/digital-fairness-act-euplaene-gegen-onlinemanipulation-und-abofallen-124123" rel="nofollow">https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/digitale-welt/onli...</a><p>games will be regulated and cant be easily shut down. Lets see what "Stop killing games" will say.<p>edit: According above website had too optimistic interpretation. Anyway it looks like Stop Killing Game transforms into pro-consumer video games association. And thats overdue and yet very interesting and missing.
Its incredible how much changes Mandani is doing to benefit the citizens. I start to wonder what the prior mayors was even doing.
The right is making him out to be the literal anti-Christ. Which is a strong signal that he will actually be effective at making positive change.
It might seem this way because he is showing off his wins on different channels. In terms of passing policy its not different than other mayors. Maybe you think the policy is good and the other mayors policy was bad and thats the gap.
> <i>start to wonder what the prior mayors was even doing</i><p>The last productive mayor New York had was Bloomberg. Then we had a leftist idiot (who did, granted, pass universal pre-K). Then we had a reactionary centrist muppet (who did, granted, pass some decent pro-development policies). So over a decade of bad executives coming to power with one or two good ideas that they implemented in their first year and then became pests.
Why stop at mayors? How about legislators... city, state, and federal, hell, what about governors and presidents?
I'm old enough to remember that everyone said the same thing about Giuliani when he was mayor. Now everyone hates him
This was actually started federally under Biden, but thrown out as soon as Trump came in<p><a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/10/federal-trade-commission-announces-final-click-cancel-rule-making-it-easier-consumers-end-recurring" rel="nofollow">https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/10/...</a><p>So many other similar examples, like Bank Overdraft Fee Caps, Credit card late fees, personal data safeguards, and so much more.
It’s incredible how much virtue signaling this is. He has no power to enforce it - I’d just ignore him anyway, nothing he can do about it.
Yeah, much better just to sit around and do nothing. Wouldn’t want randos on the internet to accuse you of virtue signaling.
I thought Yandex was taken out
Fines to the non-compliant businesses and forcing them to refund are two major ways he will enforce this.
did it make you _feel good_ though?
> A person making an automatic renewal or continuous service offer to a consumer must provide the consumer with the option to cancel at any time using a simple cancellation mechanism that is as easy to use as the mechanism that the consumer used to provide consent and that is through the same medium that the consumer used to provide consent<p>So if a startup lets someone sign up using Stripe, for example, does this mean that they need to have a way to unsubscribe that is as easy as Stripe? Lots of companies have a way to unsubscribe electronically, but it requires logging in to your account, going into settings, saying you want to unsub, and possibly declining various offers to stay.<p>Surely at some point a company could cross the line of "a simple cancellation mechanism that is as easy to use as the mechanism the consumer used to provide consent". But where is the line exactly? Surely you don't have to have a big red cancel button on every page of your platform, but at the same time surely it can't be hidden 8 levels down in the settings.<p>Some examples would be helpful to let businesses and consumers know what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.
There's a funny thing when people don't like something where they can intentionally misunderstand it or impart artificial complexity onto it painting a picture like the rule is hard to comply with. I suppose to variation of a straw man argument. I honestly don't think this is one is hard to understand at all. If you can sign up through the web you should be able to cancel through the web. If you can sign up through the phone you should be able to cancel through the phone. Companies knowingly an intentionally make it harder to cancel than to sign up for obvious reasons that have nothing to do with doing right by the consumer. This is a very good law and it should be adopted everywhere.
And if you didn't have to click through a bunch of offers to subscribe, you shouldn't have to to cancel.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”<p>― Upton Sinclair
Maybe those people who’ve spent so much time A/B testing where to put the signup buttons can use those skills to figure out where to put the cancel buttons so that they are as easy to find.
I think the point of the law is - the same medium. If you signed up online, you should be able to cancel subscription also online.
Heres what you should do to be safe.
On the user's settings/profile/whatever user page you have, add a cancel button. When the user clicks it say "are you sure? Yes/no". If the user clicks yes, cancel the account.<p>No extra hoops at all.
I've seen people count clicks and complain that is not as easy as signup.<p>To signup they just went to foo.com and there was list of plans with links to their sign up pages right there, so click one of those, fill out the one page form, click submit.<p>To cancel, they have to go to foo.com, click the login link, full in the login form, click to submit, then on their home page click on the profile icon to get the profile menu, click account in that menu, and then click the cancel button on the account page.<p>That's 2 clicks to sign up and 5 to cancel--6 if the cancel button asks if you are sure.
