This shouldn't be controversial. FTC isn't banning these fees, it is only requiring merchants to disclose the fees. Why would anyone be against that?
Another good rule is click-to-cancel. Just a couple of days ago I logged into my Dish Network account to cancel it (after they hiked prices). There is no way to cancel online. There is no way to cancel via chat. You have to call. As soon as you call you're told the wait time is over 45 minutes. There is no call back option. Why should a consumer have to be on the phone for 45 minutes to cancel? (Typically they will drop the call after 45 minutes and you have to call again.) If you call Dish to sign up service the wait time is 0 minutes: they answer immediately. If you then tell that you're actually calling to cancel, they forward you to the cancellation number with the wait. This is an abusive business practice, and banning it should not be controversial.
Years ago when signed up with them I opted to pay the extra service for local tv channels, which required an andditional antenna to install.
For some reason the installer couldn’t fit it securely on our house, and said to call Dish to remove the service since we cannot receive it.
Dish refused to remove the local service! They said since we signed a contract we were stuck paying for it even though they couldn’t fit the antenna.
I pointed out in a hundred different ways that the contract also required them to provide a service which they are not providing so we shouldn’t have to pay.
All of my attempts to reason with them were ignored, and their call staff refused to escalate to their manager.
Long story short we had to pay for twelve months for something they couldn’t provide to us.
Literally the minute the contract was up we cancelled (it was easier to cancel back then).
So now likely hundreds (or more) of individuals have to not only wait on hold forever, but have to learn the process of and actually go through with filing a small claim? That there is recourse is beside the point when it is mired in bureaucracy (not to mention taking days off to show up to court, etc).
I'm surprised I haven't yet heard of companies who would handle this for you, like there are e.g. for handling the process of getting compensation when an airline screws up scheduling or loses baggage, etc. I'm guessing there isn't enough money to be won there for them to be able to survive off a percentage of it.
But they also have competition in the class action suit space but less so in the small claims case.
In some jurisdictions you have to show up to small claims yourself though which prevents some third party from just handling it. Makes sense since the idea behind small claims is to keep the legal costs low enough that you actually have a chance of recovering smaller sums without paying more then what you will get.
Class action is an utter joke that has done nothing more than FURTHER commodify harming consumers for a price.
If a company sends you a $2 check ten years after they recognize a profit from defrauding you or lying to you or harming you, that's not a punishment, and is certainly not an incentive to not do those things.
I think they punish companies to a considerable degree. It's just that since legal costs on both sides are non-trivial, not much makes it to the harmed consumers.
You don't even need small claims court. You just don't pay, and point them to (small claims?) court if they want to get paid for the service they don't provide.
None of these shit companies will ever take you up on the offer though, because expecting to get paid for a service you don't provide (and can't provide in this case) won't fly in court.
You just don't pay, and point them to (small claims?) court if they want to get paid for the service they don't provide.
Have you actually tried this? Because having not tried it myself, I'd bet a paycheck that you get sent to collections, get a ding on your credit report, and you're still on the hook for taking it to court if you want it resolve to your favor. (Assuming U. S.) And as a cherry on top of that shit sundae, it's probably in the contract that you have to go through arbitration anyway.
When collections calls, you explain them the situation (service not provided or whatever, and evidence of trying to resolve it with them in good faith) and they go away.
Have yet to see a court summons or anything, although I'd love to see them try their lies in court.
I did not care about the credit report impact - it's probably the only valid reason not to do this if this is something you care about.
Thanks for the follow-up. I suspect UK does make a difference, but IANAL in either country. I do, however, have a bit of personal experience in the U. S. :-)
The first thing that would happen is they would cut off all your service.
If you are relying on them for something other than the thing you don’t want to pay for, this becomes a problem.
For example, I disputed a charge with my CC from the Apple App Store when I was charged for an app that I shouldn’t have been years ago. They immediately cut off my access to the Store. Other apps couldn’t update, OS couldn’t update, couldn’t get new apps, etc.
And this is one of the reasons why I can't buy into the Apple ecosystem. With Android, I would be cut off from all Google stuff but there are more/less work-arounds for those.
But the fact that I have a billing dispute with a company and they are able to hold everything else that bit of technology touches hostage is just wrong. Imagine if you had a billing dispute with the city water company and they cut your city power because of it.
I got charged for the modem even though I returned it to Xfinity (another champion of customer service) when I canceled. It wasn't worth my time to fight, and I wasn’t going to pay for something I didn’t owe. I could take the hit to my credit rating so I did, and after a few years of collections letters, it went away.
Alternatively, you can take them to small claims court and see if the judge there is hyper-interested in upholding their insanely restrictive contracts. They can appeal a judgment, of course, but that's likely to be far more expensive for them than just honoring the decision.
With any such service, I budget 1 hour. If I can't get cancellation within that time-frame I have a standard form letter that gets sent out.
Once the letter is sent, after the current billing cycle ends any additional charges from said service are disputed (either on the card or on bank account) as fraud.
On three occasions, I've been asked to provide proof of fraud.
I've emailed a scan of the cancellation letter. The fraud has never been further disputed even from a gym in Chicago that (via their contract's language) demanded an in-person cancellation.
Or even more importantly, why aren't lawyers and consumer protection organizations promoting and spreading this knowledge?
The lawyer field is captured and they know they'd get taken to court by other lawyers if they "recommended" such a thing, because their industry has made them liable for things they "recommend".
There is a move afoot to eliminate all regulations unless they've been specifically passed by Congress. Which is basically incapable of passing anything.
Ironically, that inherent dysfunction is the main reason to suspect that won't happen. But politically, every regulation as automatically partisan, even when it has overwhelming support.
> There is a move afoot to eliminate all regulations unless they've been specifically passed by Congress. Which is basically incapable of passing anything.
(At least some of) the agencies brought this on themselves with their abuse of the goodwill/benefit of the doubt previously afforded to them. Most flagrant has been the ATF, for one example constantly redefining machine guns or pistol braces, turning millions of citizens into felons with no oversight beyond drawn out and expensive court cases against them.
I never liked the smell of this power being afforded to agencies in the abstract, even for the "good guys" at the CDC or Department of the Interior. It's too rife for abuse. Federal regulations (whether you call it a law or a rule, the party van is coming if you break them) are supposed to be hard to pass. We once needed an amendment to ban alcohol before we forgot the definitions of interstate and commerce, but if my understanding is correct, under Chevron deference the DEA could have decided to schedule it without even asking congress.
Your understanding is not correct. Chevron deference never meant agencies can just make up and pass law; it was a legal doctrine which merely stated that in places where the law is ambiguous (say a law declares water must be clean of pollutants, or bans pistol braces) that courts should look at any guidance from relevant agencies for guidance, since supposedly they should know more about the subject than the courts. It never allowed agencies to circumvent congress or prevented congress from further clarifying law. For example, the DEA doesn’t have the power to schedule drugs due to chevron, Congress includes provisions for the AG to reschedule drugs, which the AG historically has delegated to the DEA, the point being this was a power explicitly granted by congress.
While it may sound nice to you right now that the Supreme Court did away with chevron due to your gripes with the ATF, now the definitions of machine guns or pistols or anything else are up to the whims of any judge in any jurisdiction, which could be better or, given that judges likely have even less knowledge of the subject than the ATF, probably worse and more inconsistent.
> Chevron deference never meant agencies can just make up and pass law
Not on it's own, no. The bigger culprit there is the erosion of the nondelegation doctrine. But Chevron aggravated the problem by allowing agencies to stretch their authority beyond what even congress intended with little possibility of legal challenge.
Interpreting the law is and should be the role of the courts, not the role of the agencies that that law is supposed to be governing. It'd be like if we passed a law intended to regulate insurance companies, and the courts decided to give deference to the insurance company's interpretation of that law because "they're the experts on insurance".
You could always argue in court that the agency’s interpretation of the statute was not reasonable. The court could always agree with you and establish case law against that interpretation.
It was a two part test:
1. Is the statute clear? If so, defer to statute. Otherwise, go to (2).
2. Is the agency’s interpretation reasonable? If so, defer to agency. Otherwise, the agency's rule is no longer enforceable.
Now, the court is allowed to come up with its own interpretation even in the presence of a reasonable agency interpretation. That is the only change. If the agency's interpretation was unreasonable, then it was already going to get thrown out.
The courts took the authority to throw out interpretations that they themselves (the court!) think are reasonable. Unreasonable interpretations were NEVER protected by Chevron deference.
Correct, that's why I said "little possibility of legal challenge" not "no possibility of legal challenge". Proving something is "not reasonable" in a legal sense is a pretty high bar to clear. The point still stands.
There's ample possibility of legal challenge. There was a low possibility of legal overturn for one specific reason: courts generally agreed that agencies' interpretations were reasonable.
> Proving something is "not reasonable" in a legal sense is a pretty high bar to clear
Sure it is, but that is literally not the bar. The courts always had the authority to do their own analysis of reasonableness so long as the challenger raised the question. In fact, they didn't just have the authority to do it, they were obligated to do it.
The low probability of overturn is an argument for Chevron deference. It is empirical proof that courts almost always found agencies' rules to be reasonable interpretations.
The fact that they're analyzing the reasonableness of the agencies' interpretations and not the correctness of their interpretations is precisely the problem. There are a lot of possible interpretations of the law that are reasonable but not correct. The judiciary's job is supposed to be to interpret the law, not just to decide whether defendant's own personal interpretation meets some minimum bar of reasonableness.
Correct according to the mechanism our constitution defines for resolving disputes about the interpretation of law: the judgement of the court system. A judgement which they were not allowed to make under Cheveron, because they were limited to evaluating the reasonableness of the agency's own personal interpretation.
The thing is: if Congress thinks executive branch agencies are interpreting laws in ways they didn't intend, they can change the law to clarify their intent. If they fail to do so, I have to assume the agencies are doing what Congress intended. But the supreme Court evidently disagrees.
Only with the willing cooperation of the executive branch, or a veto proof majority in both houses. Otherwise the very executive they are trying to reign in could just veto the bill to allow the agencies to continue overstepping their authority.
But that's beside the point anyway, because it shouldn't have to be the legislature's job to be constantly weighing in on whether an agency is following the law as written. That's literally what the courts are for; to interpret nuances of the law.
That's an irrelevant distinction. Neither are part of the judicial branch, which is the relevant consideration here.
Consider: Congress passes a law which sets limits on the authority of an agency. You think the agency itself should get to decide what that law actually means? And the courts, the branch of government specifically granted the role of arbiter by our constitution, should be required to differ to that interpretation if anyone ever objects and brings a lawsuit? It's absurd, and no less so than if the law was concerning a private company rather than a public agency.
The US is rich for many reasons that have little to do with being well governed.
* The country was launched on most of a century of essentially "free" land grabs-- limited pushback from native civilizations. buying cheap from distressed foreign powers (Louisiana), the main wars of conquest being insignificant squabbles with Mexico over trifles.
* Said land was also compelling-- you weren't fighting the environment to extract value the way you would be in Siberia.
* After 1865, no significant nation-scale conflict on the territory itself to blow down existing investments.
* This created an opportunity for bulk immigration-- first with Homestead Act style programmes and then because the American economy was compelling enough to be a pull by itself. A high immigrant population has a unique "opt-in" demographics-- a situation that self-selects for entrepeneurialism.
None of this required wildly competent government. George Washington could have chosen to be a king, a religious caliph, or a protosocialist planning enthusiast, and the deck would have still held almost all the same cards.
This is coming into my work life with web accessibility: The DoJ published a rulemaking in April that filled the many, many gaps in the existing law that determines if the government is violating the ADA when creating websites, etc.
What came before this was at least 15 years of tort action, a patchwork of civil rulings across a wide variety of jurisdictions, and generally, confusion and ambiguity. Not the stuff of efficient government.
From my perspective, this rulemaking is pretty close to ideal. I did not dream of getting such a clear, detailed direction from a federal agency. I think my jaw may have literally dropped as I read through it. I think the web accessibility is an interesting example, because it's not a bloated bureaucracy harassing some fishermen, it's an agency trying to prevent the government from violating your civil rights.
So, is the idea that Congress would have accomplished this instead? I just can't imagine that happening.
yeah because Congress now have to become experts at everything: from definition of machine guns, to ADA guidelines. Afterall, if Congress didn't specifically pass the law to the detail, it doesn't exist.
The sheer stupidity of that argument is mind-blowing. When you have a government agency with dedicated technical resources, but you will rather a bunch of couple hundred of people with different backgrounds make specific rules about everything. That's just madness
That's because it's not actually intended to make the regulations better. It's intended to make it impossible for regulatory agencies to do their jobs effectively, without outright legislating them out of existence, because the people backing it believe that without effective regulation they and their allies will be more easily able to enrich themselves at the public's expense.
It's because that is the constraints that the U.S. Constitution places on our form of Federal government. The Congress passes laws (and controls the money), the Executive implements the law, and the Courts interpret the law. My lay understanding is that Chevron shifted too much power from the Congress and the Courts to the administrative agencies in the Executive branch. It seemed like a "good idea" at the time but over time the abuses became apparent and this Supreme Court reigned it back in towards the balance of powers required by the Constitution.
If congress says "companies can't pollute and the EPA determines what is a pollutant" then the EPA is implementing a law congress passed. That's not against any constitutional constraints.
Well, if you look at the case that was in front of the court when they overturned Chevron: The National Marine Fishery Service decided that since the Magnuson–Stevens Act allows for them to place monitors on fishing vessels in order to prevent the over-fishing of certain species but since their budget was lower and they couldn't actually afford to pay the monitors they decided that each ship would have to pay for them.
The thing about Chevron deference is, it was already limited on its face: it only operated at all in places where the statute is silent or ambiguous, and only commanded deference to "reasonable" interpretations.
If the interpretation in Loper Bright was not "reasonable," the Supreme Court already had the tools it needed to reverse the agency without breaking any precedent. If on the other hand it was reasonable, why should the courts be getting involved?
Removing Chevron simply allows the courts to select their preferred policy outcomes more directly.
I am not a legal scholar, but from my understanding enough that serious cases were filed and fought and made in all the way to the Supreme Court.
In a https://www.scotusblog.com article, Amy Howe quotes the Chief Justice as saying "Chevron deference, Roberts explained in his opinion for the court on Friday, is inconsistent with the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that sets out the procedures that federal agencies must follow as well as instructions for courts to review actions by those agencies. The APA, Roberts noted, directs courts to “decide legal questions by applying their own judgment” and therefore “makes clear that agency interpretations of statutes — like agency interpretations of the Constitution — are not entitled to deference. Under the APA,” Roberts concluded, “it thus remains the responsibility of the court to decide whether the law means what the agency says."
I ought to go read the decision for myself, which I have to this point not yet done. I am not an attorney, but do have a general interest in these matters.
But back to the earlier poster's notes, ATF has been a prime example. They have a history of capricious reinterpretation at the whims of whichever administration is in power. They issue letters to people and businesses that say one thing is okay and then outlaw in without any law changes a decade later. I have never owned a pistol brace, but they stated it was an acceptable innovation for certain applications, thousands and thousands of people relied on that, they issue a rule making comment period and get feedback and then threw all of that out and came out with a final rule that bore no resemblance to the one in the comment period. Then they stand behind Chevron that the courts had to listen to their interpretation. It is legal "heads, I win" and "tails, you lose!"
In terms of 'applying their own judgement' I wonder if this would take the form of agencies still pursuing their normal course of regulation, but courts having the option but not the obligation to defer to that regulation as an expert reference, at which point they are essentially reifying the regulation into case law. I wonder if you'd even get cases designed to lead judges to rule for a regulatory agency's interpretation to get the regulation more firmly established.
The ATF is simply going on function rather than form. It shoots like a machine gun it is a machine gun no matter what you call it.
That being said, bump stocks are a simple enough concept that banning them is stupid. We should quite our obsession over machine guns--there are few situations where it even matters.
The problem with it going through congress is that it will always be political rather than scientific. The agencies don't do a good job, but a lot of that is because of garbage they are saddled with by congress (think of the machine guns--the basic problem is that the legal and practical definitions are out of sync) and a lot of it is because politics manages to get in anyway.
How about a middle ground: agencies can make rules but they must give their reasoning and supporting evidence--and anyone can challenge such in court. You can't go after the ruling but if you can knock out it's supports it goes away. This would cut both ways--exempt something from a more general ruling and the reason for the exemption can be challenged. (And I'd like to see the same thing for laws.)
> The ATF is simply going on function rather than form. It shoots like a machine gun it is a machine gun no matter what you call it.
The part where it breaks down is pointing at a specific piece that enables automatic fire and calling that piece a "machine gun", even if it's just a tiny piece of metal or a specially-tied shoelace.
Though that's not what the Supreme Court actually held when tossing the bump stock ban: they instead said that a gun equipped with a bump stock isn't a machine gun and that's why the ban was invalid.
The case entirely hinged on the definition of machinegun being a gun that fires more than one shot "by a single function of the trigger" with the majority saying that because you need to keep forward pressure to keep firing, bump stocks don't count.
The aspect of bump stocks being just a part and not a gun wasn't important to the case because the statute is clear on this point: any part that's intended to convert a regular gun to a machine gun is itself a machine gun under the relevant law.
If it carries the "machine gun" ability with it, it's like ... The Enchanted Seer of Automatic Firing.
It turns a 'plain gun' into a machine gun, and there are almost no other ways to do that. So it seems like calling it "a machine gun" is reasonable from linguistic perspective. #wittgenstein
The seers have been banned. I don't think anyone thinks they're not machine gun parts.
What's been going on is the ATF has been going after a variety of methods of circumventing the concept--means of using the recoil to "pull" the trigger without the operator actually pulling it. The result sure acts like a machine gun, albeit an unreliable and inaccurate one. The problem is that it's simply too easy to do, they are fighting a hopeless battle.
My understanding is the same problem applies to silencers--plenty of filters out there that just happen to be of the right size to function as silencers. And there isn't even any reason for the rules against silencers. They aren't like Hollywood, it's still loud but below the threshold of hearing damage.
> agencies can make rules but they must give their reasoning and supporting evidence--and anyone can challenge such in court.
I think that's already true, except that you probably need standing - you need to show you're affected by the rule - to sue. There are many rules around rule-making including against arbitrary rules, guaranteed public comment periods, etc.
I think the machine gun issue is mostly settled. But there is a lot of controversy lately about what is a short barreled rifle (which requires a special federal permit). I don't know the specifics but the laws have been changed after people purchased their guns, such that if they were caught with them they would be in violation of serious gun laws (essentially as serious as having a machine gun without a permit)
"constantly redefining machine guns or pistol braces"
Pistol braces was struck down not on second amendment grounds, but because the ATF failed to comply with the Administrative Procedures Act, specifically failing the logical outgrowth test. They proffered a comment period and then did a switch when publishing the final rule.
Similar shenanigans were afoot with the Trump area bump stock ban, which was ruled against by the Supreme Court itself in Garland v. Cargill. I think that had to do with the agency exceeding its authority beyond what the statute specifically specifies. In laymans terms, the legal details were not ambiguous enough to justify the conclusion that the agency came to stretching the statute through their interpretation.
>There is a move afoot to eliminate all regulations unless they've been specifically passed by Congress. Which is basically incapable of passing anything.
It's hard to argue with this in principal. The rules as law BS has been a band-aid over dysfunction. It needs to go. It'll hurt in the short term but should be more sustainable in the long term. That people will get more angry at congress for doing nothing is icing on the cake.
> That people will get more angry at congress for doing nothing is icing on the cake.
I want to be optimistic about this. In practice it seems that the strategy created by McConnel to block any legislation at all has been doing/tricking the voter really well. As he predicted, credit for anything good goes to the current admin while anything bad also gets blamed on the current admin. I can see a likely scenario where "people getting more angry" will only make this strategy to block everything work even better. I hope I am wrong and the "nuance" that congress exists and isn't controlled by the president will finally get into people heads. I also hope that once it gets into their heads, the conclusion won't be that a authoritarian dictator is needed.
I agree with you: frustrated by a Congress that can’t pass any legislation, the one thing it doesn’t seem like anyone is willing to try is to consider compromises. Everyone seems fully convinced that if only the 50% (or more) of the voters who disagree with them would just drop dead, we could fix everything. And as a result, voters punish lawmakers, who horse trade and negotiate. Even though that’s the only way things used to get done until everything broke 10 or 15 years ago.
> It's hard to argue with this in principal. The rules as law BS has been a band-aid over dysfunction. It needs to go.
It's very easy to argue with this in principle. Congress can't be constantly updating every law as new technology or situations emerge. It's much better for laws to set general goals and leave implementation to agencies staffed with experts.
It's very easy to argue against when the people that most want to violate the rules have congress in their back pocket. I personally prefer being actually able to breathe the air and not work 70 hours a week with no benefits.
Who is behind this move? What individuals, and what politicians? By what legal means is this happening? I've literally never heard of anything like this before - without further details, this is just political flame-baiting.
> Who is behind this move? What individuals, and what politicians? By what legal means is this happening?
The supreme court. The removal of Chevron Deference this year means that the courts have given themselves huge amounts of power over any administrative decision that isn't specifically regulated by congress (rather than the prior stance which was to presume that agency decisions were reasonable interpretations of the legislation unless there was clear evidence to the contrary).
Yes. Previously the court had to prove that something an agency did went against the mandate congress gave it, to strike it down. Now it can just strike it down for no reason. This is useful in times when republicans control the courts and democrats control the executive.
There was an argument about noncompetes and the FTC in front of a Federal judge recently.
The judge said, "Even as the agency has the power, I don't feel sufficiently convinced by their argument and will block it anyway."
That doesn't sound like they have as much power in their delegated responsibilities if an arbitrary judge says "... and you also have to convince me personally, even though you're entitled to do it."
if Congress wanted to delegate decision making to the judicial branch they can pass laws that do so. they pass a law saying that the agency can make decisions, those decisions should be respected. this decision is right the equivalent of if the courts decided they had the power to block laws that the court thought were bad policy
You should read about the non-delegation principle and why it exists. As Wikipedia says, “It is explicit or implicit in all written constitutions that impose a strict structural separation of powers. It is usually applied in questions of constitutionally improper delegations of powers of any of the three branches of government to either of the other, to the administrative state, or to private entities.”
What you are proposing is that Congress be allowed to abolish its own power, completely destroying the constitution.
You shouldn't assume others are acting in bad faith when the much more likely explanation is you're just not paying attention.
Three major developments from the courts in this direction have been:
- The overturning of Chevron gave courts the power to interpret portions of laws written by subject matter experts, instead of those experts themselves.
- The big questions doctrine has allowed the courts to decide when the legislature has deligated too much power.
- Cornerpost has removed the statue of limitations for challenge policies and rules out in place by agencies.
These together clearly paint a picture. Any policy can be challenged (in any venue, allowing the plaintiff to pick their venue). This allows policies in place for decades to be challenged and brought to the supreme court. The most recent court has adopted the major questions doctrine, allowing them to strike down any policy they feel pertain to "issues of major political or economic significance." (no they didn't define it more than that). Or, if they can't make that argument, they can interpret the law to strike down the policy due to the overturning of Chevron.
We've seen an unprecedented shift of power to the supreme court in the last few years. They're using the disfunction in the legislature as an opening to gain power. Which is scary considering it's a group of 9 unelected people with lifetime appointments.
The Romanian supreme court just decided to block the presidential elections. They might have had reasons, but they definitely didn't have the mandate, yet they decided it nevertheless and because they are supreme nobody can challenge them. I'm sure the US supreme court (and more) is warming up to this concept.
Two (of many, many) books which detail two separate efforts to dismantle our administrative state are:
Lobbying America https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691168016 the history of how Business Roundtable, Chamber of Commerce, et al reacted to The New Deal by transitioning from trade groups to political players.
Democracy in Chains https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Chains-History-Radical-Stea... shares (Nobel winning economist) James McGill Buchanan's role in bootstrapping the Southern flavored conservative movement (libertarian "free enterprise" segregationists reacting to Civil Rights Era and The Great Society).
Article I, section 1 of the Constitution: ‘All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.’
It doesn’t say, ‘Congress may delegate its legislative Powers to the Executive.’ Arguably, the ‘shall’ language forbids that! Article I, section 8 does give the Congress the authority to pass laws necessary and proper to execute its regulation of interstate commerce (among other things), but … it’s not necessary to delegate legislative power in order to execute the law.
While complimentary, the various policy, legislating, rules making, procedures, and enforcement are distinct activities in the governmental stack.
By necessity, legislators delegate rule making to agencies.
Who do you want determining the precise definition of a kilogram? Congress or NIST?
By necessity, some rules have the force of law. Like how many state's Secretaries of State are entrusted with clearly scoped essential administrivia, like how to run elections.
Do you really want legislators doing the technical and operational evaluation of tabulators?
Of course, precisely where the lines are between various jurisdictions must be adjudicated. That's why we have the courts. IIRC, most cases heard by SCOTUS pertain to administrative law.
> While complimentary, the various policy, legislating, rules making, procedures, and enforcement are distinct activities in the governmental stack.
I agree that there are distinct activities. In our system, there are three distinct activities: lawmaking, law execution and law application; they correspond to the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government.
It’s clear to me that regulations with the force of law must be passed by the Congress, while regulations applied within the executive without the force of law may be promulgated by the executive.
> By necessity, legislators delegate rule making to agencies.
I don’t see that it is in any way necessary, and I do see that it is extremely dangerous to a republican system of government. Every member of the executive ultimately answers to a single man: the President. If the Congress enables the President to dictate the content of a law, then that one man is a dictator.
The Founders did not want a king, and the Constitution does not allow one. Again, to quote the document: ‘All [emphasis added] legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress …’ Not some legislative powers, but all.
> Who do you want determining the precise definition of a kilogram? Congress or NIST?
It’s not about what you or I want; it’s about what the supreme law of the land allows.
As it happens, it wouldn’t bother me if Congress set the definition of the kilogram. Why would it bother you?
> Do you really want legislators doing the technical and operational evaluation of tabulators?
Again, it’s not about what I want, but what the law requires. In the case of tabulation, that seems pretty clearly an executive responsibility. The rules for tabulation seem to be pretty clearly a legislative responsibility.
If one doesn’t like that arrangement, then one is free to advocate for changing the Constitution! An amendment such as ‘The President or his delegate may issue a law defining weights and measures’ would work. I think that it’d be a bad idea, because it gives too much authority to one man (imagine if some future president issued a law defining that any use of the meter is to be punished with death …).
Customers should be able to bill them for wasted time. If you are calling to cancel you can bill an hourly rate. Make it some multiple of minimum wage. Then services will pop up to have someone call and cancel for you, then bill the company for that time. Zero effort on the consumer side and suddenly wait times will drop. The problem is that there is no incentive on the company side to have easy cancellation or any other "negative" customer service. If they get billed a hundred dollars for keeping you on the line for 2 hours they will suddenly care a lot.
I mean technically, sure. But isn’t that a bit roundabout? There is no real life reason why unsubscribing should be more than a few clicks of effort. If it takes more than 30 seconds, something has gone horribly wrong. Keep companies to that standard, instead of giving them an opportunity to calculate that precisely 9 minutes of wait time doesn’t cost them much and is sufficient for 70% of customers to give up, or something.
The idea is that this can be extended naturally to may situations. Warranty claims, insurance claims...
If you just add a fine with a threshold it is actually much harder to pick the right fine amount. This way it has some sort of degree of scaling naturally. A small delay is less costly to you than a long delay rather than being all-or-nothing.
I agree that for simple things like unsubscribing a button can be mandated, but for other causes of calls to customer support it isn't that simple.
Here in Sweden, if the amount isn't clearly presented, there's no agreement to pay the specified amount, so there's no contract and no obligation to pay-- an agreement becomes binding because of the reasonable expectation of a party on the counterparty.
I don't understand American contract law, since I even see ideas like changing agreements, which are completely contrary to the very notion of a contracts as I understand it, so it's nice that something is done about these strange practices.
I don't understand how it's come to this point though. That courts have been willing to tolerate things that aren't in the contract (i.e. changes to contracts), provisions that aren't clear, etc., and complex and strange provisions even in contracts of adhesion and things presented to consumers.
Mostly it comes down to the fees being presented at the end rather than at the beginning. You have to follow the process through to the end to figure out what it would cost which makes price comparisons much harder.
Occasionally this is unavoidable--shipping charges. If they simply pass through what UPS charges, fine. Otherwise, they should be listed up front.
You do before purchase, but generally not as part of the storefront product listing. That necessitates the seller already knowing where you'll be shipping it to, and that's traditionally the last step before purchase (whether that's best or not I can't say).
Sales tax is also usually added in at the very end, again because it depends on where the buyer is.
The difference here is that the "hidden junk fees" are just extra money they charge, with no real defence. For example, Ticketmaster loves their arbitrary "convenience fee", Airbnb was long known for "cleaning fees" (though they've improved here), etc. These are things that the seller knows they're going to charge beforehand and clearly they do this purely to trick our brains into thinking things are cheaper.
Dish is terrible. After my mom passed away, they were one of the few things that my Dad had trouble cancelling. Even with a copy of her death certificate, my Dad could not get the service cancelled. He just ended up throwing the bills (and their equipment) away.
Yup, same experience here 3 months trying to make them understand "he is dead".
We left their crap in a room for ~6 months total at the advise of his estate lawyer. Eventually they did accept that he was dead and canceled the account as well as sent a box to send the equipment back.
They got their equipment back after it had all had an unexpected encounter with a hammer. Never heard a peep about it.
I think they went bankrupt, so hope that's some consolation. I heard that an attempt to buy them by DTV got rejected on antitrust. But in the article it said they went bust
Surprisingly, neither Dish nor DirectTV has gone bankrupt. Satellites are pretty capital-intensive. They both faced challenges over the years but have managed to skate by. AT&T kept DirectTV afloat for quite a while. The proposed DirectTV + Dish merger fell apart for multiple reasons. While the government didn't explicitly reject it, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether they would bless it. The deal also required Dish's bondholders to voluntarily write off a chunk of their debt, which they ultimately got cold feet about.
A certain portion of the population is pro-profit at virtually any cost.
It might seem like Dish employees wake up every day and say, "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" But usually they're just trying to find ways to make more money.
Dish knows their satellite TV business is on the way out. Their strategy is to maximize the present value of that business by retaining and squeezing as many of those customers as much as possible, slowing the decline and pulling as much money out of that vertical for as long as they still have it, so that they can reinvest that cash into new verticals with more promise.
To be fair, satellite TV has always been one of these even when it was a healthy business. High cost of acquisition, high commission for sales, high barrier to cancel.
The ironic part of all of this, I would have pay linear TV services if it was cheaper - 50 bucks a month for the whole house, and I suspect they could have 30%+ more customers.
It doesn't solve the problem that "the line must constantly go up". A steady revenue and constant returns isn't good enough, apparently and in the case of dish, it will be declining revenue over time no matter what they do.
Dish profit doesn't scale that way. They have to pay the channels for broadcast rights. More TVs per household means in theory more royalties paid to the networks.
I swear these satellite services could eliminate live tv and go on-demand only using a hard drive DVR style, with maybe 10-20 live channels. Everything else would be a stream that would download and notify you when it was ready. The bandwidth of those dishes has got to be multiple gigabytes per second. They could broadcast everything and the viewers would just opt in to the specific shows or movies they want. Completely switch the business model.
I think the GP meant it's not controversial to make the fees more transparent or even ban them. The dish employees (C-suite to be clear) and investors are the only ones who like it.
Click to cancel does not mean exactly what the name implies. It means cancellation must be as easy as signup [1]. In your example, signup is not a click away, so the cancellation process need not be. It’s a very reasonable position.
To be fair, the name "click to cancel" does not, in fact, imply that cancellation must be as easy as signup in cases where signup is not a click away. A name that would better imply that would be something like "symmetric cancellation", or "cancellation parity". However, that would be less catchy to the public than "click to cancel".
> A rule is proposed to require customers to be able to cancel any subscription on the vendor's website.
Except that's not the proposed rule. The way this works in California (and the way the rule the FTC recently published works, I believe) is that a business is required to allow customers to cancel "in the same medium" that they subscribed. That doesn't require anyone to start running a website.
The rest of your post is just arguing against something that's not even happening.
As-is, it works very well in California. I had never experienced the resistance you imagined during the 3-4 years I lived in California, and regularly cancelled subscriptions that were notoriously hard in other states
California passed the click to cancel law this year. They passed a different law trying to make it easier to cancel subscriptions in 2018. The need for them to revisit it implies that the original one wasn't working.
Corporations act strategically. They typically don't immediately thwart new laws because the coalition that passed them is still intact and would try to do something about it. So they wait a minute, maybe take the time to buy some more legislators, before testing the fences again.
If people have forgotten about them by then you lose, and if people haven't forgotten about them by then, California passes the 2024 law and you lose the other way. Because they pass the new law in addition to rather than instead of the old one, even though the old one has stopped working, so you have a ratchet of ever-increasing compliance costs that also apply to all the companies that were never doing anything wrong to begin with but still have to hire lawyers to evaluate their activities against an entire bookshelf of rules to see if any of them require something they're not doing.
No timers, no human interaction. And if the process takes time (there are times I think confirmations are warranted) once that's been done the cancellation takes place at the time of your original request. (Which you can screenshot.)
Is there something in the proposed rule that actually says this? And if so, what happens to the small business that does cancellations over email/phone and therefore requires human interaction?
> And if the process takes time (there are times I think confirmations are warranted) once that's been done the cancellation takes place at the time of your original request. (Which you can screenshot.)
The issue isn't that you care if the cancellation happens at 9AM or 9PM, it's that if you have to wait twelve hours to speak to a representative you give up before reaching the point you can make the request.
You make the rule such that if you can sign up for a service on a website you can also cancel it said website. Now your hypothetical landscaping company is safe
Are they? A very basic website can easily have a form you can fill to sign up and all it does on the back end is send an email with the info to the proprietors. Even a generic mailto: or tel: link arguably makes it possible to sign up via the website, if tapping the link on your phone to send a message can directly result in a signup. To do the same thing for cancellations you'd have trouble avoiding the need for customer accounts to sign in and connect to a database to list what services they're currently subscribed to etc.
Otherwise people who signed up under the wife's name may try to cancel under the husband's name and you don't know who they are, neighbors who don't like the racket from the equipment see your website on the trucks and try to cancel the service even though they're not the customer because you have no authentication, people want to cancel because they've moved and give you their new address instead of the one they're subscribed under, people make ambiguous or incomplete requests and you don't know what they're asking to do. But if you have to contact them to clarify you're not satisfying the requirement that they can cancel via the website.
A local business with a simple email form isn't going to sign you up without calling you to get more information and make sure you're a real person. That's already setting a precedent that you call them to cancel.
Agree to both. And both are incredibly easy problems to solve. For the first just have a law that says:
> Any advertised price must include all mandatory taxes and fees. No exceptions.
For the second just have a law that says:
> An end user must be allowed to use the same method to cancel as they used to sign up for the service. No exceptions. Additionally, an end user cannot be required to perform more manual actions to cancel than was required to sign up. No exceptions.
No one should be against this except greedy corporations. Easily solved, common sense rules that already have working examples in the real world. 1 is already the law in Netherlands and Australia and these countries aren’t falling over from the undue burden placed on businesses.
I’ll end with: two cornerstones of a free market are price transparency and the ability/mobility to switch services when a better competing offering emerges. Not having legislation like above to protect those values is anti capitalistic
No normal humans are against those simple ideas. Problem is that congress is so easy and cheap to bribe that humans influence less than a majority of the votes in congress.
Fee for paying by cash: $1000
Fee for paying by check: $1100
Fee for paying by credit card: $1050
Fee for middle seat: $200
Fee for window seat: $300
Fee for aisle seat: $250
Note that no fee on this list is mandatory because you always have other options.
To me that is totally fine. If there are electives, then elective them. Fix the mandatory ones first. Like the “resort fee” hotels charge. Or “cleaning fees”.
It becomes trickier when the fee is elective, but a significant part of the advertisement. Southwest Airlines complaining about having to advertise their fares, which come with two bags included, alongside other airlines who don’t include any bags comes to mind. I think there is probably some world where elective fees are included as well though this seems more nebulous.
However, let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good: Even just including everything that is compulsory in the base price itself, including taxes, would be a massive improvement to the status quo. Fixing this elective fee ambiguity would be a next step
The (hypothetical) airfare was listed as "free", but it was impossible to end up paying less than $1200 for it.
The point being that even if you have a choice between several fees (making none of them "mandatory" by a narrow reading), you're still paying something beyond the advertised base price.
The logical good-faith rule in a case like this would be that you must advertise at least the minimum price anyone would end up paying based on the available "fee choices".
That's very easily solved: The minimum total price of all possible selectable options is the cheapest price that can be legally advertised. Treat non-viable options that just exist as a false baseline as false advertisement, just like it's already illegal to e.g. send out a flyer advertising TVs for $1, but there's only one available at the other end of the state/country.
It's really not a practical problem in any country that has the appropriate laws. The only thing it takes to fix this is the political will to do so.
I recently ordered cake for $x, with a mandatory selection of "size". The only possible size was "large", which cost an add-on fee of $3. Just make that type of stuff illegal yesterday. Absolutely nothing of value will be lost.
I'd go a little farther and say that if there are impractical scenarios to avoid the fee it still must be included. (Say, no fee if you pay the fare in Timbuktu.) Advertise it based on the 95th percentile of what actually happens.
The ACTUAL solution to these problems that HN always seems to be allergic to (because technicians prefer technical solutions, but humans aren't technical) is to make your court system extremely hostile to "clever" bullshit like this.
This insistence at having EXACT WORDS for things that aren't exact is just naivety, thinking the world is can be divided perfectly into categories if we just make the categories specific enough!
Excellent point. In the end the rules are simply words on paper, they must be enforced. So the exact verbiage is less important. But the lack of ambiguity is extremely important. I'll give an example:
- In the EU, what can legally be defined as a "sale" price (e.g. 20% off till Friday! deals) uses very precise verbiage that states an item must be at a certain percentage higher for a specific period of time (typically 30 days) to constitute a sale.
- In the USA, the regulations basically say that companies should make a good faith effort to not deceive consumers with sale prices. It leaves defining what a good faith effort is as an exercise to the reader (states).
The end result is that you have a lot more misleading price info in the States, since all manner of questionably legal manipulation tactics are used and enforcement of this is lax.
So what happens when you buy that ticket and don't pay any of the fees? If you get taken to Hawaii then they're in the clear. If they won't take you without you paying the fee then I guess the fee wasn't optional after all.
for many people, any kind of regulation that restricts companies abilities to make money, regardless of the consequences for average citizen, is "wasteful and discourages innovation". Elon would like to get rid of the FTC altogether for that reason, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was set up to help protect users from scammy behavior like this.
so yeah, don't hold your breath for the next 4 years (or longer if Elon manages to buy the next election too)
I revisited Henry Hazlitt’s economics in one lesson and in the chapter on labour unions, he actually is fairly moderate provided that unions stick to non-price distorting policies.
Making wage information more accessible to workers being a policy he- an Austrian School economist- supports.
This government ruling falls under that class of policies IMO. It makes prices much more available to consumers and does not on first inspection threaten to distort supply and demand.
My preferred way to cancel these types of services is to close or pause the card they're charging. If you use a virtual card service like Privacy.com, this is easy, if you don't, then maybe not so much. But using virtual cards for everything you can is typically a good idea anyway, imo.
You can dispute debt in collections by requesting proof of the debt. The consumer protections in that area (debt collections) are quite a bit more developed than any consumer protections about intentional procedural inefficiency when cancelling service.
The purpose is to take advantage of the sloppiness of the debt collection industry. They are designed around tricking financially illiterate people, harassing poor people, and lying.
When they buy a debt, they rarely get comprehensive documentation.
you will end up with damaged credit. The only negative on my credit report is from a verizon phone I bought from a verizon store (actually ended up not being Verizon owned store,) which i returned within the 7 days return fee, even paid re-stocking fee. But which the store credits me for having returned it later than I did, which allowed Verizon charged me 1 month service fee, which I never got a bill or email even though verizon had both, until it showed up on credit as collection. Nothing I did could get it off.
You can probably avoid this—or, rather, cover your ass legally—by doing something like sending them a letter registered mail informing them that you are cancelling and will be blocking further payments.
It's far from a good solution, but it should at least put you in a better position vis-a-vis the courts if it comes to that.
Actually there is another option. Make a complaint to your state's Attorney General's Office. They usually have a website for filing consumer complaints, and AGO will contact the business, and the business is usually responsive when contacted by AGO.
It certainly takes less that 45 minutes to send registered mail. There are even online services to which you can upload a PDF or document of your message. I have done this on numerous occasions.
For some people, being on the phone for 45 minutes (and what guarantee is there that you'd actually get to talk to them after 45 minutes?) during business hours is simply not an option. They would have to take time off from work, which a) might not be allowed, and b) if allowed would certainly reduce their pay.
Furthermore, there's an entire category of people for whom "talk on the phone" is not an option, period. If they wanted to cancel by the approved method, they'd not only need to take that time themselves, they'd need someone else willing to take that time with them.
Simple anecdote, but when I paid a medical bill and they still came after me and sent it to collections, I contested the bill and told the collection agency that this is not my debt. Never heard from them again.
This might practically achieve the desired outcome, but do note that just not paying does not extinguish your debt to anyone you have a valid contract with.
I've seen Americans living in Europe get bitten by this quite frequently in some countries, where sending something to collections is both commonly done and the collection agency will successfully take you to court and win in almost all cases even for pennies.
On the other hand, the EU has had "two-click cancellation" regulations for a while now, so there is a better alternative available for both sides (customer and company).
Even simpler, file a dispute with your card issuer. Dish will pay the chargeback fee and block you as a customer, but I'm sure you don't want to be their customer again, so that's not a problem.
What dispute reason would you give? Usually card issuers will ask you if you've made any attempt to settle the situation with the merchant.
If you misrepresent that you have and they are just ignoring you, you might practically get away with it, but do know that that kind of misrepresentation might get you into trouble some day.
If however the merchant is actually unreachable for a bona fide cancellation request, that's totally on them.
Yeah, the solution to that is to mandate accepting cancellations via a single click (or preferably even email, since it shouldn't be my problem if I don't remember my account details when I want to cancel).
Disputes should have been the backstop to incentivizing the market to making cancellations easier, but things apparently didn't pan out that way. So arguably, the free market has had its chance, and it's time for regulations.
Because of the existing laws that allow companies to harass you if you don't pay what they think you owe them. Not to mention all the laws like copyright which prevent free competition in many spaces.
In a truly free market cancellation would be implicit by no longer paying.
We have hundreds of years of examples of the blessed free market failing to do exactly that.
If the free market had it's way we'd still be under the yoke of Standard Oil and Ma Bell.
One key element of a free market is the "well informed consumer". How is the consumer supposed to be informed about what new cutting edge chemicals are toxic, for instance?
Information is good, but it doesn't automatically imply that you have an actionable path in getting what's legally yours. Besides that, the Internet hasn't nearly eradicated the inherent information and attention asymmetry between consumers and companies employing people full time to make sure they end up on top for every interaction you have with them.
Consumer protection regulations, especially those regarded trading and credit, cast a very long shadow (ray of sunlight?) you're possibly unaware of, but still immensely benefit from.
Obviously there are diminishing returns and unintended/negative effects to consumers too sometimes, but throwing protections out completely in favor of a "pure free market" doesn't do these asymmetries justice.
Precisely. The overarching HN view, although it's not a monolith (so the viewpoint isn't shared by all), is that the free market solves for all things and regulation by the government is largely a waste of taxpayer money that could be going to other things worthwhile (roads, military, police).
I guess you mean the taxpayer money that the taxpayers are currently paying, against their will, towards unwanted subscriptions that they haven't managed to cancel.
Dish outsources sales calls to a third party. This third party doesn’t have access to customer accounts so they have to send you to an actual Dish call center. Not as nefarious as you think but still frustrating.
The woke ideology wants to add all of this nonsense regulation and make it hard for real entrepreneurs to generate value in the wonderful system of capitalism. /s
P.S. this is also a good summary of every all in podcast episode post election
An excellent change. It's unfortunate that stewardship of the committee will soon change hands as Khan has been a great advocate for fair contracts between companies and consumers during her tenure.