> ...and possibly declining various offers to stay<p>Unless there were several efforts to get you to think twice before subscribing, clearly trying to get you to think twice before unsubscribing is not as easy to use.
I suspect that something as simple as 2-3 emails prior to renewal, each with a one-click (no auth needed) clear, unobscured "unsubscribe" button would be sufficient.
I don’t think anyone will have trouble figuring out a good way to comply with this. It’s not clear <i>exactly</i> where the line is, so just don’t go near it. Make it easy to cancel, job done. If a company wants to push the boundaries by making it as difficult to cancel as the rule allows, they’re running the risk of being on the wrong side of the line and suffering the consequences, and that’s their choice.<p>The only reason any company would have trouble complying with this rule is if they want to abuse customers to keep them from canceling when they want to cancel. The amount of sympathy I have towards such companies requires advanced scientific notation to quantify.
<i>But where is the line exactly?</i><p>This is what courts are for. There is no exact line because many situations are different.<p><i>Surely you don't have to have a big red cancel button on every page of your platform</i><p>Why not?<p><i>Some examples would be helpful</i><p>The text you quoted is clear enough to me, and it's probably clear to any reasonable person (most rules are written this way). If you're worried about gaming the system to find the exact process that just on the "legal" side of things, you probably aren't reasonable.
Ya, a reasonable interpretation would likely mean that where you sign in and manage your accounts and payments you have the means to discontinue further service. Anyone trying to push these boundaries will likley find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
well we have done it before, cookie banners. Notwithstanding that a users software running on their system (ostensibly a web client), chooses to store cookies, which are not in fact edible... now we have to suffer through it.
> This is what courts are for. There is no exact line because many situations are different.<p>So now you’ve opened a bunch of businesses up to liability from an upset customer who files a complaint, even if they are making a good faith effort to follow this law.<p>That is why clear and specific details should be in the law, not vague hand wavy things that require lawyers and judges to interpret.
In my country the rule is "unsubscribe the same way you subscribed". So no bullshit with having to write a literal physical letter through the mail (yes really this happened) or having to call a callcenter in India and having to explain why you want to your stop subscription.
While I think this is a good idea, we already have so many different regions to comply with, now we're adding cities....
To avoid the overhead, we could simply adopt pro-consumer practices across the board? Easier than segmenting users and deciding which cancellation mechanisms are available to them based on region.
When folks subscribe, we make it a point to highlight the fact that the app would always have a big red button they could tap at will to either get a full refund (within 30 days) or stop the subscription payments (if after).<p>Not sure if it was the only cause, but in a month since then, conversion rates 2x'd (~100/mo to ~250/mo), while % of cancel/refund requests have stayed the same.
Pro-consumer practices are not inherently compliant practices
Nothing from stopping them from making it this easy to cancel for everyone. We all see cookie banners due to the EU's rules.
Alternatively, let people cancel easily everywhere. If you think it’s worth the extra revenue to geofence easy cancellations, then—well, you do you, but you are making a business judgment that the additional development cost is justified. This is different from VAT/sales tax etc., where it is in fact impossible to comply everywhere without discriminating by jurisdiction.
As far as added complexity goes, a rule for a city the size of NYC doesn’t seem like that far of a bridge to cross.
Indeed. NYC's population is greater than that of a bunch of whole countries, like Denmark, Singapore, or New Zealand (to name just several).<p>It's a really big chunk.
You managed to find something to complain about this story?
It’s an easy rule to comply with and nothing stops you from complying with it everywhere.<p>We will see a patchwork regime, where companies make it easy to cancel if you’re in NYC or another jurisdiction with similar rules, but difficult otherwise. When you see this, you must remember that the easiest thing would have been to make it easy for everyone to cancel regardless of location. That would be perfectly legal and it would be the cheapest option to build. If a company didn’t do that it’s because they made a deliberate choice to spend more money just so they could continue screwing some people over.
its hard being a dick
> While I think this is a good idea, we already have so many different regions to comply with, now we're adding cities....<p>Lina Khan's FTC passed a rule to make click-to-cancel nationwide in 2024.<p>It was killed on procedural grounds by the highly conservative Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.<p>The take-away from how it was killed boils down to "we (companies) know that we'd lose more than $100 million dollars if people could reasonably unsubscribe rather than deal with our dark patterns".<p>The old FTC would have been able to fix the procedural problem, but then Trump took office and gutted the FTC and destroyed all the good work it was doing.<p>Since the federal government is failing us, I support local governments doing the right thing. If enough do, companies will eventually be forced into compliance nationally because it won't be worth the complexity to have hundreds of regional carve-outs.