I think she's done such great work on the administrative side of things with junk fee bans, etc., but I feel like she has also burned an enormous amount of taxpayer money on lawsuits that don't have value (like suing Meta for acquiring the tiny VR fitness company).
It feels like she's just against any acquisitions by large companies, and I think that's both too broad of a stance for the FTC to take (as opposed to really looking on a case-by-case basis of whether consumers would be hurt by an acquisition) and also harmful to new companies being created, since suddenly an important option for exits is a whole lot less likely as large companies hesitate to be acquisitive.
Of course, not disputing that, just saying that I think she uses that enforcement mechanism in a way that is more harmful than helpful to American consumers and the to the economy.
Tangential, but I was looking into this yesterday and couldn't find the answer:
How does her term work?
Seats on the FTC are supposed to last for 7 years. She was nominated in 2021 and her term technically expired a couple months ago. Apparently she gets to remain in it until a replacement is appointed.
Has she just been filling in the remainder of someone else's term, like Laphonza Butler as CA Senator?
FTC terms work like that, a replacement for a commissioner who leaves mid-term only gets the time remaining on the original appointment, not a new full 7 years. But they also can hang on past the nominal end date until a successor is actually confirmed.
The prior chairman, Joseph Simons, had this same seat that Khan has now, so for him his term was also nominally set to expire September 2024. He resigned when the administration changed over in 2021.
This whole new fantasy that billionaires know best for consumers is quite concerning.
The idea that these institutions, like FTC, are bad for consumers, and this new blind faith that things must be deregulated because the market will solve it for the better is going to be interesting.
By the way, when things turn bad, it's we who will pay the price again for this deregulation, not billionaires. It's like people are choosing fantasy and magical thinking over History... 2008 wasn't that long ago.
You're right that businesses might roll fees into the base price, but that’s the point: transparency. When all costs are upfront, customers can more easily compare prices between competitors. Hidden fees make price comparisons difficult and misleading.
Take airlines, for example—if one shows a $200 ticket and another shows $180 but sneaks in $30 of fees later, the second one appears cheaper. By requiring prices to reflect the full cost upfront, businesses compete on the actual price rather than deceptive practices. This won’t magically lower costs, but it will force clarity and reward companies offering genuine value.
Consumers should have a clear picture of what they’re paying, not a surprise at checkout. Isn’t that just fair competition?
There's still a lot of benefit to seeing the prices up front vs. fees which are added on later. It can be a frustrating experience to realize that something you think is affordable is significantly more expensive once you make it to the checkout screen.
For example, I've been booking a group trip lately, and I found that the sticker prices for some things didn't include many fees, so it was more of a hassle to actually get accurate quotes. At the same time, the companies which were providing these prices have an incentive to hide fees, because that's what all their competitors are doing – they have pressure to be competitive both at first glance and at checkout.
With a level playing field, these fees should be incorporated into the total price across competitors, allowing for easier cross-shopping. I'm excited to be more confident I can quote what I see initially vs. going through a checkout flow.
So which is better? Ticket price shows at a price of 100 dollars upon checkout you get a ton of fees and it balloons to 140 dollars. Or ticket price shows as 140 dollars you can choose to buy it at said price or not no surprises later in the checkout process.
If prices are perceived as high from the moment someone searches for it they may be more tempted to check elsewhere or opt out.
1. I'm not convinced by this argument, airlines compete on list price. If they can add a bunch of fees after winning on list price, they can move more and more of their costs into the fees and are no longer competing on the real price.
2. Let airlines compete on transparent pricing. I think this alone is enough of a benefit to this move.
I think airlines are a great example because the fees are often actually paying for something materially different.
When purchasing concert tickets recently I got a "mobile convenience fee" for an e-ticket even though the venue doesn't operate a physical box office. A recent hotel had a "resort fee" that was not opt-out even if you didn't use the amenities it allegedly paid for. These kinds of BS fees should go away.
Non-opt-out resort fees and facility fees and the like are especially annoying. They're also (presumably deliberately) a small enough portion of the total amount that they're not really worth getting into a big lather about.
I think we're agreeing. While a lot of airline fees are nickel-and-diming, they're also over and above transporting people from A to B, in many cases for as little money as they want to spend as possible.
I think that's all we want. To know the cost upfront so we can compare choices efficiently. We don't expect businesses to lower total cost, just be more cooperative and less exploitative in communicating it.
Ignoring your last sentence - I'm well aware. These changes increase price transparency and that's something we all benefit from. Junk fees are a way to exploit psychology and ignorance to extract more money out of consumers than they'd like to pay.
I'm okay with things being expensive - I'd prefer if they weren't but that's the way to the world - I'm not okay with things being expensive and companies advertising them at a far lower price.
That is fine because then someone decides to buy something based on what it costs. The status quo is that some company decides to backload the cost with hidden fees and then all competitors need to follow by doing the same or they will be "undercut". This is just bad for consumers because it makes it very hard to determine what they are paying for something and how to compare it with other prices.
A free market needs regulation to maintain competition. Companies dislike competition because it lowers profits, and will do what they can to avoid competing on a level playing field. Like adding hidden fees.
I think really there are two types of "free market" supporters.
The first is what you're arguing, a version that includes "free of monopolies" in the definition. A market full of competition. A market that has no choice but to serve their customers to the best they can because otherwise a competitor will take their customers.
The second are the anarcho-capitalists. They have the naive belief that corporations that do bad things will be punished by the market, making regulations unnecessary and stifling. To them, if one business is winning due to deceit, then the blame lies in the customer for being deceived. They think the decision that leads to the most profit is the best, side-effects be damned. They're insufferable and would gladly destroy the planet for an extra 5% profit on their quarterly reports.
Pro-market: pro-market advocates for policies that enhance competition and market efficiency. Understands that god markets are made. Pro-market advocates believe in creating conditions where businesses can compete fairly without undue advantages from government favoritism. Government regulation can be essential to correct market failures and promote a level playing field.
Free market: and ideological stance where markets are without government intervention. Belief in ideal world where market failures don't exist and if they exists that's a good thing.
> There would be no need for that term if that's what free market meant.
I'm not following here: are you suggesting that given any two different words, it is impossible for them to refer to the same thing or mean the same thing?
There was a time, long ago, when libertarians opposed initiation of violence and fraud.
That was probably before the internet was invented. These days, a typical online libertarian opposes all government action as violence, but when you mention fraud, it's like: "but who decides what is or isn't fraud? if the customer signed a contract, it was their revealed preference to get scammed..."
I mean, I agree that Khan is the best possible option, but I disagree that pro-market isn't ideological.
Where the free market fans see child slavery and sexual slavery and rejoice (free to make any contract you want to after all), the pro market people believe that if you just put enough guard rails on it, greed will magically turn into a force for good.
Obviously I also have an ideology, but at least I'm honest enough to not pretend that capitalism (or communism/anarchy) are naturally occuring, instead of simply a choice we make.
They most likely aren't idealist, as that isn't a requirement. Anyone who's smarter than a potato can notice some of the more glaring failures (even if they don't understand the mechanism behind it).
Everything is ideology to some extent, but not everything is ideological to the same degree. The beliefs that a level playing field is good and that winning by means of political favoritism is bad are almost universally agreed on. Almost all political philosophies, including various shades of socialism and communism, agree that markets are needed to some degree if only for price discovery.
Republicans have made the term ideological a negative one. Sure, the dictionary definition is to relate to ideology; but in practice (especially when talking politics) it implies one is picking a worse option because it aligns with their ideology. So their claim above is one is picking free markets due to ideology, whereas another would pick pro markets because it's actually the best solution.
Because they are against one and for the other. Pro markets means whatever policies they agree with, which is of course how all broken highly regulated markets begin their run.
The Reason piece is lazy drive-by snark. Calling the anti-trust standards of the 20c "hipster anti-trust" is just a-historical. Blocking consolidation of national chains is hardly some crazy innovation. In fact, it was Bork who was the rebel introducing the stricter "consumer harm" standard. People might argue which is the appropriate standard -- the one invented during the 1890s to break the most powerful trusts in history, or the one invented by a Regan appointee in 1980 to replace it. But the Reason snark does nothing except claim it.
At least the WSJ makes an actual argument about consumer harm. Unfortunately, their argument is: there has been so much consolidation in distribution, we need to consolidate retail to increase their bargaining power to balance. Given the geographical nature of grocery shopping, consolidation is likely to reduce consumer bargaining power further. That the WSJ fails to acknowledge the obvious fact that the greater power of a merged entity would act on both sides of the market is bad-faith.
Khan has been absolutely spectacular for the free markets. Transparency in pricing (with this law), transparency in cancellation of subscriptions, blocking acquisitions where businesses should fail.
The free market shouldn't allow monopolies, or duopolies to form. Bad businesses should fail, not absorb more capital and continue scaling.
> Her policy changes have been countlessly shut down/overturned by courts since she's overstepped her authority.
We have a dysfunctional Congress that can't/won't legislate to fill gaps that emerge over time with new circumstances. Someone will step in to fill those gaps. Sounds like you'd prefer to have corporate execs do so, focused largely on their stock prices, bonuses, and promotion prospects — cf. paperclip-maximizing AGIs [0] — than to have a citizen-advocate do so.
Free competition should mean that you don't get punished for winning. There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly. Imagine Schwarzenegger being banned from Mr Olympia or Gretzky being banned for life from minor league ice hockey. So that the other competitors are given a fair chance of winning.
But every sport punishes competitors who are cheating or being unsportsmanlike. As it should be in the marketplace. But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly". While always turning a blind eye to rampant fraud and scams that are in the marketplace everywhere online and offline.
> There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly
Almost all North American sports have a player entry draft, where the weighting is based on your success. The best teams (eg the Detroit Red Wings of the 90’s and 00’s) are given garbage draft picks, while the bottom-feeders (eg the Edmonton Oilers of the late 00’s-early 10’s) are given (the opportunity for) superstars. This is clearly a punishment for doing well, and a reward for being terrible.
Most sports have a salary cap to prevent being able to buy your way to success. They recognize that having more money than your opponent gives you an unfair advantage and destroys competition.
It's funny you bring up Schwarzenegger, as his last Olympia win was mired in controversy for being almost certainly rigged.
Did he cheat? No, everyone used a similar amount of steroids. But to anyone with eyes and a basic knowledge of the sport it's overwhelmingly obvious that the organizers and judges threw it in his favor because of the attention it would bring.
Which is the issue when an entity becomes too big to fail. There is a power disparity that is virtually impossible to overcome as the leverage is so much that any opponent can be swat down with ease.
Things such as:
- leveraging economies of scale when dealing with suppliers and resources to the point of starving access to competition
- using lobbyists to write legislation in their favor or blockade opponents
- doing fuck all with no reservations, then pay out lawsuits and fines at an order of magnitude less than profit made and damage done
The economy is not a sport to be won. I think you are maybe prioritizing a some notion of fairness to those competing in the market, while to someone like Khan the thinking is more, how can we make the market function in a way that provides the biggest net-benefit to society?
> There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly.
Constantly winning in a competitive environment with no runaway feedback loops[0] is evidence of cheating.
See also, casinos: the "legitimate" ones don't rig the game - they know the odds; they expect you to win something here and then, but if they see you winning consistently, they'll rightfully assume you're cheating somehow, and ban you from the venue.
> But every sport punishes competitors who are cheating or being unsportsmanlike. As it should be in the marketplace.
Marketplace isn't like sportsball. It's like war. On the market like in war, anything goes. The only people who can afford living under delusion of market sportsmanship are people who are already so well-off and safe they can treat it as a game; for everyone else, it's a matter of life and death.
> But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly".
The market isn't some divine ball game, or a magic ritual. It's a feedback system, with known failure modes. Wrt. monopolies, in particular, any good profit-seeking actor will aim at becoming a monopolist in their market segment, because that's how they can maximize profits while minimizing effort. At the same time, the market serves a critical function in organizing human society - but that stops working when monopolies pop up.
It's really very simple: all the goods and services and advancement we enjoy require market players to be actively putting in effort. To society, an entrepreneur is basically a donkey with a pole mounted to it, from which there hangs a carrot, just out of reach - the donkey just wants to grab the carrot, but the society only benefits when the donkey is chasing it. The donkey needs to believe they can win, so it keeps running, but it also can never be allowed to actually get their prize, because then it'll stop. That's why markets are regulated as to let people and companies grow and accumulate winnings, until a point, past which they'd stop participating (or worse, just go screwing around breaking things).
I.e. it's not about punishing someone for winning - it's about preventing them from complete victory, because then they become useless to society.
> While always turning a blind eye to rampant fraud and scams that are in the marketplace everywhere online and offline.
Who's turning a blind eye to it? Fraud and scams are the base state of the market; it's what it decays to if left to its own devices. Regulations are there to counteract this tendency.
--
[0] - Feedback loops like compounding interest. In sports, unlike in the economy, you can't just reinvest your win to get more wins, and then reinvest them in turn, until you're winning so much so fast that no one can ever hope to catch up with you.
> Constantly winning in a competitive environment with no runaway feedback loops[0] is evidence of cheating.
Right. How did Usain Bolt cheat? How did Michael Phelps cheat? How did ABBA cheat?
> any good profit-seeking actor will aim at becoming a monopolist in their market segment
Of course. And then hackers redefine the market segment to encompass that businesses product and ta-da, you have a monopoly. Like Apple.
If we're talking about real monopolies, then I couldn't agree more. But what hackers and the EU are doing is redefining monopoly in a dishonest way because they have personal grudges against a company.
> The donkey needs to believe they can win, so it keeps running, but it also can never be allowed to actually get their prize, because then it'll stop.
Here's something to blow your mind: The donkey enjoys running. Or let's take a real life example: sled dogs. They love pulling the sled. Entrepreneurs love working and love competing. Those who don't love it usually pull out of the game with their profits way before they have even national impact.
This is a huge divide in attitude I've seen everywhere in the world in my life. You have category X of people who see all kind of work as an immense suffering. They complain endlessly, do the minimum effort, and never get anywhere. And you have category Y of people who love working, because it's doing something productive and learning. That doesn't mean that they're satisfied with being abused wage slaves. Rather it is the first category who never advances in life, because they think it's all a scam. People in the second category also fail a lot because they take chances. But they usually get up again.
> Who's turning a blind eye to it? Fraud and scams are the base state of the market; it's what it decays to if left to its own devices. Regulations are there to counteract this tendency.
All governments and law enforcement seem to be turning a blind eye to it. About 50% of advertisements on Facebook and Instagram are outright scams, ie physical products from brand names that are advertised at bargain prices and if you "buy" it you will not get delivery because it is an outright scam. US and EU governments should fine Meta billions of dollars for having their main source of income from organized crime and fraud. But they are focused on completely irrelevant crap like app stores. Talk about sieving mosquitoes and swallowing camels.
Personally, I think she's for the free market. She is progressive, which is controversial, but I don't really see why non-billionaires run to the defense of big tech when their monopolistic status is scrutinized.
I totally understand why billionaires do, on the other hand. Worth watching Reid Hoffman embarrass himself on Jake Tapper on the subject of Khan recently for those interested
Because people have been conditioned through the media to believe that once the Billionares get taxed, you're next.
We're at an unprecedented levels of wealth inequality in America. Billion dollar businesses built on tax payer money, should contribute to the system. Instead we've designed a system where these companies would rather pay millions of dollars in campaign contributions and to lobbyists.
I well mm used to like reason a while ago but this is laughable.
The article does not show how or explain why or in which manner she affects consumers.
It says that she has been bad for them but there is no proof of this.
Instead it makes quite a comical attempt at trying to vaguely point at the sky and say she is evil or overreaching, but she is not and anyone whoa actually wants a free market can tell you that. I honestly just cannot understand what happened to Reason I checked some more or their side articles and wow the quality has dropped to a level that would make the NYT blush.
That is an a-historical claim. That standard was THE standard from 1890-1980. The consumer-harm standard was the innovation of Bork under Regan in 1980.
EDIT: to make it easier here's a list of actions from perplexity:
Here are more explicit actions taken by the FTC under Lina Khan's leadership:
Lawsuit against Amazon (2023): The FTC filed a landmark antitrust case accusing Amazon of monopolistic practices in its online marketplace and Prime subscription service.
Meta (Facebook) lawsuit (2023): The FTC sued Meta to block its acquisition of virtual reality app maker Within Unlimited, citing concerns about monopolization in the VR market.
Microsoft-Activision merger challenge (2023): The FTC attempted to block Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, though it ultimately failed.
Kroger-Albertsons merger: A U.S. district court judge ruled in favor of the FTC to block the proposed $25 billion merger between these two major supermarket chains
Nvidia's acquisition of Arm: The FTC sued to block this merger, though it's not explicitly mentioned in the search results
Amazon's acquisition of iRobot: While not explicitly mentioned in the search results, this is another high-profile merger that the FTC has challenged under Khan's leadership.
Enforcement against data brokers (2022-2023): The FTC took action against several data brokers for selling precise geolocation data that could be used to track people's movements.
Zoom settlement (2021): The FTC finalized a settlement with Zoom over allegations of deceptive security practices.
Right to Repair initiative (2021): Khan's FTC unanimously voted to ramp up law enforcement against repair restrictions that prevent small businesses, workers, and consumers from fixing their own products.
Made in USA labeling rule (2021): The FTC finalized a new rule cracking down on marketers who make false, unqualified claims that their products are Made in the USA.
Penalties for fake reviews (2022): The FTC imposed multi-million dollar penalties on companies for using fake reviews and suppressing negative reviews.
Action against "dark patterns" (2021-2023): The FTC has taken action against companies using deceptive design practices known as "dark patterns" to trick consumers.
Increased use of Penalty Offense Authority: The FTC has revived its Penalty Offense Authority to seek civil penalties for violations of FTC administrative orders.
Ban on hidden junk fees: The FTC announced a rule requiring companies to show full prices for items like hotel rooms, concert tickets, and sporting events upfront, rather than hiding fees until the end of the checkout process
Changes to merger review process: The FTC has altered principles, practices, and policies of merger review that had been in place for decades
Expanded scope of enforcement: The FTC has taken a more holistic approach to identifying harms affecting workers, independent businesses, and consumers, with a focus on addressing power asymmetries and unlawful practices
Rulemaking changes: Chair Khan has orchestrated wholesale changes in FTC rulemaking practices and policies
Proposed ban on noncompete clauses: The FTC has proposed banning noncompete clauses in employer agreements
Increased focus on data privacy: The FTC has sued multiple companies for allegedly sharing customer data and warned about the "hidden impacts" of advertising tools like third-party tracking pixels
The hidden fees is what turned me off from AirBnb...
Because it would display the nightly rate as $X.
But then at checkout, it would add in "house cleaning fees" etc (which I don't dispute is a fair fee to include) but it at times can grossly misrepresent what your true nightly cost is when searching.
Maybe this will be a step in the direction like Telco's have had to do with creating simplified & standardized "nutrition labels" for pricing.
On AirBnB just check the "Display total before taxes" box on the search results page.
Not including fees in the nightly rate makes sense as some are fixed rate, and having the option to see the cost for the total stay (including fees) solves the problem.
That's correct. Why am I paying them for the privilege of cleaning up after myself?
We all know it is a scam fee. People wouldn't be as mad over a hold on some amount (usually returned) insuring the host against an egregious sloppy mess.
I'd be interested to see whether a movie theater is considered an event. Our local one charges a convenience fee when buying online because ... they can?
I wish they banned all mandatory add-ons. If I don't have the choice it should be part of the base price.
The touristic railroad near me advertises a price, and then slaps on a mandatory Fuel Surcharge and Historic Preservation Fee.
Excuse me? How can I compare what I'm going to spend my money on if you're just allowed to lie to me?
> How can I compare what I'm going to spend my money on if you're just allowed to lie to me?
You're not supposed to, that's the point. It's frankly shocking (and also not, but you know) how much businesses in America are allowed to bullshit you.
I signed on with a telco for high speed internet when we bought our house for $65 a month and by the time we got fiber and I could finally tell them to kick rocks, the bill had soared to nearly $200 for the exact same service over the course of 4 years. Why? Because they can, and go fuck yourself.
A hotel stay for a vacation was supposed to cost $851, but they demanded a $300 pre-authorization on top of that. Why? Because they can. I wasn't notified ahead of time, absolutely nowhere was this information given to me. And I could take that on fine, but why is this allowed? What if I wasn't so fortunate and was traveling by air, do I just sleep in a box because the hotel can't guarantee I'll be able to pay for $300 worth of room service I have no intention of buying?
I feel like this just happens everywhere now, I just expect it. I expect to get fucked over in one way or another, and on the one hand I'm sure it's my anxiety, but on the other hand there is so much expensive arbitrary nonsense that's just plunked down in front of me, and yeah, most of it I can handle fine, because I work in tech and make good wages. So I guess just fuck everyone who grew up at the income level I got, because I am fucking sure that my single mother trying her hardest as she was, wouldn't be able to get by if I was born like 15-20 years later than I was.
Edit: Oh and FUCK every politician who has ever farted out words something like "responsible consumption of healthcare" because sweet Jesus, healthcare billing is an utter nightmare. I don't think I have EVER, EVER in my entire life had some kind of medical event where I knew the costs going in that were then reflected afterwards. It's just all made the fuck up on the fly with no respect for the patients, when they are already stressed out and scared.
> You're not supposed to, that's the point. It's frankly shocking (and also not, but you know) how much businesses in America are allowed to bullshit you.
There's actually an administrative code in Washington that furniture (and maybe other) stores are only allowed to have a "Going out of business" sale _once a year_.
We could use one of those where I live. There was a furniture store off the side of the highway that over a period of like 4 years had at least 12 of them, and then would just change it's name each time.
Never bought anything from there since it seemed so incredibly sketchy. Then at last it went out of business properly and a U-Haul took over the space.
when you buy a ticket online, you are actually buying an option on the ticket, because you can go in and refund it at any time before the movie starts. the “convenience fee” is the option premium.
it would be fairer if this were opt-in. Some e commerce sites now allow you to pay a few extra dollars to have free returns, something similar would work for movies.
No, this is complicating things. A physical ticket can also be refunded prior to show time. It's not an option at all, it's just a fee. They are charging you to 1) pick your seat 2) not have to show up early 3) peace of mind knowing your spot is reserved - all of those things are conveniences in the purest sense of the word. In many cases, the fee is more closely related to a platform fee going to fandango or similar service.
i guess it's technically true that you can go to the movie theater, buy a ticket, and then get back in line to refund the ticket and leave, but this seems like an odd thing to do.
whereas buying a ticket in advance online, and then later refunding it (but losing the convenience fee), is common. "peace of mind knowing your spot is reserved" is what i mean by an option on the seat.
now maybe i'm in fact wrong and all convenience fees are exactly passing through the credit card/fandango fees etc., but in practice it sure looks like an option.
I think the "convenience fee" of online purchases is about the fact that if you want to buy a ticket days before showtime, you don't have to get a physical ticket at the box office in person.
Not necessarily that I agree with it though -- in many parts of the world you have no such fees when you buy a movie ticket online.
I'd categorize that under my "2) not have to show up early 3) peace of mind knowing your spot is reserved" points.
I don't necessarily agree with them either. It seems mutually beneficial to the venue to allow me to buy tickets digitally. It made sense maybe 20-25 years ago when the move online was a significant update to the then status quo. Now, it's just a revenue stream they don't want to give up that consumers see as the status quo, so why remove it? (from their perspective)
Maybe some places operate that way, but I worked on payment systems for a few years and since then I figure most convenience fees come from credit card processing rates being passed on to the customer - at least that's how ours worked.
> Also, the service is amazing, and they won't accept tips. If you leave money on the table, they will chase after you, to give it back.
I visited Japan some years back and loved this aspect of the culture as well. An Australian ski guide (this was a winter visit) explained it like so: "the Japanese attitude is to want to do a good job by default. Tipping implies that a good job is only done because of pay. The Japanese see quality service as intrinsically valuable in itself."
HN folks are privileged. We have careers that interest us, engage us, and reward us.
That's not the norm, in this world. I'm grateful for my career. I know quite a few folks that make excellent money, doing jobs they hate. In my mind, that's kind of a nightmare.
Japan does have a well known “customer is god” cultural background; whether or not tipping has anything to do with that is here or there, though it is the expectation that if someone does a job, it is expected not to be half assed.
One of the big differences between here in Japan and other parts of the world I’ve visited and lived in, is the near absence of service staff who actively make a point of looking like they hate their life and treat you like crap, though this is slowly changing here too.
This kind of reply is what makes me want to quit HN forever. There's always somebody out there smarter who knows better. Why bother to try and contribute anything?
As a kid, having grown up in the UK I knew that if the price label said £1.99 and I had £2 in my pocket I could afford it, with £0.01 change. First time I went to the USA as a young teenager I remember being quite embarrassed when the thing I thought I was getting for $1.99 was actually not $1.99 but $2.17 or whatever, and I had to leave without buying. Felt quite deceptive and totally incomprehensible.
I have done a fair bit of travelling. The US is the only place I've been where the price shown is not the price paid. Adding on tips, and it becomes nigh on impossible to know how much something will cost you upfront. It's ridiculous tbh
Japan has the exact same sales tax rate(s) across the entire country, and it rarely changes. In the US, we have thousands of different rates and they change multiple times per year.
Also, while it is the norm in Japan to include the tax, there are some exceptions.
(Japan has 2 rates, 8% for certain items like food, and 10% for everything else).
Brick and mortar stores know exactly how much tax they have to pay, yet they don't show an all-inclusive price. It's clearly not a case of online retailers just not showing the tax because it's difficult. If they wanted to they could let you give your post code before checking out, and query the same database to show the post-tax price for everything.
Aside from silly "sales-tax-holidays" I've never heard of the sales tax rates changing so frequently. I'm curious to know where this is happening "multiple times per year". Here in MA it's been the same rate for 15 years.
And for the sales-tax-holiday situation can't a shop just say something like "everything will have x% taken off at the register" just like they would during a typical "10% off all items" type of sale?
Around me most stores change their price tags weekly, if not more often. They either have a sheet with new tags or a small printer and scanner and they swap out the tags on the shelf.
What do you think all the people collecting a paycheck in a store do? Stand around and look pretty?
Have you ever heard the term "Fronting"? In most stores, employees are required to individually ensure each and every item on the shelf is organized and pulled to the front for optimum display. They do this sometimes multiple times a day. In busier stores, you will have to restock high volume items multiple times per day.
The technology for digital pricetags has been cheaply available since the first kindle in the late 2000s. Most companies have avoided spending the money on buying them because the cost of labor in America is cheap enough that you can just have the normal employees do it every day. Digital pricetags are only now becoming common. Mostly because store companies are trying to figure out a way to charge you a personalized price that takes as much of your money as possible.
> In the US, we have thousands of different rates and they change multiple times per year.
Yet at any given moment, every proprietor is miraculously able calculate the taxes due at the point of sale. The variety of tax regimes, and the fact that the amounts change doesn't impact the ability to calculate the final amount due.
My guess is that the comment means there is always some minor tweaks to tax laws, so that tax on certain products could change, and that may happen a few times a year. I don't think it means sales tax rate changes on all products a few times a year.
There is a caveat -- if you count the "sales tax holidays" in various US states, it means in those places, tax rates for some products change at least twice a year -- from 7% to 0% then back to 7%, for example.
I'm not sure Japan is the best example here. My experience is that most shops have the price excluding consumption tax printed very prominently in large numbers, and then price including consumption tax is printed in much smaller writing underneath.
The price excluding tax is the only one you can read at a distance, that draws you in. As someone from the UK who is used to seeing price tags show the final price you pay at the till, I was constantly disappointed that items weren't quite such a bargain as I'd first hoped.
On the whole there are still many things that are much cheaper than in the UK though :)
If you go to a donqi the price tags list without the tax besides small text that either lists the full price or says "+10% consumption tax" or along those lines.
As a tourist you don't always have to pay the consumption tax though.
There was a period of a few years where they raised the sales tax in steps 5%, 8%, 10%, and stores were allowed to show the price without tax during that period, which has left some practices a bit messy since.
I believe this is the default for most of the world. Some countries have some strange differences like Argentina having a table charge on your bill, but here in Australia, the price on the box is the price at the till, with the exception of the card surcharges which are currently being reviewed to be removed.
The exception here is also the holiday surcharge (an extra fee on holidays and Sundays), which has to be "disclosed" before ordering. Usually there is a small sign somewhere that nobody pays attention to.
The price part is essentially the same all over the world except for America, where you’re not entirely sure how much more you’ll have to add for taxes and tips.
No -- it's the norm in countries that have a single uniform VAT.
It's obviously not the norm in countries that have sales taxes which vary by locality.
Whether a country is "developed" or not has nothing to do with it. The vast majority of countries in Africa have a VAT, while the world's richest country has a sales tax.
> It's obviously not the norm in countries that have sales taxes which vary by locality
Why not? If each store or restaurant or theatre or whatever in each locality know what price to bill you, they know the applicable price to show you upfront.
> Whether a country is "developed" or not has nothing to do with it. The vast majority of countries in Africa have a VAT, while the world's richest country has a sales tax.
The relevance of developed or not is how much of the economy is informal or includes a part of negotiation.
and Ctrl+F for "informal" or "negotiation". There are a lot of indicators of developing vs developed countries, but your idea is most assuredly not one of them. Also, sales tax vs VAT has nothing to do with an informal economy or price negotiation either.
> Because it makes state-level or national-level advertising of prices impossible. Or even local-level in many cases.
In large countries like Canada, and I would imagine the US, you probably don't want to advertise prices nationally. The cost of goods to will be different for a business in Vancouver and Southern Ontario compared to the Atlantic Provinces. Never mind small towns in remote communities connected to the road network, such as Northern Ontario. Especially never mind small towns in remote communities that are not connected to the road network.
> Because it makes state-level or national-level advertising of prices impossible. Or even local-level in many cases
Hardly impossible, just slightly less easy ("available for $X* (pre-tax)" / "starting at $X").
And are seriously claiming that ease for advertisers takes precedence over ease of use and pricing transparency for consumers?
> and Ctrl+F for "informal" or "negotiation". There are a lot of indicators of developing vs developed countries, but your idea is most assuredly not one of them. Also, sales tax vs VAT has nothing to do with an informal economy or price negotiation either.
Thank you. What I meant was that the only reason it might not be the standard in some developing countries is that they might have more informal economies with more negotiations involved. Literally the only legitimate excuse. But when that's not the case, from Morocco to Sri Lanka to Uzbekistan, price is shown upfront, everything included.
And that's not a point of pride now, is it. If you're the best but others are clearly beating you in a few categories, that's more reasons to improve to try to be the best everywhere, not put your hands in your ears and pretend nothing is wrong.
If you're talking about sales taxes, they can't until you input your shipping address. Because they depend on where you live.
Nobody's trying to fool you by not including sales taxes. There's just no way to show them in advance, unless you want to start typing your address and zip code into every shopping website before you even browse.
> Sales tax is up to the states to sort out how to deal with on their own, and there's 50 of them.
To add on for any else trying to figure out the 13k number from this statement.
Counties can also apply their own additional taxes.
Cities can also apply their own additional taxes.
On top of just that, the cities and counties can set different taxes in the same area, such as a sugar tax or an alcohol tax or even a pre-prepared food tax vs groceries. It gets complicated fast.
it can get really easy: just don't let this madness sprawl out of control? :)
per state, I understand the tax. set it per state, and be done with it. maybe split it in some % with the city (I don't know if cities directly get a portion of it already or not?), so it's a win-win.
Maybe that works. I have concerns about IP geolocation databases being able to pin me down to a particular state, but maybe.
But even assuming "good enough" IP geolocation exists: In order for this to be implemented both uniformly and nationally, we'd need a new constitutional amendment that would grant the federal government the ability to regulate how sales taxes work within states.
Because right now, we have this: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The federal government doesn't need to legislate sales tax, just require it to be included in the display price. For physical stores this is trivial. For online stores geolocation + manual override works well enough elsewhere. Number of sales tax jurisdictions is irrelevant - either companies deal with it like they deal in areas with many smaller countries or they lobby their local city / state to fix the mess.
Items I order at home are subject to a 7.25% sales tax rate.
My neighbor across the street (our front doors are maybe 80 feet apart) pays 6.75%.
We both live in the same zip code. We both live within the same city. We both live in the same school district. We each live in two different counties.
(And up the road a bit, a third county is involved instead.)
But some cities have their own sales taxes in addition to (or instead of) county sales taxes, so county alone isn't good enough.
Besides, there's literally 30 different counties in the US named "Hancock".
(If this were an easy problem to solve it'd have been solved a long time ago.)
---
I think we're already back to where we started, wherein: In order to display an accurate sales tax, we need to know the address, city, and state of the buyer.
Yes bc in the EU there is national VAT. In the US there is state and local sales tax. You can and will pay different sales tax between cities in a given state.
You can do this, albeit slightly less reliably, in the US as well. The geolocation isn't perfect, but you could easily put "With delivery to XXXXX [edit]" where XXXXX is a zip code you geolocate off an ip (or lookup in a user profile for a recurring user).
A lot of sites, for example Amazon, don't update VAT until checkout, even if you set "Ship to [country]" when searching. Then the price suddenly jumps.
Yes, because my IP address doesn't give them a way to calculate tentative taxes? My IP can be used to serve me ads, but not serve me actually relevant information?
There's a very small % of traffic that actually uses VPNs
Correct, it doesn't. IP geolocation is nowhere near precise enough.
Remember, sales tax isn't something big like state-level. It's literally town-level, including tiny towns. Two sides of the same street can have a different sales tax.
Not to mention all the extra rules, such as individual clothing items under $110 being exempt in New York.
It somehow works almost anywhere outside of NA? It's really not a crazy concept - estimate it based on geolocation and say "more exact will be available once you enter your address". The problem is, that genuinely negatively affect the sales because people see the true price of things.
> estimate it based on geolocation and say "more exact will be available once you enter your address".
I appreciate this can be done and countries in Europe do it, I just don't see how this is any better at all than status quo:
* Current State: we all know the quoted price doesn't include sales tax, which will be added to make the final price in checkout after we enter our address.
* Final State: we all know the quoted price will likely change during checkout, when we see the final price after we enter our address.
So we make things more complicated for vendors, and we make it not just acceptable but required that vendors use our IP addresses for geolocation, only to give us a maybe-right-maybe-wrong final price. Does anyone feel scammed by not having tax included on the price in the listings of Macy's online store?
The only reason why status quo is there because people are less likely to remove items from their online shopping carts once they've added it. There are techniques and shopping check out flows that have been perfected over the years to drive up the online sales. Realistically, it won't move the needle for the people who are on this forum because of the average salary (a few dollars are usually not a big deal for us), but it can be a make it or break it choice for a good chunk of customers.
I'm not sure why one wouldn't want to know the real price before the checkout. It's a bit baffling to me. It could be a cultural thing as well, then I guess, there isn't really a right or wrong way of looking at it.
> I'm not sure why one wouldn't want to know the real price before the checkout.
Because you'd never actually know if it's the final real price or not until you entered your address! That's the entire premise of my objection, was that not clear?
If we want to talk about displaying final price for my confirmed shipping address then yeah, I'm all in for that.
Fair, I guess it's a cultural thing then. I absolutely have no idea what other municipality's taxes are the second I get out of mine. I wouldn't want to randomly predict whether it's 10, 12, or 15%.
> The only reason why status quo is there because people are less likely to remove items from their online shopping carts once they've added it.
Sure, in a world where the actual sticker price is displayed. Do you believe this will remain true when customers have to add items to the cart to get the “real” price?
That's literally how it works everywhere else...? For example, when I go to amazon.jp, even without logging in, it will show you tax included prices once you enter your postal code.
Apparently they can track you to the nearest 5m 24 hours a day, figure out that your teenage daughter is pregnant and replicate your likeness and voice perfectly - but when it comes to sales tax its an intractable problem.
I believe you are referencing the famous Target case. As I understand the dad was angry that Target was sending baby-related coupons to his teenage daughter.
Finding out your teenage daughter is pregnant based on her shopping is easy. It’s actually harder not to notice. “Customers like you also bought” is an effective algorithm because people are mostly the same. Pregnancy has some very specific and unique needs which create a strong signal.
Nobody is in a shady back room poring over chat logs and GPS coordinates looking for pregnant teenagers. It just falls out of the sysem.
That's a non-sequitur unless the question being considered is specifically whether a data hoarder like Google should build in estimated sales tax in their store vs "a random shopping cart from a retailer I've never interacted with before".
Yeah, I totally get you! I've done exactly this work for semi-B2B company where it clearly showed the sticker price effect and we ended up removing the taxes from it. Unless it's legislated, it's obvious the way the companies will go.
Is North America unique in allowing local municipalities to set their own taxes?
> It's really not a crazy concept - estimate it based on geolocation and say "more exact will be available once you enter your address".
That’s exactly what happens now, except the advertised price is actually correct instead of an “estimate”. I have an intuitive sense for local tax. How can I know what method was used to compute this estimated price?
Out of my head, if I recall correctly, Australia, Japan, Denmark do local municipal taxes as well (some are more flat than others).
Anyways, all I was saying that it's a solved UX problem, and the reason why you're not getting full price is because A/B testing has shown that when customers see the complete price, they get a shock and less likely to buy the item. This doesn't have much to do with websites caring about some edge cases that they'll somehow won't be able to give out exact price to you. In the worst case, the shopping websites could ask you to enter your postal code and show all prices with the tax included price.
Because according to Japanese law, in most of the scenarios, the full price, to your best ability, has to be presented to the potential customer. Same goes for Australia, if I recall correctly. No clue about Denmark, I'm sorry. But assuming it's similar over there as well.
It's not that NA is the only one susceptible to A/B testing. It's more of a - it's-grey-area-to-illegal to not show full prices outside of NA.
> Because according to Japanese law, in most of the scenarios, the full price, to your best ability, has to be presented to the potential customer.
Are you sure? When I shop in Japan, it seems like about 50/50 where they have sales tax included, or not. However, the price tag will be clear if the price includes sales tax or not.
I agree, there are a lot of cases where they don't show the full prices. Especially in the recent years when they've been changing the consumption tax rapidly, and allowing shops to have some leeway. But online prices, almost everywhere, include tax. Even Shopify forces JP merchants to display them while selling in the area.
You just put your postal code and it shows all prices according to your municipality, it will be as exact as you can get. Just go to amazon.jp, it should have a text input somewhere for your postal code to calculate the tax.
In terms of gaming, hmm… I guess, you could add wrong municipality’s taxes when you show the original price, and switch over at the checkout. But my assumption is that would be deemed illegal, as you are knowingly misleading the customer. Some in person stores still try a bit to mislead you by putting the full price in smaller font (like including the consumption tax), and exclude it over it in the bigger font. But I can still accept that, as I am informed about the full price somehow.
My guess is approximate (average?) tax. I'm currently outside of Japan, by default Amazon shows me the price in Yen and says it can't deliver to me. When I put down the postal code in Tokyo, shows the same amount. Probably takes the biggest city's tax rate when it can't determine it through geolocation.
Why wouldn’t they? Major ones are electronic, and you know the areas you are putting up your ads in, so you include the tax in it. You go to the store, sales tax either included in the price, or written in smaller font with the tax included price.
It actually happens in NA for specific industries as well! If you buy a flight from Google flights without making any additional purchases, you will get the sticker price because airfare display is regulated to a certain degree. Except in Japan and other countries, almost all display prices have to include local taxes. It’s a solved problem, but there’s no political appetite for it in US/Canada because it will hurt the sales.
Not sure how telco taxes work in Japan but it would be impossible to advertise an accurate tax-included price in my city because not all the residents of the metro area have the same tax structure. Zip code isn't enough. The full address is required. So TV and print advertisements are pre-tax. I don't see how it could work any other way.
Yep, where I currently live based on IP geolocation I would be quoted incorrect state sales tax 100% of the time. Though it's sort of the perfect geography to be problematic (Vancouver, WA side of the greater Portland, OR metro area spanning a sales tax/no sales tax state boundary).
I will take the blurb which says taxes are an approximate calculation based on web browsing data available, vs, no taxes shown. We're gate keeping good features for large % of users over some edge cases.
So currently they correctly advertise the pre-tax price but since that’s not the correct total price your proposal is to display an approximate price which is also not the correct total price. I don’t see how this reduces ambiguity.
It's gonna be a much better ballpark number than the before-tax number is in almost all practical scenarios. So yes, I do think that would be a massive win compared to the status quo.
I live in a city, and I have no idea how much the total is going to be before going to checkout right now, so arguably that wouldn't be a change for the worse.
This is at a merchant that, to say it lightly, has some prior knowledge of me and even has a drop-down menu to let me select the shipping destination out of my saved ones.
So far, that's only used for determining shipping times and availabilities – so why not also display amounts post-tax?
On an ecommerce site where you already selected your destination sure, the total can be displayed in some cases. How should volume discounts, coupons, and shipping incentives be handled?
What about a grocery store on the Oregon/Idaho border? Idaho charges sales tax to residents but that can be waived with an Oregon ID. Should this be reflected in the advertised price?
And what about billboard or TV advertisements or even banner ads on a webpage?
> How should volume discounts, coupons, and shipping incentives be handled?
I don't care, to be honest. If the merchant knows I can definitely get the cheaper rate without jumping through extra hoops, I don't see a problem in showing the lower price.
> What about a grocery store on the Oregon/Idaho border? Idaho charges sales tax to residents but that can be waived with an Oregon ID. Should this be reflected in the advertised price?
Wow, really? Fascinating/frustrating! There's always one more layer, I guess. Maybe... show two prices then? (I've seen this in duty free stores: Sometimes there's a "with international boarding pass only" price.)
> And what about billboard or TV advertisements or even banner ads on a webpage?
That seems like a case where I'd be fine with the net price being displayed. And yeah, I realize that then all other stores would be screaming unfair discrimination because people will compare the competition's flyer price to the in-store label price and everything...
Maybe the only solution really is to simplify the horror that is US sales tax, and that's obviously never happening. Think of all the jobs in tax preparation and software...
> I don't care, to be honest. If the merchant knows I can definitely get the cheaper rate without jumping through extra hoops, I don't see a problem in showing the lower price.
But that discount is contingent on what you might add to your cart in the future and the shipping options you choose. Items can have complex interactions when purchased together. This isn’t just tax. It’s shipping, discounts, gift wrap, and coupons. All of which are taxed and possibly at different rates. You have the luxury of not caring. The merchant doesn’t.
> Wow, really? Fascinating/frustrating!
That’s a tame example. If I buy a car in Oregon where there’s no sales tax I still might have to pay Washington use tax to get plates. This is still the case if I buy the car in Miami, or Toronto. So how does advertising work in that situation?
> Maybe the only solution really is to simplify the horror that is US sales tax, and that's obviously never happening. Think of all the jobs in tax preparation and software...
Our complex tax codes are not a conspiracy to create jobs in tax prep. The right to levy our own taxes was a primary motivation of the revolution. In our system of government power is decentralized. That means individual states, counties, and towns can charge their own taxes.
Say my city votes to provide free residential broadband to residents and fund it with a telco tax on private ISP service.
“Simplifying” the tax code by just not allowing the city to do that is literally antithetical to our society. It’s an undermining of the laboratory of democracy.
That may sound hyperbolic but “I find this complexity confusing” just isn’t a compelling argument for kneecapping our democracy.
Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler.
> This isn’t just tax. It’s shipping, discounts, gift wrap, and coupons. All of which are taxed and possibly at different rates. You have the luxury of not caring. The merchant doesn’t.
But that's already the case today. I see the price per item, not counting any potential bulk rebates or optional coupon codes, as it's not a priori clear what else I'll buy. On the other hand, sales tax can always be calculated per item sold, as far as I know.
> Say my city votes to provide free residential broadband to residents and fund it with a telco tax on private ISP service.
> “Simplifying” the tax code by just not allowing the city to do that is literally antithetical to our society. It’s an undermining of the laboratory of democracy.
That argument does make some sense to me, but there are many other types of taxes cities and states could levy other than sales tax, which is extraordinarily complicated as you've demonstrated.