You can't seriously think this makes you sound like a sympathetic party, right? "Oh no, we have to maintain two codepaths now: the pro-social one for places with functional governments, and the slimy anti-consumer fuck-you one for everywhere else. Won't anyone think of our plight?"
just remember, any amount of churn rate reduction your dark patterns earn you will be paid for many times over in the afterlife
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cvs.com doesn't allow me to delete my account unless I provide an address in certain states.<p>So I provided a fake address in California, and it was done.<p>Unfortunately that's how things work these days sometimes.
NYTimes still doesn’t have a single click to cancel! Gotten better now. Hope they learn.
I spent hours trying to cancel some services with legalzoom last month, they clearly go through every shady tactics in the book to prevent you from cancelling, these companies are horrendous and this needs to be enacted as a national law
New York Times in shambles over this one
Nine states (incl. CA) already require click to cancel. This is largely a non-event
This is a very bad thing and very, very scary. Very anti-capitalist. My KPIs that go into my annual review are going to be thrashed, and without the raise I was expecting, I am unlikely to be able to continue to afford my second family. This is literally going to take food out of their mouths. I do not deserve this.
Why not the State of NY instead of just the city?<p>IL has had click-to-cancel since 2022. (Actually 2000, but updated in 2022, with continuous amendments being put forward all the time.)
The rule is mostly, although not entirely, a restatement of existing New York State law requiring cancellation to be easy (<a href="https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/527-A" rel="nofollow">https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/527-A</a>).
I like this rule. I feel like most of the apps I use are relatively easy to unsubscribe from, but it seems like it should be a requirement.
You can only submit my snail mail or Fax.<p>So close yet so far
I think it's obnoxious that you can't send a cancellation request through your credit card company's website.<p>Just find the charge, click the "I want to cancel the service that caused this charge". The merchant has to either cancel or reply with a message clearly explaining why they can't do that (i.e. you agreed to a 12-month minimum).<p>Whoever is collecting the money has all the information needed to make the cancellation request. No website logins, passwords, self-addressed stamped envelope, etc.<p>Apple has done this for subscriptions that collect money through the iTunes store. It's awesome.<p>AmEx should do this because unlike all the other cards they control the whole stack.
Previous discussion on the announcement:<p><i>New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices</i><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48863464">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48863464</a>
What? A city can have jurisdiction over these things?
I guess this is Mamdami's claim to the similar of "but at least Hitler liked dogs!"
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For anyone worried about complying with a different rule in every jurisdiction: the practical answer for a small SaaS is to build once to the strictest version and stop thinking about it. Cancel from the same account page where people pay, in no more steps than signing up took, no retention offer they have to click past, and a confirmation email that states the end date. Most billing providers' hosted customer portals already do this out of the box, so it's usually less work than the dark-pattern flow it replaces. The cases that get hard are the ones where signup was online but cancellation was deliberately routed to phone or chat.
When are NY and California going to secede and join the EU?
One abstract idea is to convert every digital event into a hook. The hook then goes into a local LLM that has a rule to figure out what to do with it. I use DDG or mozilla email aliases as much as I can. All my emails go to a local email client and for the non-spam classified mails I have a few rules(**) I am toying with right now:<p>1. If non-money sub, categorize its content and create a P1 watch event and a set of follow up actions.<p>2. If its a money/trial sub, create a P0 watch event and its own set of followup actions.<p>All watch events are queued for me by priority where i ask on the weekend: "Tell me P0 events", it then asks me what action. The ergonomic factor here is I the human can tune this valve on the information hose. There is also a dashboard for P0 notifications and an android push notification that notifies me of P0 events, but they aren't "consumed" until i decide. There are tons of places this can be useful: make progress on non-work related todos, systematic investment, writing year-end reviews.<p>None of this is rocket science.<p>**Local service webhooks are the key: Every web-hook has some kind of decision maker in it - an LLM + deterministic logic.