> Our complex tax codes are not a conspiracy to create jobs in tax prep. [...] Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler.
I agree, but also given the incentives here, I'd be surprised if that industry wouldn't put up heavy opposition if anybody seriously campaigned to simplify sales tax while avoiding the reduced autonomy/decentralization you mention. I'm all for avoiding Chesterton's Fence, but taking that way of thinking too far can cement the status quo beyond what's useful and resonable in many cases.
> But that's already the case today. I see the price per item, not counting any potential bulk rebates or optional coupon codes, as it's not a priori clear what else I'll buy. On the other hand, sales tax can always be calculated per item sold, as far as I know.
That’s fair. I guess I just don’t see the value in displaying the per-item tax when there’s still a bunch of other unknowable charges. But I agree, as far as I understand it would be possible to show the per-item price with sales tax.
But my experience with tax is that it’s always more complicated than you expect, even when you think it’s more complicated than you expect.
> A higher price is more accurate than the pretax price
Well, no, it isn’t. Consider the Oregon/Washington border. An IP could bounce around there. Oregon has zero sales tax so the pre-tax price is literally correct for Oregon residents. Adding estimated tax will be less accurate.
Similarly I could live in unincorporated King County such as White Center and not be subject to Seattle tax while still being subject to King County and Washington tax even though the other side of the street is Seattle.
There’s a sugary drink tax in Seattle. The border is Roxbury. There’s a 7/11 on Roxbury in White Center. Should a 7/11 sandwich board on the Seattle side of the street across from that 7/11 advertise the price with or without that tax?
It works ok-ish. It works significantly better in almost every other country in the world. Yay for status quo bias!
> You know where you live, you know what your local sales tax is.
No, I in fact don't know, because I have better things to do than to keep up with what my city and state have extended sales tax to this month, what carveouts exist ("no sales tax on unhealthy snacks except ice cream" and stuff like that) etc.
And there is absolutely no excuse for in-person stores that do, in fact, have perfect a priori knowledge of all of this.
Or, just get rid of sales tax anyway. It is the 2nd or 3rd time the same money has been taxed, depending on how you view it, and it's pretty ridiculous that a person with $100 in their bank account (post-taxes) still does not have the equivalent of $100 of purchasing power.
It’s the transaction that is taxed, not the money.
By your logic I shouldn’t have to pay income tax on sales because my customers already paid income tax. We could simply the whole thing by just making dollar bills worth $0.66.
> By your logic I shouldn’t have to pay income tax on sales because my customers already paid income tax.
People often believe that because something has been for a while, it must always be so. Not too long ago we didn't have sales tax (introduced in the 1950's), and things were fine.
You are taxed on your income, and you are taxed on your expenses. If you invest that money or do anything productive with it, it gets taxed again. That's such a ridiculous idea - pick one and stick with it. Make it whatever percentage it needs to be, and that's it.
When someone looks at their bank account - that ought to be the final word on how much purchasing power that individual has. It shouldn't be handwavy minus 7-12%.
Mind you, that's 7-12% in addition to the 20-30% you already paid.
Progressive income tax is also silly. Just because you earn more money than someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government.
The idea of "Paying what you can afford" is BS everywhere it's been implemented - from school tuition to soccer camp to taxes. Everyone feels burned and like the "others" aren't paying what they should be.
Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credits, no so-called "loop holes"... nothing. Every citizen pays the same percentage (whatever it needs to be).
The incumbent tax apparatus would never allow us to have something so simple, though.
For a nation that got it's start in no small part due to being over-taxed, it's very interesting to see just how much tax shenanigans we tolerate today.
> Progressive income tax is also silly. Just because you earn more money than someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government.
I think "pay what you can afford" is fair because the only way to make half a million dollars (or more) a year is to disproportionately reap the benefits of society. Marginal income tax is fair in the sense that everyone does pay the same. Your $11,001st dollar is taxed the same as everyone else, just like your $578,126th dollar. If you don't want to pay the highest rates then take advantage of deductions (aka incentives aka loopholes) and invest in creating jobs.
> Everyone feels burned and like the "others" aren't paying what they should be.
I definitely don't feel this way and I am happy to pay my marginal rates. I just don't think they go far enough.
> Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credits, no so-called "loop holes"... nothing. Every citizen pays the same percentage (whatever it needs to be).
Do you propose a flat income tax or a flat wealth tax? Should capital gains be taxed as income?
> For a nation that got it's start in no small part due to being over-taxed, it's very interesting to see just how much tax shenanigans we tolerate today.
My understanding was that the issue was lack of representation or ability to levy local taxes but I admit my knowledge of that point in history is weak. The America of today is certainly different from revolutionary times. I would say it is better.
You buy products because you want/like them. The people who make them are not disproportionately reaping benefits of society - they are reaping benefits of creating productive and desirable products.
This view flirts with the idea that people "extract" wealth from the public, and that people are taken advantage of and/or manipulated into buying things.
> I definitely don't feel this way and I am happy to pay my marginal rates. I just don't think they go far enough.
People universally feel the government (local, state, federal) overwhelmingly wastes their tax money - yet so many people demand others pay more of their earned income to this uncaring ineffective machine. Tax receipts will never be enough for the government, and some people will continue to advocate plowing more of other people's money into the dark abyss. That's madness.
> Do you propose a flat income tax or a flat wealth tax? Should capital gains be taxed as income?
I propose a straight flat income tax percentage, without any deductions, credits, anything. While the percentage is fixed, the dollar amount obviously scales with income. Things like capital gains are solved this way by taxing the actual income you generated from the investments.
I'm making up numbers, but say it's 20%. No matter if you earned $1 of income, or $1,000,000 - you pay 20%.
I think a person who gains $10,000,000.00 a year should be paying a higher tax than someone gaining $20,000.00 a year because a person can’t personally create $10,000,000.00 of value in a year. Or even $8,000,000.00 of value. The only way to do that is to own a disproportionate slice of the American economy. When money moves value is created. The incentive should be to spread that wealth out, not to concentrate it.
A flat tax of 20% would be ruinous to the poor and lower middle class. That can’t be sustained without an enormous increase in income or some guarantees around living expenses.
If I understand your definition of flat tax then capital gains would be untaxed as well so the wealthiest would pay even less.
I understand the ideology. Taxes should be simple and equal. I just don’t think that ideology is worth defending. The price is too high when the benefits are so unclear.
> because a person can’t personally create $10,000,000.00 of value in a year. Or even $8,000,000.00 of value. The only way to do that is to own a disproportionate slice of the American economy.
This is a very problematic view of the world, and is not in line with reality.
The people who earn $10MM a year make decisions that impact the lives of thousands (10's of thousands, or 100's of thousands) of employees. They are usually also directly responsible for millions of dollars in salaries every month.
The myth that executives running a business don't earn their pay is silly.
> A flat tax of 20% would be ruinous to the poor and lower middle class.
Also not true even a little bit. Most of the lower and middle class already pay more than 20%.
> Progressive income tax is also silly. Just because you earn more money than someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government
Ok...
> Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credits, no so-called "loop holes"... nothing. Every citizen pays the same percentage (whatever it needs to be).
Flat percentage? A flat percentage means that if you earn N times what someone else earns you pay N times as much tax as they do.
But you just said a couple of paragraphs earlier that just because you earn more money that someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government. If that's going to be the basis of your tax policy shouldn't the tax be a flat amount?
A flat percentage means exactly that - everyone pays the same percentage. Everyone derives the same value from the government, ie. the same percentage of their income.
If you want to make it a flat dollar amount, you won't find an argument from me.
I happen to think a flat percentage without deductions or credits is the best compromise with the people who think everyone else isn't paying their "fair share". If everyone pays this 10% (or whatever) then there's no quibbling about this or that deduction or tax shenanigan (buying art, etc).
Yup, I know what sales tax is in my state and can do the math in my head pretty easily to get the approx. amount. If you live in a state for any length of time you should be able to do this too. even if its something odd like 7.25% you can figure out what 10% is really quickly and know it'll be a little less than that.
I'm not sure who these presumably tech-adjacent folks are who can't look at a posted price, know something about the tax/tipping/etc. conventions are, and know about what the final bill will be.
That said, I DO agree that hidden facility/resort/etc. fees and the like should go. For years, there was a conference center restoration fee tacked onto hotels all over NYC even the project wasn't even approved. Rental cars at airports are also a nightmare. There is no reason for them.
GP mentioned "sticker price", so I suspect they possibly meant physical goods or services. If you're in a retail store, there are no real obstacles (except for business unwillingness to be honest to the customer) to calculate and disclose the final price. A store knows where it's located, and that's where the sale happens.
Right, but even when they do have your zipcode (because you added beforehand for checking stock for example) they don't update the prices. It would be nice to have the option
Why do US states allow counties and cities to raise so many taxes?
Usually (across the world and across history) the power of taxation is very jealously guarded, and local government is usually only allowed to gather a limited range of taxes. Historically sovereigns have treated attempts by subordinates to raise their own taxes as tantamount to treason.
In this thread: people claiming how exceptional the US is, to justify not having the final amount on price tags.
You guys can think of lots of reasons to justify why you can't do things like the rest of the civilized world does, be it prices and taxes, medical insurance or something else.
The US is not some sprcial snowflake country.
The new rule does have clarification that they at least have to show you the final price with taxes+shipping before they're allowed to take your credit card. Those ones I get, because they can't be calculated without knowing your billing zip code.
Very easy, we can get inspiration from the web shops 10 years ago (and still a majority of honest sites today) : the price of the item and somewhere close the base shipping price and a (legal minimum size) link "shipping price" redirecting to a shipping price table. We can even impose the table framework like the nutritional information on food to avoid volontary complexification of that page.
It's funny, because when I buy from China, their stores have little trouble estimating my country's import tax, and my state's selling tax. But US physical stores can't manage to put the final price on their tags.
In some areas, sales tax is actual multiple taxes from different overlapping jurisdictions: state, county, city, and sometimes special tax district. ZIP codes don't align with any of these, so you need to know exactly where the buyer is in order to properly calculate sales tax.
There are places where adjacent addresses in the same ZIP code have different sales tax rates.
Yea, that'd be pretty swell. The only reason websites moved away from that was to "lower friction" - it's better for the consumers who end up buying the product if they know availability and pricing up front.
My statement was overly general and that's a fair criticism - however I do remember e-commerce in the early days of the web. That early web experience for me was that generally users were required to make an account (mostly to verify age and ability to pay) before they could interact with items or create a shopping cart. In that era the interaction of sales taxes and the internet were much more complicated and shipping times and costs much more variable. I know that when my father was buying train books he'd often need to go to conventions in other states to pick up items in person because sellers were afraid of getting scammed out of their shipping fees.
Amazon in particular probably did a lot to normalize free (in country) shipping in many cases. But it's silly that there should be a sticker price that is the final price under all circumstances.
Mind you, I'm all for more up-front transparency in general, especially to the degree that comparison-shopping is inconsistent to the degree it displays or doesn't display often significant add-ons.
I suspect the answer is instead to establish two tax rate calculations:
One for in-person shopping (like VAT) -- you pay the tax according to local rates, but it's factored in already.
one for online shopping, ("E-VAT") -- you pay a national rate tax and the seller is responsible for paying gross sales based on that percentage to the state and the rest goes to the IRS.
Problem comes with the Sin Taxes that have been established. For instance, in Seattle, sugared drinks MAY incur a tax depending on what kind of store you bought it from (e.g. the normal costco has to tax it but the business costco doesn't), but that doesn't affect some folks and then there's tax-exempt organizations like churches that can have their sales tax waived and then there's states where sales taxes are a majority of the income is from sales tax but only if you're local and
care to elaborate on that? also, it's not that hard to ask users to enter their shipping zip code to get more accurate prices. some websites do that already nowadays. my point is reverse ip lookup is a good enough starting point for the first estimation.
Nope. I hate when website use IP for anything, especially language selection. I travel all the time as well as use VPNs for work, and the idea that my IP represents anything other than what network I’m connecting from is just lazy UX.
Yes let’s keep a shitty UX for most users because of a few abnormal users. Be honest, frequent travel and shopping over VPN is an edge case here. The vast majority of users are shopping and buying from home with a VPN.
Or better yet, give municipalities an incentive to stop layering a kinds of taxes. Just have a VAT and be done with it.
> The vast majority of users are shopping and buying from home with a VPN.
I bet that's wrong, and that a huge chunk of shopping is from cell phones that usually have an effectively random IP when they're not at their home location.
It would be interesting to see the numbers. I know for my wife and I, most shopping is done at home on phone or tablet and connected to our home wifi. And even shopping away from home is generally in the same county, so taxes are the same (or close enough for an up-front estimate).
> Or better yet, give municipalities an incentive to stop layering a kinds of taxes. Just have a VAT and be done with it.
Switching our tax regime to VATs, effectively flattening 13,000+ sales tax jurisdictions down to 50, would be a monumental undertaking involving rethinking and reorganizing financing of literally everything below the federal level. And in the end it would solve a problem that is at best a minor annoyance to most Americans.
Be honest, frequent travel and shopping over VPN is an edge case here.
Everyone is an edge case in some form. You, included.
Just have a VAT and be done with it.
This just illustrates that you don't understand the that taxes have multiple purposes, and why taxes are the way they are. Attend a few city council meetings.
Yeah, I see a lot of advice on here that websites should make some guesses and you can always correct them later if it turns out they're wrong.
That seems like terrible advice. Oh, the price is $X. And once you've entered all your info "just kidding." I'd much rather know there are some things not included up-front if they're not reasonably factored in.
Do you often order things for delivery at home while you're travelling? Then the price will change when you provide the delivery address — just like it does now.
Meanwhile, 99% of people will see the price they can expect to pay.
Hidden and not yet calculated are different things. They should just make a broad and sweeping stances on these hidden fees. The fact they play whack-a-mole from implementing this from industry to industry as the 'need' arises seems silly. If a price is advertised or quoted, it should be inclusive all the things with tax being the one exception.
"Darn, sorry we can't make a deal. Hey look at all the people who need cars that are waiting!"
This is not as much of an upper hand as you think it is, often these shenanigans happen after sitting at the dealer for a couple hours while they do whatever it is they do. Do you value your time so little that you'll just walk out of a transaction over less than a 1% difference in cost?
The dealer knows how to play this game way better than you, if you walk into a dealership without having a plan to score a deal then you already lost
Yes, I have literally done exactly that thing and ended up with the dealer eating the price. The dealer has time and effort sunk into closing the deal, too, and they’ll almost always chose a bird in the hand.
And also-freaking-lutely would I walk instead of eating a BS charge. Sometimes it really is the principle of the thing. My principle is I’m not paying a penny for something I didn’t ask for. A dealership I’d be caught dead doing business with will eat the bogus charges instead of losing a customer forever. Conversely, next time I need a Toyota, I have the business card of the guy I’ll buy it from and he doesn’t even know it yet. He treated me well last time and his investment in that deal will keep paying him back.
Yeah. Last time I bought a car, at the last minute, it included "factory installed" extras that included a first aid kit for a car that wasn't built yet. I may or may not have actually walked (a couple of the options were actually useful) but I was "I'm not happy but I'll close the deal NOW if you add it to my trade-in" which they did.
I'm more ok with "hidden" taxes, because the business is supposed to just hand that over. If they're putting something on the receipt that says "tax" and its not associated with an actual government-applied tax, that's just fraud., we don't need special rules to address that (yet). Its not hidden in an attempt to trick you into buying something at a higher cost. Its hidden because calculating the taxes requires additional information from the user.
I’m not very confident this is going to survive our next “populist” administration. Whatever faults you can attribute to the current administration, the FTC has taken many actions that have been pro consumer over the past 4 years.
This will probably be what I'll miss most about Administration 46 - some crazy pro-consumer policies and motions for anti-trust, price gouging, and corporate transparency have happened in 2021-2024, and I'm certainly going to miss the strides. The next administration will remove what has been, or ignore the continuing proceedings in the bigger actions (a great example of where the latter is going to happen are the Google-Chrome breakup and TikTok ban.
Well, at least we're now in a modern enlightened time when there's a standard FCC-required Broadband Facts "label" that can be referred to. It does make it easier to compare.
It still seems kind of new and I can't find one for Spectrum (my ISP) or I'd share it here myself, but: I pay exactly $59.95 per month, as the service is advertised in my area, and that's that. There are no itemized fees/taxes on my bill.
I don't remember the last time I had an ISP with weird fees associated with it -- it seems like it has had to have been around a decade now, at least.
(Cellular, too: My cheapskate all-you-can-eat cellular service costs me $35 per month, flat -- to the penny.)
My Internet provider charges $50 per month exactly, and even the taxes are included! How cool is that? They aren't doing that out of goodness of their heart though. It is due to competition from T-Mobile 5G internet, which also has this policy.
I wish that "Online Coupon Price Tags" in stores would also be banned. I'm talking about these yellow price tags that show lower than "Club" prices, which are only valid if you collect a coupon online.
Like FTC, I estimate that banning these would save U.S. consumers millions of hours they currently spend searching and clicking on pointless coupons on their phones before making purchases. It would also increase happiness, as it's extremely annoying to pay $20 extra, knowing that a lower price is available if only you spent ten minutes struggling with a store's website on your phone.
Whoever invented this is evil and is destroying happiness.
I'm less mad about those since it's basically just price discrimination. If you are price sensitive enough that you're willing to clip the coupon then you get the cheaper price.
And feature phones (aka dumbphones) have been seeing a sales uptick. I wouldn't say they're popular, but there are people without smartphones who are excluded from these types of coupons.
those tags are working as intended - some people don't read the "online only" part, grab the item, assume the discount is applied at checkout, and end up paying full price. other people will download (and probably never uninstall) the spyware app and start feeding a juicy profitable data stream back to HQ.
because how are you ever going to stay in business doing something as niche as selling groceries without leaning hard into surveillance capitalism
Lina Khan is my second hero in life after Evariste Galois.
Even if they throw her out it won’t change what she’s done: she put fear in the bellies of some truly terrible people who had almost forgot what the word “restraint” means.
Agree. Somewhat. But given that Elon Musk (who wants to shut down the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau completely) is likely to have a lot of say in these type of things, I think they'll forget that fear.
And the public will just accept arbitrary oppression with no limit?
No, the investor class will arrive at the negotiating table one way or another on a long enough timeline. It will be up to them if they still have legs to walk on.
The really scary fascists aren’t stupid: Thiel and those guys are buying bunkers in New Zealand as fast as the checks clear. They understand something that the American public lost sight of for a moment: the American Public is terrifying, the American public is slow to wake but arbitrarily brutal once roused. Pushing the American public into a corner has been the last mistake of a great many men better than Elon Musk.
Rogan and Lex went from interesting Internet shit to terrifyingly effective accomplices of aspiring fascists really abruptly.
I’m not sure even they realize how dangerous they’ve become.
I’m sorry: we’re past the point where you can normalize Thiel world and not be a menace. I like both of those guys in general, I hope they have the moral courage to take a stand against the really scary shit.
But until they’ll flat renounce this psycho aspiring despot shit they’re net negative.
The fact that it was ever legal to combine "taxes and fees" into one line item is baffling.
One is a thing 100% under control of the business trying to sell me a thing, the other 0%. Why should anybody get to scalp me and legally be able to blame it on the state/city government?
> Four of the FTC’s five commissioners voted to approve the rule. Commissioner Andrew Ferguson, – who is President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to replace Khan, was the one dissenting vote.
One republican commissioner voted with the rule, and Ferguson dissented based on lame duck rule making, not the merits, while agreeing that the FTC rule making was valid for businesses like tickets and short term lodging.
A lot of people probably weigh this too much. Forcing companies to have some skin in the game is good. But, in practice, if a company really wants to enforce a non-compete--even with consideration--it's probably not great unless you're in a position and want to take a sabbatical with substantially reduced compensation.
This is absolutely true and when I read my first non-compete my dad calmly explained how unenforceable they are due to hardship exceptions and lack of specificity. However, I had a very business minded father to ask and most people don't. Non-competes have been abused to scare uninformed employees into staying in positions they want to leave or as revenge for someone leaving.
The fact that they're so often unenforceable is probably a decent argument that they're an irrelevant complication of labor interactions that we don't need anyways. They only ever made sense with executives and those folks usually have large sums of money attached to their compliance.
The few months when I actually had a non-compete in place it was quite specific and didn't apply to me.
But, yeah, as a generic thing below the level of a CEO becoming the CEO of a direct competitor (in which case lawyers have presumably put specific contracts in place if they're competent), they don't make a lot of sense beyond NDAs in play. No properly-managed company was ever going to pay me a bunch of money to not work at a random company in the industry who was probably a partner anyway.
Not sure about going all the way back to 2012, but maybe they were more worried about the Mayan calendar? /s
But as far as under this administration, it seems like it took half the term to right the ship and get the leadership moving in the right direction. I think a second term would have been impressive.
I used to work for a major airline many years ago. I remember when they introduced these crazy fees e.g., seat change fee. I was really disappointed then and soon left. I learned Don Carty then joined Dell who soon started their Byzantine ordering process. I was again disappointed. I still buy Dell monitors because I like them but I never buy from their website.
I remember an episode of the TV show Happy Days when the restaurant owner started charging money to use the toilet stall. It was a sad joke and many businesses are following suit.
This is great if it gets rid of the "resort fee" or "urban fee" that I have had to pay at hotels. Happened last week. An extra $40 a night. It is almost impossible to refuse and find a new hotel right when you are checking in.
Maybe. If they document how dirty the room was after you leave, and how clean it was before hand they can get away with this. Generally smoke smell is the only thing they would bother doing this for though. If you just leave the normal mess behind they shouldn't be charging extra.
WTF! Definitely paid corporate shill. Legalized corruption in the USA. "A judge in Texas blocked a rule that would cap credit card late fees, and an appeals court in New Orleans blocked a requirement that airlines disclose baggage and other fees upfront."
Count the service charge toward what you would’ve tipped.
Wait staff reading this: bosses at restaurants like this are stealing from you if that doesn’t go straight to you. I tip very well, but I’m not tipping twice. And yes, if it’s a “service charge”, that’s the same as saying “tip” from the customer’s perspective.
Would boycott get a chance? The honest restaurants bragging "NO FEES" would gather more customers and the others follow.
Wondering, is there already US places that works without tips like in most other places ? (Owner pays a decent salary to its employees, include that in all products they sell and don’t expect tips)
Various restaurant operators have experimented with what you described but haven't succeeded. The big issue is that servers hate it specifically because owners use the additional revenue to "pay a decent salary to their employees. " This generally includes all the employees, not just the formerly tipped ones. The kitchen staff ends up getting a significant pay bump, and servers get what amounts to a cut in their take-home pay.
At the higher end, the labor market for waitstaff is competitive, and restaurant operators who have experimented with this have had trouble keeping server positions filled (with the opposite effect in the kitchen).
SF has something called Healthy SF where employers have to offer health insurance plans, or pay into a city-managed health account. I think the last time I looked, for a lot of businesses, it's basically a $2.25/hr raise for your employees.
edit: The best part is, if your employees don't use the money (maybe they don't know about it or don't have any health care expenses), the business can eventually reclaim it...
The restaurant association balked at this, and encouraged businesses to list out the increased cost as a separate line item on the receipt, instead of raising menu prices, basically raising a middle finger and saying "see what you idiots voted for, now you pay for it!" I don't know why I'd be mad that I have to pay for someone's health care. That's sort of how it works, doesn't it?
Since then, it has taken on a life of its own. Some places call it a health care surcharge. Others call it a SF surcharge, or a cost adjustment, or inflation fee. It's not a tax, it's not a service charge, it's not anything but whatever arbitrary number the business wants to charge without raising their menu price. And thus, it's taxable.
Not likely; sales tax is extremely complicated in the US. There are 13,000 sales tax jurisdictions, and many of them have different and incompatible rules for things like sales tax nexus.
I think legitster is suggesting that the sticker price on the product should be the price paid, rather than a uniform sales tax code. If the seller knows what to charge the buyer, then they know what they need to put on the sticker.
Local retailers would oppose this in very strong terms as a thumb on the scale in favor of online retailers.
Online retailers would presumably still be able to show pricing before knowing a shipping address, so their pricing would be pre-tax. That would make the apparent price differential even greater, and on every item.
I think this would make the marketplace less clear for consumers.
Online retailers could be required to use the best available estimate of the user's location to calculate the tax, like they do for ads.
So if they are logged in with an address on file, it could be that. If not, they could use geolocation, with a note that the tax is estimated. And let the user input a location in a box to show the exact tax.
> they could use geolocation, with a note that the tax is estimated
So we'd go from the current regime where the displayed price is wrong to another regime where the displayed price is wrong? Allegedly, something like 40%+ of Americans use VPNs. They would pretty much always see the wrong price.
In practice, the ramification of this would be that your local indie retailers (where we are much less likely to be persistently logged in) would be forced to incorrectly show higher prices to a set of people, while the giant retailers who already have your billing info can show you 100% accurate pricing all the time, regardless of VPN.
Sounded off to me, but I wasn't able to find a better number when I looked. Maybe it's counting work computers where the stack is maintained by IT staff?
Oddly enough, the average EU consumer has no problem understanding that the label price is the full price of a purchase, while online prices might include extra stuff such as delivery.
Maybe you're just less intelligent than the average consumer and need some more protection? Or is it something else?
> Maybe you're just less intelligent than the average consumer
I'm not one to police tone, but really? Did it make you feel better to say that?
> is it something else?
Yes, the something else is that you're missing the point that my comment was specifically about the disparity in the prices large online retailers would be able to display (e.g. without sales tax) versus what offline retailers would display (with sales tax).
If Amazon and a local retailer are both aiming for the same $1,000 for an item net of tax, this would mean that Amazon could display $1,000 as the price while my local retailer would have to list it for (say) $1,100. I don't think local retailers would like that very much, even though the consumer would end up paying $1,100 either way. You may disagree.
No they cannot. Taxes are not uniform. Walmart probably won't deal with this, but in many states business (read farmers) do not pay sales tax on some items (read likely to be used on a farm) and so stores that want to sell to business will have the ability to verify you are a business to give that discount.
It is worse for online where until you log in they have no clue what taxes will apply. If you are buying a gift for someone in a different area I don't know what tax rules apply but there is good odds they won't know until you get to the shipping information what the real taxes are.
> but in many states business (read farmers) do not pay sales tax on some items (read likely to be used on a farm)
The legislation in most of europe clearly handles this - the price displayed is for the intended customer. If you go into B&Q (home depot equivalent), you'll see prices including sales tax. If you go next door to a timber merchant none of the prices have sales tax included. If you're a business, you don't pay the sales tax. The businesses know what their taxes are, and are required to have accurate accounts anyway. For those that are maybe numerically challenged - they'll never pay more than they see on the sticker.
> It is worse for online where until you log in they have no clue what taxes will apply.
Enter your shipping address to see pricing. Exactly the same as it is now. Give an estimate based on IP. Exactly how it works in Europe, which has the same problem.
The issue with online sales is real, but customers exempt from sales tax could just have their final price lowered. That would be the opposite of the current situation. Since there are many fewer tax-exempt sales, and tax-exempt buyers are presumably more sophisticated and less price-sensitive, this would be a net win for customers.
My favorite example of this lunacy is the restaurant nearby that sells pies. If they box your pie for you to take home, it's a grocery item and not taxed. If they give you utensils to eat it in the store, it's a restaurant meal and therefore taxed.
They literally can't know the price until you tell them whether you'd like a fork with it.
Now, this restaurant works around it by having both prices listed, but I can imagine a million freaking variants of that for an online sale: "you have to pay our local taxes, but almost maybe yours, unless you check out on a Sunday between noon and 5PM, which is a tax holiday on your block (but not your neighbors' across the road), so understand that the price may change between when you add it to your cart and when you click the 'pay' button."
> And if you can do that, then you might as well print it on the price tag (along with pre-tax price if you want).
Fun fact: sales tax rates are not stable. Our state publishes quarterly tax changes at the county level; city-level changes are presumably too numerous for the state to publish in the same format.
Inclusive pricing can obviously be done in-store, but it also more or less ensures that some of the items in your store will have incorrect prices some of the time.
At least here in California, the state collects the sales tax on behalf of all the local jurisdictions, so they publish and update them all simultaneously (twice a year) and in the same format.
Bullshit. First, you absolutely CAN JUST PUT TWO PRICES on a price tag. Moreover, business customers (in a grocery shop, yeah right) can just get a discount at a point of sale.
Not a trick, just they get their income from other sources / taxes. But we're specifically talking about knowing the final price you will pay, in advance, which requires knowing the sales tax.
Great! My wife was reading me ticket prices for an event on Ticketmaster yesterday, I kept telling her she needs to add them to the cart and start checkout to know the real price. She did just that and to my surprise the price didn't change at all!
This is awesome. There's more to do, but it's a step in the right direction. This law should really apply to all merchants in all industries, as the original 2023 proposal stated (allegedly). Still, I'll take it.
Gotta love that TicketMaster convenience fee that is for online ticket purchases --- which you still have to pay if you get your ticket at the door, because that is also convenient!
The fact that sensible and fair rules like this that favor the consumer don't get anywhere in the usa is proof of the regulatory capture by the corporate elite. The us isn't a democracy, because it isn't ruled by the people, it is ruled by the corporation and rich.
Americans keep voting for rich assholes who oppress them while telling them they are giving them freedom.
It’s a start. I’m bummed at how narrowly scoped this is. When the RFC period was open I wrote in to highlight how apartments charge surprise pet rent fees that don’t appear until the application process.
No, the reason they tack on the fee as a "tax" is literally to confuse and otherwise mislead the public to the true cost of the product they're buying, or mislead where the money is directed. they're buying from. If you believe in the Tennant's of capitalism at all, then you must have clear price representation.
Isn't Airbnb a good example of this? In some locations you have to open each listing to get the true price and it's a huge waste of time. In locations, what you see on the map is the real value, cleaning and other, fees included.
I wish sales taxes would be added - some cities charge very large taxes on hotel rooms and so it might be worth staying in a hotel not far away with more reasonable taxes.
Market actors are allowed to charge whatever they want. Price controls are super bad. It's not the role of the state to mandate a specific price. It is the role of the state to make sure prices are fair and transparent. Deception cannot be tolerated in an efficient market.
And that comparison is important - when junk fees are allowed more honest companies suffer because consumers might shop around and end up choosing the option that is actually more expensive. Those consumers might be on page 12/13 of a form and just accept the fee to avoid the hassle - or they may assume everyone (including what looked like a more expensive competitor) is baking the fees in late in the process and not bother investigating deeper.
Even the most fundamentalist of free market fundamentalists should be cheering transparency in pricing. The price signal works best when it's not obfuscated.
A recent WizzAir flight was advertised (when I searched for the route on their website) for €21. I rejected all optional extras, and that was the total price I paid.
No checked luggage, probably only a small cabin bag that fitted under the seat in front, no priority boarding, no seat selection.
It's a budget service, but the advertised prices aren't deceptive.
Trust me, you got lucky, they "randomly" selected passengers with those kind of bags for inspection due to measures, 1mm above? charged! Emphasis on randomly, because the pattern was simple: foreigners? charged, locals? go on. We've saw a poor guy squeeze the hell out of his backpack to no avail, it fitted the measuring box, still, charged because "you had to squeeze it"; guess what, plenty of room under the seat, the guy could put two of them. On me? bag had wheels, foreigner, automatically selected for inspection, took the wheels away, still charged because "it had wheels first". I've flew a dozen companies, not even Ryanair, the low of the lowest treats passengers like this.
A significant difference here is that the airline fees are ostensibly optional. You could, in theory, fly Spirit with nothing except the clothes on your back and they wouldn't charge you extra. But with event ticket sales and the like, there is often no possible way to avoid the fees. That means there's a much stronger argument for requiring that the fees be rolled into the price.
Or they do something silly where there is an "Online Convenience Fee" when you buy online, but if you try to buy it at the box office, there's a different "Box Office Ticketing Fee." The event promoter should pay the cost of their ticketing service provider(s) out of the money they make, not have the purchaser pay it separately.
This shouldn't be controversial. FTC isn't banning these fees, it is only requiring merchants to disclose the fees. Why would anyone be against that?
Another good rule is click-to-cancel. Just a couple of days ago I logged into my Dish Network account to cancel it (after they hiked prices). There is no way to cancel online. There is no way to cancel via chat. You have to call. As soon as you call you're told the wait time is over 45 minutes. There is no call back option. Why should a consumer have to be on the phone for 45 minutes to cancel? (Typically they will drop the call after 45 minutes and you have to call again.) If you call Dish to sign up service the wait time is 0 minutes: they answer immediately. If you then tell that you're actually calling to cancel, they forward you to the cancellation number with the wait. This is an abusive business practice, and banning it should not be controversial.
Dish is evil.
Years ago when signed up with them I opted to pay the extra service for local tv channels, which required an andditional antenna to install.
For some reason the installer couldn’t fit it securely on our house, and said to call Dish to remove the service since we cannot receive it.
Dish refused to remove the local service! They said since we signed a contract we were stuck paying for it even though they couldn’t fit the antenna.
I pointed out in a hundred different ways that the contract also required them to provide a service which they are not providing so we shouldn’t have to pay.
All of my attempts to reason with them were ignored, and their call staff refused to escalate to their manager.
Long story short we had to pay for twelve months for something they couldn’t provide to us.
Literally the minute the contract was up we cancelled (it was easier to cancel back then).
I would never ever go near this company again.
Isn't this what small claims court is for?
So now likely hundreds (or more) of individuals have to not only wait on hold forever, but have to learn the process of and actually go through with filing a small claim? That there is recourse is beside the point when it is mired in bureaucracy (not to mention taking days off to show up to court, etc).
Only a few would actually have to do it. But if everyone lets them get away with it, then I have no sympathy.
This isn't schoolchildren all being bystanders or victims to a peer bully. There is a much larger asymmetry in time, money, and credibilty here.
That’s the whole reason that small claims court exists.
I'm surprised I haven't yet heard of companies who would handle this for you, like there are e.g. for handling the process of getting compensation when an airline screws up scheduling or loses baggage, etc. I'm guessing there isn't enough money to be won there for them to be able to survive off a percentage of it.
A hypothetical company that can do this, would also be capable of handling much more lucrative class action suits.
But they also have competition in the class action suit space but less so in the small claims case.
In some jurisdictions you have to show up to small claims yourself though which prevents some third party from just handling it. Makes sense since the idea behind small claims is to keep the legal costs low enough that you actually have a chance of recovering smaller sums without paying more then what you will get.
Class action suits may be easier, if only arbitration was opt-in-by-default or easier to opt out of.
Class action is an utter joke that has done nothing more than FURTHER commodify harming consumers for a price.
If a company sends you a $2 check ten years after they recognize a profit from defrauding you or lying to you or harming you, that's not a punishment, and is certainly not an incentive to not do those things.
In practice they serve to enrich lawyers and that’s about it.
I think they punish companies to a considerable degree. It's just that since legal costs on both sides are non-trivial, not much makes it to the harmed consumers.
it only takes a few hits from lawsuits for the companies to fix the process.
You don't even need small claims court. You just don't pay, and point them to (small claims?) court if they want to get paid for the service they don't provide.
None of these shit companies will ever take you up on the offer though, because expecting to get paid for a service you don't provide (and can't provide in this case) won't fly in court.
You just don't pay, and point them to (small claims?) court if they want to get paid for the service they don't provide.
Have you actually tried this? Because having not tried it myself, I'd bet a paycheck that you get sent to collections, get a ding on your credit report, and you're still on the hook for taking it to court if you want it resolve to your favor. (Assuming U. S.) And as a cherry on top of that shit sundae, it's probably in the contract that you have to go through arbitration anyway.
I have done so multiple times, albeit in the UK.
When collections calls, you explain them the situation (service not provided or whatever, and evidence of trying to resolve it with them in good faith) and they go away.
Have yet to see a court summons or anything, although I'd love to see them try their lies in court.
I did not care about the credit report impact - it's probably the only valid reason not to do this if this is something you care about.
I have done so multiple times, albeit in the UK.
Thanks for the follow-up. I suspect UK does make a difference, but IANAL in either country. I do, however, have a bit of personal experience in the U. S. :-)
The first thing that would happen is they would cut off all your service.
If you are relying on them for something other than the thing you don’t want to pay for, this becomes a problem.
For example, I disputed a charge with my CC from the Apple App Store when I was charged for an app that I shouldn’t have been years ago. They immediately cut off my access to the Store. Other apps couldn’t update, OS couldn’t update, couldn’t get new apps, etc.
And this is one of the reasons why I can't buy into the Apple ecosystem. With Android, I would be cut off from all Google stuff but there are more/less work-arounds for those.
But the fact that I have a billing dispute with a company and they are able to hold everything else that bit of technology touches hostage is just wrong. Imagine if you had a billing dispute with the city water company and they cut your city power because of it.
That's why you never deal with walled gardens.
I got charged for the modem even though I returned it to Xfinity (another champion of customer service) when I canceled. It wasn't worth my time to fight, and I wasn’t going to pay for something I didn’t owe. I could take the hit to my credit rating so I did, and after a few years of collections letters, it went away.
Terms and Conditions usually spell out the dispute process. You may find out that disputes need to go to arbitration court in a different state.
Alternatively, you can take them to small claims court and see if the judge there is hyper-interested in upholding their insanely restrictive contracts. They can appeal a judgment, of course, but that's likely to be far more expensive for them than just honoring the decision.
Agreed.
With any such service, I budget 1 hour. If I can't get cancellation within that time-frame I have a standard form letter that gets sent out.
Once the letter is sent, after the current billing cycle ends any additional charges from said service are disputed (either on the card or on bank account) as fraud.
On three occasions, I've been asked to provide proof of fraud.
I've emailed a scan of the cancellation letter. The fraud has never been further disputed even from a gym in Chicago that (via their contract's language) demanded an in-person cancellation.
Life is too short and time is far too precious.
Exactly, except one hour is way too generous. If they don't provide a better solution (five minutes tops) then they can deal with paperwork.
Companies like to pretend that they can set the rules for all interactions with them when that's just not the case.
Nice I might do this method too
Honestly, if it works, why not send the letter first and not waste an hour on the phone?
Or even more importantly, why aren't lawyers and consumer protection organizations promoting and spreading this knowledge?
The lawyer field is captured and they know they'd get taken to court by other lawyers if they "recommended" such a thing, because their industry has made them liable for things they "recommend".
There is a move afoot to eliminate all regulations unless they've been specifically passed by Congress. Which is basically incapable of passing anything.
Ironically, that inherent dysfunction is the main reason to suspect that won't happen. But politically, every regulation as automatically partisan, even when it has overwhelming support.
> There is a move afoot to eliminate all regulations unless they've been specifically passed by Congress. Which is basically incapable of passing anything.
(At least some of) the agencies brought this on themselves with their abuse of the goodwill/benefit of the doubt previously afforded to them. Most flagrant has been the ATF, for one example constantly redefining machine guns or pistol braces, turning millions of citizens into felons with no oversight beyond drawn out and expensive court cases against them.
I never liked the smell of this power being afforded to agencies in the abstract, even for the "good guys" at the CDC or Department of the Interior. It's too rife for abuse. Federal regulations (whether you call it a law or a rule, the party van is coming if you break them) are supposed to be hard to pass. We once needed an amendment to ban alcohol before we forgot the definitions of interstate and commerce, but if my understanding is correct, under Chevron deference the DEA could have decided to schedule it without even asking congress.
Your understanding is not correct. Chevron deference never meant agencies can just make up and pass law; it was a legal doctrine which merely stated that in places where the law is ambiguous (say a law declares water must be clean of pollutants, or bans pistol braces) that courts should look at any guidance from relevant agencies for guidance, since supposedly they should know more about the subject than the courts. It never allowed agencies to circumvent congress or prevented congress from further clarifying law. For example, the DEA doesn’t have the power to schedule drugs due to chevron, Congress includes provisions for the AG to reschedule drugs, which the AG historically has delegated to the DEA, the point being this was a power explicitly granted by congress. While it may sound nice to you right now that the Supreme Court did away with chevron due to your gripes with the ATF, now the definitions of machine guns or pistols or anything else are up to the whims of any judge in any jurisdiction, which could be better or, given that judges likely have even less knowledge of the subject than the ATF, probably worse and more inconsistent.
> Chevron deference never meant agencies can just make up and pass law
Not on it's own, no. The bigger culprit there is the erosion of the nondelegation doctrine. But Chevron aggravated the problem by allowing agencies to stretch their authority beyond what even congress intended with little possibility of legal challenge.
Interpreting the law is and should be the role of the courts, not the role of the agencies that that law is supposed to be governing. It'd be like if we passed a law intended to regulate insurance companies, and the courts decided to give deference to the insurance company's interpretation of that law because "they're the experts on insurance".
This apparently needs to be said a million times:
You could always argue in court that the agency’s interpretation of the statute was not reasonable. The court could always agree with you and establish case law against that interpretation.
It was a two part test:
1. Is the statute clear? If so, defer to statute. Otherwise, go to (2).
2. Is the agency’s interpretation reasonable? If so, defer to agency. Otherwise, the agency's rule is no longer enforceable.
Now, the court is allowed to come up with its own interpretation even in the presence of a reasonable agency interpretation. That is the only change. If the agency's interpretation was unreasonable, then it was already going to get thrown out.
The courts took the authority to throw out interpretations that they themselves (the court!) think are reasonable. Unreasonable interpretations were NEVER protected by Chevron deference.
Correct, that's why I said "little possibility of legal challenge" not "no possibility of legal challenge". Proving something is "not reasonable" in a legal sense is a pretty high bar to clear. The point still stands.
There's ample possibility of legal challenge. There was a low possibility of legal overturn for one specific reason: courts generally agreed that agencies' interpretations were reasonable.
> Proving something is "not reasonable" in a legal sense is a pretty high bar to clear
Sure it is, but that is literally not the bar. The courts always had the authority to do their own analysis of reasonableness so long as the challenger raised the question. In fact, they didn't just have the authority to do it, they were obligated to do it.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/706
The low probability of overturn is an argument for Chevron deference. It is empirical proof that courts almost always found agencies' rules to be reasonable interpretations.
The fact that they're analyzing the reasonableness of the agencies' interpretations and not the correctness of their interpretations is precisely the problem. There are a lot of possible interpretations of the law that are reasonable but not correct. The judiciary's job is supposed to be to interpret the law, not just to decide whether defendant's own personal interpretation meets some minimum bar of reasonableness.
Arguing is easy when you simply assert your conclusion! :)
"Correctness" is an actually meaningless concept here. Correct according to which rubric? Please answer specifically.
Correct according to the mechanism our constitution defines for resolving disputes about the interpretation of law: the judgement of the court system. A judgement which they were not allowed to make under Cheveron, because they were limited to evaluating the reasonableness of the agency's own personal interpretation.
You’re aware that the Chevron SCOTUS decision was itself part of this exact Constitutional system, right? As was the overturning of Chevron.
I.e. you’re going to need a better rubric.
The thing is: if Congress thinks executive branch agencies are interpreting laws in ways they didn't intend, they can change the law to clarify their intent. If they fail to do so, I have to assume the agencies are doing what Congress intended. But the supreme Court evidently disagrees.
Only with the willing cooperation of the executive branch, or a veto proof majority in both houses. Otherwise the very executive they are trying to reign in could just veto the bill to allow the agencies to continue overstepping their authority.
But that's beside the point anyway, because it shouldn't have to be the legislature's job to be constantly weighing in on whether an agency is following the law as written. That's literally what the courts are for; to interpret nuances of the law.
It would not be like that, since insurance companies are not government agencies.
That's an irrelevant distinction. Neither are part of the judicial branch, which is the relevant consideration here.
Consider: Congress passes a law which sets limits on the authority of an agency. You think the agency itself should get to decide what that law actually means? And the courts, the branch of government specifically granted the role of arbiter by our constitution, should be required to differ to that interpretation if anyone ever objects and brings a lawsuit? It's absurd, and no less so than if the law was concerning a private company rather than a public agency.
Is there a well functioning large country that doesn't effectively govern this way?
The US isn't well functioning its just rich
I think most democratic nations have a similar principle of separation of powers, so... almost all of them?
The US is rich because it's well functioning.
The US is rich for many reasons that have little to do with being well governed.
* The country was launched on most of a century of essentially "free" land grabs-- limited pushback from native civilizations. buying cheap from distressed foreign powers (Louisiana), the main wars of conquest being insignificant squabbles with Mexico over trifles.
* Said land was also compelling-- you weren't fighting the environment to extract value the way you would be in Siberia.
* After 1865, no significant nation-scale conflict on the territory itself to blow down existing investments.
* This created an opportunity for bulk immigration-- first with Homestead Act style programmes and then because the American economy was compelling enough to be a pull by itself. A high immigrant population has a unique "opt-in" demographics-- a situation that self-selects for entrepeneurialism.
None of this required wildly competent government. George Washington could have chosen to be a king, a religious caliph, or a protosocialist planning enthusiast, and the deck would have still held almost all the same cards.
Name one and detail how the administrative state differs
This is coming into my work life with web accessibility: The DoJ published a rulemaking in April that filled the many, many gaps in the existing law that determines if the government is violating the ADA when creating websites, etc.
What came before this was at least 15 years of tort action, a patchwork of civil rulings across a wide variety of jurisdictions, and generally, confusion and ambiguity. Not the stuff of efficient government.
From my perspective, this rulemaking is pretty close to ideal. I did not dream of getting such a clear, detailed direction from a federal agency. I think my jaw may have literally dropped as I read through it. I think the web accessibility is an interesting example, because it's not a bloated bureaucracy harassing some fishermen, it's an agency trying to prevent the government from violating your civil rights.
So, is the idea that Congress would have accomplished this instead? I just can't imagine that happening.
yeah because Congress now have to become experts at everything: from definition of machine guns, to ADA guidelines. Afterall, if Congress didn't specifically pass the law to the detail, it doesn't exist.
The sheer stupidity of that argument is mind-blowing. When you have a government agency with dedicated technical resources, but you will rather a bunch of couple hundred of people with different backgrounds make specific rules about everything. That's just madness
That's because it's not actually intended to make the regulations better. It's intended to make it impossible for regulatory agencies to do their jobs effectively, without outright legislating them out of existence, because the people backing it believe that without effective regulation they and their allies will be more easily able to enrich themselves at the public's expense.
It's because that is the constraints that the U.S. Constitution places on our form of Federal government. The Congress passes laws (and controls the money), the Executive implements the law, and the Courts interpret the law. My lay understanding is that Chevron shifted too much power from the Congress and the Courts to the administrative agencies in the Executive branch. It seemed like a "good idea" at the time but over time the abuses became apparent and this Supreme Court reigned it back in towards the balance of powers required by the Constitution.
If congress says "companies can't pollute and the EPA determines what is a pollutant" then the EPA is implementing a law congress passed. That's not against any constitutional constraints.
What abuses
Well, if you look at the case that was in front of the court when they overturned Chevron: The National Marine Fishery Service decided that since the Magnuson–Stevens Act allows for them to place monitors on fishing vessels in order to prevent the over-fishing of certain species but since their budget was lower and they couldn't actually afford to pay the monitors they decided that each ship would have to pay for them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._Ra...
The thing about Chevron deference is, it was already limited on its face: it only operated at all in places where the statute is silent or ambiguous, and only commanded deference to "reasonable" interpretations.
If the interpretation in Loper Bright was not "reasonable," the Supreme Court already had the tools it needed to reverse the agency without breaking any precedent. If on the other hand it was reasonable, why should the courts be getting involved?
Removing Chevron simply allows the courts to select their preferred policy outcomes more directly.
I am not a legal scholar, but from my understanding enough that serious cases were filed and fought and made in all the way to the Supreme Court.
In a https://www.scotusblog.com article, Amy Howe quotes the Chief Justice as saying "Chevron deference, Roberts explained in his opinion for the court on Friday, is inconsistent with the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that sets out the procedures that federal agencies must follow as well as instructions for courts to review actions by those agencies. The APA, Roberts noted, directs courts to “decide legal questions by applying their own judgment” and therefore “makes clear that agency interpretations of statutes — like agency interpretations of the Constitution — are not entitled to deference. Under the APA,” Roberts concluded, “it thus remains the responsibility of the court to decide whether the law means what the agency says."
I ought to go read the decision for myself, which I have to this point not yet done. I am not an attorney, but do have a general interest in these matters.
But back to the earlier poster's notes, ATF has been a prime example. They have a history of capricious reinterpretation at the whims of whichever administration is in power. They issue letters to people and businesses that say one thing is okay and then outlaw in without any law changes a decade later. I have never owned a pistol brace, but they stated it was an acceptable innovation for certain applications, thousands and thousands of people relied on that, they issue a rule making comment period and get feedback and then threw all of that out and came out with a final rule that bore no resemblance to the one in the comment period. Then they stand behind Chevron that the courts had to listen to their interpretation. It is legal "heads, I win" and "tails, you lose!"
In terms of 'applying their own judgement' I wonder if this would take the form of agencies still pursuing their normal course of regulation, but courts having the option but not the obligation to defer to that regulation as an expert reference, at which point they are essentially reifying the regulation into case law. I wonder if you'd even get cases designed to lead judges to rule for a regulatory agency's interpretation to get the regulation more firmly established.
Machine guns?
The ATF is simply going on function rather than form. It shoots like a machine gun it is a machine gun no matter what you call it.
That being said, bump stocks are a simple enough concept that banning them is stupid. We should quite our obsession over machine guns--there are few situations where it even matters.
The problem with it going through congress is that it will always be political rather than scientific. The agencies don't do a good job, but a lot of that is because of garbage they are saddled with by congress (think of the machine guns--the basic problem is that the legal and practical definitions are out of sync) and a lot of it is because politics manages to get in anyway.
How about a middle ground: agencies can make rules but they must give their reasoning and supporting evidence--and anyone can challenge such in court. You can't go after the ruling but if you can knock out it's supports it goes away. This would cut both ways--exempt something from a more general ruling and the reason for the exemption can be challenged. (And I'd like to see the same thing for laws.)
> The ATF is simply going on function rather than form. It shoots like a machine gun it is a machine gun no matter what you call it.
The part where it breaks down is pointing at a specific piece that enables automatic fire and calling that piece a "machine gun", even if it's just a tiny piece of metal or a specially-tied shoelace.
Though that's not what the Supreme Court actually held when tossing the bump stock ban: they instead said that a gun equipped with a bump stock isn't a machine gun and that's why the ban was invalid.
The case entirely hinged on the definition of machinegun being a gun that fires more than one shot "by a single function of the trigger" with the majority saying that because you need to keep forward pressure to keep firing, bump stocks don't count.
The aspect of bump stocks being just a part and not a gun wasn't important to the case because the statute is clear on this point: any part that's intended to convert a regular gun to a machine gun is itself a machine gun under the relevant law.
If it carries the "machine gun" ability with it, it's like ... The Enchanted Seer of Automatic Firing.
It turns a 'plain gun' into a machine gun, and there are almost no other ways to do that. So it seems like calling it "a machine gun" is reasonable from linguistic perspective. #wittgenstein
No.
The seers have been banned. I don't think anyone thinks they're not machine gun parts.
What's been going on is the ATF has been going after a variety of methods of circumventing the concept--means of using the recoil to "pull" the trigger without the operator actually pulling it. The result sure acts like a machine gun, albeit an unreliable and inaccurate one. The problem is that it's simply too easy to do, they are fighting a hopeless battle.
My understanding is the same problem applies to silencers--plenty of filters out there that just happen to be of the right size to function as silencers. And there isn't even any reason for the rules against silencers. They aren't like Hollywood, it's still loud but below the threshold of hearing damage.
I don't think the "almost no other ways to do that" part holds up.
Yes, other countries manage. Restricting gun ownership rather than machine gun ownership is one approach.
> agencies can make rules but they must give their reasoning and supporting evidence--and anyone can challenge such in court.
I think that's already true, except that you probably need standing - you need to show you're affected by the rule - to sue. There are many rules around rule-making including against arbitrary rules, guaranteed public comment periods, etc.
I think the machine gun issue is mostly settled. But there is a lot of controversy lately about what is a short barreled rifle (which requires a special federal permit). I don't know the specifics but the laws have been changed after people purchased their guns, such that if they were caught with them they would be in violation of serious gun laws (essentially as serious as having a machine gun without a permit)
There’s always one part I find worth adding about government being ripe for abuse.
Everything is ripe for abuse.
———-
Right now, agencies are the defensive structures. Corporations which own media or parties that are effectively corporations - are the threat.
One of the specific defenses that’s employed by private forces is reduction in trust of agencies.
——
All systems are vulnerable. It’s a question of relative vulnerability.
It's also about dividing power and checks and balances, and the legitimacy of democratic government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Review_Act
"constantly redefining machine guns or pistol braces"
Pistol braces was struck down not on second amendment grounds, but because the ATF failed to comply with the Administrative Procedures Act, specifically failing the logical outgrowth test. They proffered a comment period and then did a switch when publishing the final rule.
Similar shenanigans were afoot with the Trump area bump stock ban, which was ruled against by the Supreme Court itself in Garland v. Cargill. I think that had to do with the agency exceeding its authority beyond what the statute specifically specifies. In laymans terms, the legal details were not ambiguous enough to justify the conclusion that the agency came to stretching the statute through their interpretation.
>There is a move afoot to eliminate all regulations unless they've been specifically passed by Congress. Which is basically incapable of passing anything.
It's hard to argue with this in principal. The rules as law BS has been a band-aid over dysfunction. It needs to go. It'll hurt in the short term but should be more sustainable in the long term. That people will get more angry at congress for doing nothing is icing on the cake.
> That people will get more angry at congress for doing nothing is icing on the cake.
I want to be optimistic about this. In practice it seems that the strategy created by McConnel to block any legislation at all has been doing/tricking the voter really well. As he predicted, credit for anything good goes to the current admin while anything bad also gets blamed on the current admin. I can see a likely scenario where "people getting more angry" will only make this strategy to block everything work even better. I hope I am wrong and the "nuance" that congress exists and isn't controlled by the president will finally get into people heads. I also hope that once it gets into their heads, the conclusion won't be that a authoritarian dictator is needed.
I agree with you: frustrated by a Congress that can’t pass any legislation, the one thing it doesn’t seem like anyone is willing to try is to consider compromises. Everyone seems fully convinced that if only the 50% (or more) of the voters who disagree with them would just drop dead, we could fix everything. And as a result, voters punish lawmakers, who horse trade and negotiate. Even though that’s the only way things used to get done until everything broke 10 or 15 years ago.
Compromising in the current congress:
"Let's meet in the middle" says the unjust man.
You take a step towards him. He takes a step back.
"Let's meet in the middle" says the unjust man.
> It'll hurt in the short term
There are decades of rules in the federal register. How long do you imagine it will take the legislative branch to patch them?
Go skim some of them, and see if you feel the same way afterward:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/search?conditions%...
> It's hard to argue with this in principal. The rules as law BS has been a band-aid over dysfunction. It needs to go.
It's very easy to argue with this in principle. Congress can't be constantly updating every law as new technology or situations emerge. It's much better for laws to set general goals and leave implementation to agencies staffed with experts.
I wonder if building codes should be abolished.
then being a renter would be quite an adventure.
It's very easy to argue against when the people that most want to violate the rules have congress in their back pocket. I personally prefer being actually able to breathe the air and not work 70 hours a week with no benefits.
> There is a move afoot
Who is behind this move? What individuals, and what politicians? By what legal means is this happening? I've literally never heard of anything like this before - without further details, this is just political flame-baiting.
> Who is behind this move? What individuals, and what politicians? By what legal means is this happening?
The supreme court. The removal of Chevron Deference this year means that the courts have given themselves huge amounts of power over any administrative decision that isn't specifically regulated by congress (rather than the prior stance which was to presume that agency decisions were reasonable interpretations of the legislation unless there was clear evidence to the contrary).
Federal agencies now have oversight from the judicial branch. That's a big check on their power.
> now
They always have?
Much less.
Yes. Previously the court had to prove that something an agency did went against the mandate congress gave it, to strike it down. Now it can just strike it down for no reason. This is useful in times when republicans control the courts and democrats control the executive.
This is not an accurate description of that decision.
Agencies no longer get special privileges in interpreting the scope of what Congress delegated to them.
Within the scope of what Congress delegated to them, they still have an much power and discretion as ever.
There was an argument about noncompetes and the FTC in front of a Federal judge recently.
The judge said, "Even as the agency has the power, I don't feel sufficiently convinced by their argument and will block it anyway."
That doesn't sound like they have as much power in their delegated responsibilities if an arbitrary judge says "... and you also have to convince me personally, even though you're entitled to do it."
if Congress wanted to delegate decision making to the judicial branch they can pass laws that do so. they pass a law saying that the agency can make decisions, those decisions should be respected. this decision is right the equivalent of if the courts decided they had the power to block laws that the court thought were bad policy
You should read about the non-delegation principle and why it exists. As Wikipedia says, “It is explicit or implicit in all written constitutions that impose a strict structural separation of powers. It is usually applied in questions of constitutionally improper delegations of powers of any of the three branches of government to either of the other, to the administrative state, or to private entities.”
What you are proposing is that Congress be allowed to abolish its own power, completely destroying the constitution.
> What you are proposing is that Congress be allowed to abolish its own power, completely destroying the constitution.
Who cares if they had that ability? They wouldn't use it.
And even if they did, it wouldn't violate separation of powers.
And even if they did, they could make a new law that takes it back.
Of all the worries about delegation, this one seems like the least meaningful.
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-chevron-regulations...
Chevron is irrelevant here and does not support the argument being made, unless you're moving the goalposts.
You shouldn't assume others are acting in bad faith when the much more likely explanation is you're just not paying attention.
Three major developments from the courts in this direction have been:
- The overturning of Chevron gave courts the power to interpret portions of laws written by subject matter experts, instead of those experts themselves.
- The big questions doctrine has allowed the courts to decide when the legislature has deligated too much power.
- Cornerpost has removed the statue of limitations for challenge policies and rules out in place by agencies.
These together clearly paint a picture. Any policy can be challenged (in any venue, allowing the plaintiff to pick their venue). This allows policies in place for decades to be challenged and brought to the supreme court. The most recent court has adopted the major questions doctrine, allowing them to strike down any policy they feel pertain to "issues of major political or economic significance." (no they didn't define it more than that). Or, if they can't make that argument, they can interpret the law to strike down the policy due to the overturning of Chevron.
We've seen an unprecedented shift of power to the supreme court in the last few years. They're using the disfunction in the legislature as an opening to gain power. Which is scary considering it's a group of 9 unelected people with lifetime appointments.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-dow...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_questions_doctrine
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/corner-post-inc-...
The Romanian supreme court just decided to block the presidential elections. They might have had reasons, but they definitely didn't have the mandate, yet they decided it nevertheless and because they are supreme nobody can challenge them. I'm sure the US supreme court (and more) is warming up to this concept.
You aren't listening. Read about the reasons they did that, before concluding they did it for no reason.
"they might have had reasons, but they definitely didn't have the mandate"
"concluding they did it for no reason"
What?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13771
The politicians on the supreme court and while the case was pretty recent the move to limit it dates back a long time before that
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-dow...
Yes and:
Two (of many, many) books which detail two separate efforts to dismantle our administrative state are:
Lobbying America https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691168016 the history of how Business Roundtable, Chamber of Commerce, et al reacted to The New Deal by transitioning from trade groups to political players.
Democracy in Chains https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Chains-History-Radical-Stea... shares (Nobel winning economist) James McGill Buchanan's role in bootstrapping the Southern flavored conservative movement (libertarian "free enterprise" segregationists reacting to Civil Rights Era and The Great Society).
> By what legal means is this happening?
Article I, section 1 of the Constitution: ‘All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.’
It doesn’t say, ‘Congress may delegate its legislative Powers to the Executive.’ Arguably, the ‘shall’ language forbids that! Article I, section 8 does give the Congress the authority to pass laws necessary and proper to execute its regulation of interstate commerce (among other things), but … it’s not necessary to delegate legislative power in order to execute the law.
Agencies require masters and Phds amongst their experts.
Those people need to be paid, and their services accounted for.
Those outreach and comms programs also need to be handled.
Congress can’t add 300 days into 24 hours. So this is a reading of law kinda like an absolutist readings of a text.
While complimentary, the various policy, legislating, rules making, procedures, and enforcement are distinct activities in the governmental stack.
By necessity, legislators delegate rule making to agencies.
Who do you want determining the precise definition of a kilogram? Congress or NIST?
By necessity, some rules have the force of law. Like how many state's Secretaries of State are entrusted with clearly scoped essential administrivia, like how to run elections.
Do you really want legislators doing the technical and operational evaluation of tabulators?
Of course, precisely where the lines are between various jurisdictions must be adjudicated. That's why we have the courts. IIRC, most cases heard by SCOTUS pertain to administrative law.
How else could our government function?
> While complimentary, the various policy, legislating, rules making, procedures, and enforcement are distinct activities in the governmental stack.
I agree that there are distinct activities. In our system, there are three distinct activities: lawmaking, law execution and law application; they correspond to the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government.
It’s clear to me that regulations with the force of law must be passed by the Congress, while regulations applied within the executive without the force of law may be promulgated by the executive.
> By necessity, legislators delegate rule making to agencies.
I don’t see that it is in any way necessary, and I do see that it is extremely dangerous to a republican system of government. Every member of the executive ultimately answers to a single man: the President. If the Congress enables the President to dictate the content of a law, then that one man is a dictator.
The Founders did not want a king, and the Constitution does not allow one. Again, to quote the document: ‘All [emphasis added] legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress …’ Not some legislative powers, but all.
> Who do you want determining the precise definition of a kilogram? Congress or NIST?
It’s not about what you or I want; it’s about what the supreme law of the land allows.
As it happens, it wouldn’t bother me if Congress set the definition of the kilogram. Why would it bother you?
> Do you really want legislators doing the technical and operational evaluation of tabulators?
Again, it’s not about what I want, but what the law requires. In the case of tabulation, that seems pretty clearly an executive responsibility. The rules for tabulation seem to be pretty clearly a legislative responsibility.
If one doesn’t like that arrangement, then one is free to advocate for changing the Constitution! An amendment such as ‘The President or his delegate may issue a law defining weights and measures’ would work. I think that it’d be a bad idea, because it gives too much authority to one man (imagine if some future president issued a law defining that any use of the meter is to be punished with death …).
Customers should be able to bill them for wasted time. If you are calling to cancel you can bill an hourly rate. Make it some multiple of minimum wage. Then services will pop up to have someone call and cancel for you, then bill the company for that time. Zero effort on the consumer side and suddenly wait times will drop. The problem is that there is no incentive on the company side to have easy cancellation or any other "negative" customer service. If they get billed a hundred dollars for keeping you on the line for 2 hours they will suddenly care a lot.
I mean technically, sure. But isn’t that a bit roundabout? There is no real life reason why unsubscribing should be more than a few clicks of effort. If it takes more than 30 seconds, something has gone horribly wrong. Keep companies to that standard, instead of giving them an opportunity to calculate that precisely 9 minutes of wait time doesn’t cost them much and is sufficient for 70% of customers to give up, or something.
The idea is that this can be extended naturally to may situations. Warranty claims, insurance claims...
If you just add a fine with a threshold it is actually much harder to pick the right fine amount. This way it has some sort of degree of scaling naturally. A small delay is less costly to you than a long delay rather than being all-or-nothing.
I agree that for simple things like unsubscribing a button can be mandated, but for other causes of calls to customer support it isn't that simple.
I agree that the idea generalizes well.
It's really basic contract law stuff.
Here in Sweden, if the amount isn't clearly presented, there's no agreement to pay the specified amount, so there's no contract and no obligation to pay-- an agreement becomes binding because of the reasonable expectation of a party on the counterparty.
I don't understand American contract law, since I even see ideas like changing agreements, which are completely contrary to the very notion of a contracts as I understand it, so it's nice that something is done about these strange practices.
I don't understand how it's come to this point though. That courts have been willing to tolerate things that aren't in the contract (i.e. changes to contracts), provisions that aren't clear, etc., and complex and strange provisions even in contracts of adhesion and things presented to consumers.
Mostly it comes down to the fees being presented at the end rather than at the beginning. You have to follow the process through to the end to figure out what it would cost which makes price comparisons much harder.
Occasionally this is unavoidable--shipping charges. If they simply pass through what UPS charges, fine. Otherwise, they should be listed up front.
Ah, I'm thinking about EULAs etc. where people claim the right to change the agreement at any time etc.
With regard to shipping charges, don't you choose your shipping options and get to see the price before buying?
You do before purchase, but generally not as part of the storefront product listing. That necessitates the seller already knowing where you'll be shipping it to, and that's traditionally the last step before purchase (whether that's best or not I can't say).
Sales tax is also usually added in at the very end, again because it depends on where the buyer is.
The difference here is that the "hidden junk fees" are just extra money they charge, with no real defence. For example, Ticketmaster loves their arbitrary "convenience fee", Airbnb was long known for "cleaning fees" (though they've improved here), etc. These are things that the seller knows they're going to charge beforehand and clearly they do this purely to trick our brains into thinking things are cheaper.
Yes it's before buying, but the problem is that it's after almost everything else.
Dish is terrible. After my mom passed away, they were one of the few things that my Dad had trouble cancelling. Even with a copy of her death certificate, my Dad could not get the service cancelled. He just ended up throwing the bills (and their equipment) away.
Yup, same experience here 3 months trying to make them understand "he is dead".
We left their crap in a room for ~6 months total at the advise of his estate lawyer. Eventually they did accept that he was dead and canceled the account as well as sent a box to send the equipment back.
They got their equipment back after it had all had an unexpected encounter with a hammer. Never heard a peep about it.
I think they went bankrupt, so hope that's some consolation. I heard that an attempt to buy them by DTV got rejected on antitrust. But in the article it said they went bust
Surprisingly, neither Dish nor DirectTV has gone bankrupt. Satellites are pretty capital-intensive. They both faced challenges over the years but have managed to skate by. AT&T kept DirectTV afloat for quite a while. The proposed DirectTV + Dish merger fell apart for multiple reasons. While the government didn't explicitly reject it, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether they would bless it. The deal also required Dish's bondholders to voluntarily write off a chunk of their debt, which they ultimately got cold feet about.
I'm told you can just write the account number to cancel on a brick and throw it through their window. Might be worth a try.
Of course it's controversial.
They do this to increase profits.
A certain portion of the population is pro-profit at virtually any cost.
It might seem like Dish employees wake up every day and say, "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" But usually they're just trying to find ways to make more money.
Dish knows their satellite TV business is on the way out. Their strategy is to maximize the present value of that business by retaining and squeezing as many of those customers as much as possible, slowing the decline and pulling as much money out of that vertical for as long as they still have it, so that they can reinvest that cash into new verticals with more promise.
Re: failing business
To be fair, satellite TV has always been one of these even when it was a healthy business. High cost of acquisition, high commission for sales, high barrier to cancel.
The ironic part of all of this, I would have pay linear TV services if it was cheaper - 50 bucks a month for the whole house, and I suspect they could have 30%+ more customers.
It doesn't solve the problem that "the line must constantly go up". A steady revenue and constant returns isn't good enough, apparently and in the case of dish, it will be declining revenue over time no matter what they do.
Dish profit doesn't scale that way. They have to pay the channels for broadcast rights. More TVs per household means in theory more royalties paid to the networks.
I swear these satellite services could eliminate live tv and go on-demand only using a hard drive DVR style, with maybe 10-20 live channels. Everything else would be a stream that would download and notify you when it was ready. The bandwidth of those dishes has got to be multiple gigabytes per second. They could broadcast everything and the viewers would just opt in to the specific shows or movies they want. Completely switch the business model.
>It might seem like Dish employees wake up every day and say, "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?"
Made the mistake of buying a boost mobile sim this year. It was “expired” upon opening it. Retailer refused to refund it.
Having not learned my lesson yet, I went elsewhere and ripped it open to check the expiration date this time before I bought it.
Well “it’s prepaid for 90 days and comes with 35 gigs” it says on the card.
Go to activate it, it puts a further $100 on my credit card and congratulates me for activating my 30 gig service plan.
Hokey frauds.
Be glad you weren’t on Ting.
What crap did Ting pull on you?
Their aggressive data throttling always rubbed me the wrong way, along with the Extreme data pricing, considering it was on Sprint's terrible network.
> It might seem like Dish employees wake up every day and say, "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?"
Shit flows downhill. Their owner, Charlie Ergan, wakes up every day thinking of new ways to defraud the government with DISH and Echostar: https://nypost.com/2024/03/22/us-news/doj-moved-to-dismiss-3...
I usually complain about his spectrum squatting with DISH, but there's so much more if you dig a little.
I think the GP meant it's not controversial to make the fees more transparent or even ban them. The dish employees (C-suite to be clear) and investors are the only ones who like it.
> "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" But usually they're just trying to find ways to make more money.
But you repeat yourself.
The directors and shareholders, not the employees. They only want to get paid.
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Do you expect there to have been studies done on what percentage of the population puts profit over everything else?
> What does "virtually" mean?
virtually /vûr′choo͞-ə-lē/ adverb Almost but not quite; nearly.
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Click to cancel does not mean exactly what the name implies. It means cancellation must be as easy as signup [1]. In your example, signup is not a click away, so the cancellation process need not be. It’s a very reasonable position.
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/10/...
To be fair, the name "click to cancel" does not, in fact, imply that cancellation must be as easy as signup in cases where signup is not a click away. A name that would better imply that would be something like "symmetric cancellation", or "cancellation parity". However, that would be less catchy to the public than "click to cancel".
> A rule is proposed to require customers to be able to cancel any subscription on the vendor's website.
Except that's not the proposed rule. The way this works in California (and the way the rule the FTC recently published works, I believe) is that a business is required to allow customers to cancel "in the same medium" that they subscribed. That doesn't require anyone to start running a website.
The rest of your post is just arguing against something that's not even happening.
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As-is, it works very well in California. I had never experienced the resistance you imagined during the 3-4 years I lived in California, and regularly cancelled subscriptions that were notoriously hard in other states
California passed the click to cancel law this year. They passed a different law trying to make it easier to cancel subscriptions in 2018. The need for them to revisit it implies that the original one wasn't working.
Corporations act strategically. They typically don't immediately thwart new laws because the coalition that passed them is still intact and would try to do something about it. So they wait a minute, maybe take the time to buy some more legislators, before testing the fences again.
If people have forgotten about them by then you lose, and if people haven't forgotten about them by then, California passes the 2024 law and you lose the other way. Because they pass the new law in addition to rather than instead of the old one, even though the old one has stopped working, so you have a ratchet of ever-increasing compliance costs that also apply to all the companies that were never doing anything wrong to begin with but still have to hire lawyers to evaluate their activities against an entire bookshelf of rules to see if any of them require something they're not doing.
No timers, no human interaction. And if the process takes time (there are times I think confirmations are warranted) once that's been done the cancellation takes place at the time of your original request. (Which you can screenshot.)
> No timers, no human interaction.
Is there something in the proposed rule that actually says this? And if so, what happens to the small business that does cancellations over email/phone and therefore requires human interaction?
> And if the process takes time (there are times I think confirmations are warranted) once that's been done the cancellation takes place at the time of your original request. (Which you can screenshot.)
The issue isn't that you care if the cancellation happens at 9AM or 9PM, it's that if you have to wait twelve hours to speak to a representative you give up before reaching the point you can make the request.
You make the rule such that if you can sign up for a service on a website you can also cancel it said website. Now your hypothetical landscaping company is safe
Are they? A very basic website can easily have a form you can fill to sign up and all it does on the back end is send an email with the info to the proprietors. Even a generic mailto: or tel: link arguably makes it possible to sign up via the website, if tapping the link on your phone to send a message can directly result in a signup. To do the same thing for cancellations you'd have trouble avoiding the need for customer accounts to sign in and connect to a database to list what services they're currently subscribed to etc.
Otherwise people who signed up under the wife's name may try to cancel under the husband's name and you don't know who they are, neighbors who don't like the racket from the equipment see your website on the trucks and try to cancel the service even though they're not the customer because you have no authentication, people want to cancel because they've moved and give you their new address instead of the one they're subscribed under, people make ambiguous or incomplete requests and you don't know what they're asking to do. But if you have to contact them to clarify you're not satisfying the requirement that they can cancel via the website.
A local business with a simple email form isn't going to sign you up without calling you to get more information and make sure you're a real person. That's already setting a precedent that you call them to cancel.
If you can have a signup form you can also have a cancel form.
Agree to both. And both are incredibly easy problems to solve. For the first just have a law that says:
> Any advertised price must include all mandatory taxes and fees. No exceptions.
For the second just have a law that says:
> An end user must be allowed to use the same method to cancel as they used to sign up for the service. No exceptions. Additionally, an end user cannot be required to perform more manual actions to cancel than was required to sign up. No exceptions.
No one should be against this except greedy corporations. Easily solved, common sense rules that already have working examples in the real world. 1 is already the law in Netherlands and Australia and these countries aren’t falling over from the undue burden placed on businesses.
I’ll end with: two cornerstones of a free market are price transparency and the ability/mobility to switch services when a better competing offering emerges. Not having legislation like above to protect those values is anti capitalistic
No normal humans are against those simple ideas. Problem is that congress is so easy and cheap to bribe that humans influence less than a majority of the votes in congress.
But what's a mandatory fee?
Free airfare to Hawaii!
Fee for paying by cash: $1000 Fee for paying by check: $1100 Fee for paying by credit card: $1050 Fee for middle seat: $200 Fee for window seat: $300 Fee for aisle seat: $250
Note that no fee on this list is mandatory because you always have other options.
To me that is totally fine. If there are electives, then elective them. Fix the mandatory ones first. Like the “resort fee” hotels charge. Or “cleaning fees”.
It becomes trickier when the fee is elective, but a significant part of the advertisement. Southwest Airlines complaining about having to advertise their fares, which come with two bags included, alongside other airlines who don’t include any bags comes to mind. I think there is probably some world where elective fees are included as well though this seems more nebulous.
However, let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good: Even just including everything that is compulsory in the base price itself, including taxes, would be a massive improvement to the status quo. Fixing this elective fee ambiguity would be a next step
Did you...actually read what they wrote there?
The (hypothetical) airfare was listed as "free", but it was impossible to end up paying less than $1200 for it.
The point being that even if you have a choice between several fees (making none of them "mandatory" by a narrow reading), you're still paying something beyond the advertised base price.
The logical good-faith rule in a case like this would be that you must advertise at least the minimum price anyone would end up paying based on the available "fee choices".
That's very easily solved: The minimum total price of all possible selectable options is the cheapest price that can be legally advertised. Treat non-viable options that just exist as a false baseline as false advertisement, just like it's already illegal to e.g. send out a flyer advertising TVs for $1, but there's only one available at the other end of the state/country.
It's really not a practical problem in any country that has the appropriate laws. The only thing it takes to fix this is the political will to do so.
I recently ordered cake for $x, with a mandatory selection of "size". The only possible size was "large", which cost an add-on fee of $3. Just make that type of stuff illegal yesterday. Absolutely nothing of value will be lost.
I'd go a little farther and say that if there are impractical scenarios to avoid the fee it still must be included. (Say, no fee if you pay the fare in Timbuktu.) Advertise it based on the 95th percentile of what actually happens.
The ACTUAL solution to these problems that HN always seems to be allergic to (because technicians prefer technical solutions, but humans aren't technical) is to make your court system extremely hostile to "clever" bullshit like this.
This insistence at having EXACT WORDS for things that aren't exact is just naivety, thinking the world is can be divided perfectly into categories if we just make the categories specific enough!
You cannot.
Excellent point. In the end the rules are simply words on paper, they must be enforced. So the exact verbiage is less important. But the lack of ambiguity is extremely important. I'll give an example:
- In the EU, what can legally be defined as a "sale" price (e.g. 20% off till Friday! deals) uses very precise verbiage that states an item must be at a certain percentage higher for a specific period of time (typically 30 days) to constitute a sale.
- In the USA, the regulations basically say that companies should make a good faith effort to not deceive consumers with sale prices. It leaves defining what a good faith effort is as an exercise to the reader (states).
The end result is that you have a lot more misleading price info in the States, since all manner of questionably legal manipulation tactics are used and enforcement of this is lax.
It looks like the price is $1200, as that's the price for the cheapest practical combination of options. An airline could advertise this as $1200.
So what happens when you buy that ticket and don't pay any of the fees? If you get taken to Hawaii then they're in the clear. If they won't take you without you paying the fee then I guess the fee wasn't optional after all.
Buy the ticket how? Look at the fees for paying--you can't actually buy the ticket without paying for it.
Well I think advertising a price that you can't get the ticket for needs to be banned.
> banning it should not be controversial
for many people, any kind of regulation that restricts companies abilities to make money, regardless of the consequences for average citizen, is "wasteful and discourages innovation". Elon would like to get rid of the FTC altogether for that reason, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was set up to help protect users from scammy behavior like this.
so yeah, don't hold your breath for the next 4 years (or longer if Elon manages to buy the next election too)
I revisited Henry Hazlitt’s economics in one lesson and in the chapter on labour unions, he actually is fairly moderate provided that unions stick to non-price distorting policies.
Making wage information more accessible to workers being a policy he- an Austrian School economist- supports.
This government ruling falls under that class of policies IMO. It makes prices much more available to consumers and does not on first inspection threaten to distort supply and demand.
Call once, fail.
Chargeback: "attempted to cancel via phone."
Done.
People should have ensured click-to-cancel was passed before demanding subscriptions outside Google Play and Apple's app stores.
Well, depends which people, I suppose: subscribers or providers...
My preferred way to cancel these types of services is to close or pause the card they're charging. If you use a virtual card service like Privacy.com, this is easy, if you don't, then maybe not so much. But using virtual cards for everything you can is typically a good idea anyway, imo.
But then that becomes unpaid bills and they send you to collections.
You can dispute debt in collections by requesting proof of the debt. The consumer protections in that area (debt collections) are quite a bit more developed than any consumer protections about intentional procedural inefficiency when cancelling service.
If you never actually took the steps to cancel your contract won't they be able to prove your debt via the existence of a non-cancelled contract?
The purpose is to take advantage of the sloppiness of the debt collection industry. They are designed around tricking financially illiterate people, harassing poor people, and lying.
When they buy a debt, they rarely get comprehensive documentation.
you will end up with damaged credit. The only negative on my credit report is from a verizon phone I bought from a verizon store (actually ended up not being Verizon owned store,) which i returned within the 7 days return fee, even paid re-stocking fee. But which the store credits me for having returned it later than I did, which allowed Verizon charged me 1 month service fee, which I never got a bill or email even though verizon had both, until it showed up on credit as collection. Nothing I did could get it off.
You can probably avoid this—or, rather, cover your ass legally—by doing something like sending them a letter registered mail informing them that you are cancelling and will be blocking further payments.
It's far from a good solution, but it should at least put you in a better position vis-a-vis the courts if it comes to that.
Suddenly waiting on the phone for 45 minutes doesn't sound so bad, unless proving a point is your main goal.
Actually there is another option. Make a complaint to your state's Attorney General's Office. They usually have a website for filing consumer complaints, and AGO will contact the business, and the business is usually responsive when contacted by AGO.
How does this work? Do you provide the AGO with your name, phone and address? Subscription details?
Yes. Here's the Texas AGO's web site, as an example: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/fil...
It certainly takes less that 45 minutes to send registered mail. There are even online services to which you can upload a PDF or document of your message. I have done this on numerous occasions.
For some people, being on the phone for 45 minutes (and what guarantee is there that you'd actually get to talk to them after 45 minutes?) during business hours is simply not an option. They would have to take time off from work, which a) might not be allowed, and b) if allowed would certainly reduce their pay.
Furthermore, there's an entire category of people for whom "talk on the phone" is not an option, period. If they wanted to cancel by the approved method, they'd not only need to take that time themselves, they'd need someone else willing to take that time with them.
Simple anecdote, but when I paid a medical bill and they still came after me and sent it to collections, I contested the bill and told the collection agency that this is not my debt. Never heard from them again.
This might practically achieve the desired outcome, but do note that just not paying does not extinguish your debt to anyone you have a valid contract with.
I've seen Americans living in Europe get bitten by this quite frequently in some countries, where sending something to collections is both commonly done and the collection agency will successfully take you to court and win in almost all cases even for pennies.
On the other hand, the EU has had "two-click cancellation" regulations for a while now, so there is a better alternative available for both sides (customer and company).
Even simpler, file a dispute with your card issuer. Dish will pay the chargeback fee and block you as a customer, but I'm sure you don't want to be their customer again, so that's not a problem.
What dispute reason would you give? Usually card issuers will ask you if you've made any attempt to settle the situation with the merchant.
If you misrepresent that you have and they are just ignoring you, you might practically get away with it, but do know that that kind of misrepresentation might get you into trouble some day.
If however the merchant is actually unreachable for a bona fide cancellation request, that's totally on them.
> Usually card issuers will ask you if you've made any attempt to settle the situation with the merchant.
"I attempted to reach them via phone on or about _____, ___. No remedy was achieved."
The reason you would give is exactly the reason the OP gave, that Dish was deliberately not reachable for cancellation.
Yeah, the solution to that is to mandate accepting cancellations via a single click (or preferably even email, since it shouldn't be my problem if I don't remember my account details when I want to cancel).
Disputes should have been the backstop to incentivizing the market to making cancellations easier, but things apparently didn't pan out that way. So arguably, the free market has had its chance, and it's time for regulations.
Only in America
Why is a law needed to address this? Isn't the market supposed to adjust for companies like this?
Because of the existing laws that allow companies to harass you if you don't pay what they think you owe them. Not to mention all the laws like copyright which prevent free competition in many spaces.
In a truly free market cancellation would be implicit by no longer paying.
We have hundreds of years of examples of the blessed free market failing to do exactly that.
If the free market had it's way we'd still be under the yoke of Standard Oil and Ma Bell.
One key element of a free market is the "well informed consumer". How is the consumer supposed to be informed about what new cutting edge chemicals are toxic, for instance?
For the hundreds of years of examples, we have not had an interconnected network with information available to almost every human on the planet.
Information is good, but it doesn't automatically imply that you have an actionable path in getting what's legally yours. Besides that, the Internet hasn't nearly eradicated the inherent information and attention asymmetry between consumers and companies employing people full time to make sure they end up on top for every interaction you have with them.
Consumer protection regulations, especially those regarded trading and credit, cast a very long shadow (ray of sunlight?) you're possibly unaware of, but still immensely benefit from.
Obviously there are diminishing returns and unintended/negative effects to consumers too sometimes, but throwing protections out completely in favor of a "pure free market" doesn't do these asymmetries justice.
Not a free market project. Funded by the US military.
Poe's Law truly is a terrible thing.
Precisely. The overarching HN view, although it's not a monolith (so the viewpoint isn't shared by all), is that the free market solves for all things and regulation by the government is largely a waste of taxpayer money that could be going to other things worthwhile (roads, military, police).
I guess you mean the taxpayer money that the taxpayers are currently paying, against their will, towards unwanted subscriptions that they haven't managed to cancel.
I think the idea is that one day you too should found a startup that will provide services that are difficult to cancel.
The problem with click-to-cancel is that there should be confirmations built into important cancellations.
But require it to be practical to do online, with no delays and no requirement about when relative to renewals.
Dish outsources sales calls to a third party. This third party doesn’t have access to customer accounts so they have to send you to an actual Dish call center. Not as nefarious as you think but still frustrating.
You can always cancel any contract by certified mail.
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The woke ideology wants to add all of this nonsense regulation and make it hard for real entrepreneurs to generate value in the wonderful system of capitalism. /s
P.S. this is also a good summary of every all in podcast episode post election
An excellent change. It's unfortunate that stewardship of the committee will soon change hands as Khan has been a great advocate for fair contracts between companies and consumers during her tenure.
Indeed, Khan has been the first real pro-public steward of the FTC for decades.
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meh, her changes are good and empower every day consumers.
I vastly prefer Khan over judges that don’t care and act partisan.
I think she's done such great work on the administrative side of things with junk fee bans, etc., but I feel like she has also burned an enormous amount of taxpayer money on lawsuits that don't have value (like suing Meta for acquiring the tiny VR fitness company).
It feels like she's just against any acquisitions by large companies, and I think that's both too broad of a stance for the FTC to take (as opposed to really looking on a case-by-case basis of whether consumers would be hurt by an acquisition) and also harmful to new companies being created, since suddenly an important option for exits is a whole lot less likely as large companies hesitate to be acquisitive.
Lawsuits are one of the few enforcement mechanisms the FTC has.
Of course, not disputing that, just saying that I think she uses that enforcement mechanism in a way that is more harmful than helpful to American consumers and the to the economy.
Tangential, but I was looking into this yesterday and couldn't find the answer:
How does her term work?
Seats on the FTC are supposed to last for 7 years. She was nominated in 2021 and her term technically expired a couple months ago. Apparently she gets to remain in it until a replacement is appointed.
Has she just been filling in the remainder of someone else's term, like Laphonza Butler as CA Senator?
FTC terms work like that, a replacement for a commissioner who leaves mid-term only gets the time remaining on the original appointment, not a new full 7 years. But they also can hang on past the nominal end date until a successor is actually confirmed.
The prior chairman, Joseph Simons, had this same seat that Khan has now, so for him his term was also nominally set to expire September 2024. He resigned when the administration changed over in 2021.
This whole new fantasy that billionaires know best for consumers is quite concerning.
The idea that these institutions, like FTC, are bad for consumers, and this new blind faith that things must be deregulated because the market will solve it for the better is going to be interesting.
By the way, when things turn bad, it's we who will pay the price again for this deregulation, not billionaires. It's like people are choosing fantasy and magical thinking over History... 2008 wasn't that long ago.
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You're right that businesses might roll fees into the base price, but that’s the point: transparency. When all costs are upfront, customers can more easily compare prices between competitors. Hidden fees make price comparisons difficult and misleading.
Take airlines, for example—if one shows a $200 ticket and another shows $180 but sneaks in $30 of fees later, the second one appears cheaper. By requiring prices to reflect the full cost upfront, businesses compete on the actual price rather than deceptive practices. This won’t magically lower costs, but it will force clarity and reward companies offering genuine value.
Consumers should have a clear picture of what they’re paying, not a surprise at checkout. Isn’t that just fair competition?
Yes! Markets work better when deceptive price signals are not inhibiting price discovery. When deception is not rewarded.
There's still a lot of benefit to seeing the prices up front vs. fees which are added on later. It can be a frustrating experience to realize that something you think is affordable is significantly more expensive once you make it to the checkout screen.
For example, I've been booking a group trip lately, and I found that the sticker prices for some things didn't include many fees, so it was more of a hassle to actually get accurate quotes. At the same time, the companies which were providing these prices have an incentive to hide fees, because that's what all their competitors are doing – they have pressure to be competitive both at first glance and at checkout.
With a level playing field, these fees should be incorporated into the total price across competitors, allowing for easier cross-shopping. I'm excited to be more confident I can quote what I see initially vs. going through a checkout flow.
So which is better? Ticket price shows at a price of 100 dollars upon checkout you get a ton of fees and it balloons to 140 dollars. Or ticket price shows as 140 dollars you can choose to buy it at said price or not no surprises later in the checkout process.
If prices are perceived as high from the moment someone searches for it they may be more tempted to check elsewhere or opt out.
Some ticket sites won't even show you the fees until you create an account.
1. I'm not convinced by this argument, airlines compete on list price. If they can add a bunch of fees after winning on list price, they can move more and more of their costs into the fees and are no longer competing on the real price.
2. Let airlines compete on transparent pricing. I think this alone is enough of a benefit to this move.
They do. On the other hand, I'm typically exempt from a lot of the airline add-ons for various reasons.
Airlines are probably not the best example. A lot of people probably want cheaper airfares even if it means less/poorer service in a lot of ways.
But it should be as transparent up-front as possible. Even if infrequent travelers may not always understand the details.
I think airlines are a great example because the fees are often actually paying for something materially different.
When purchasing concert tickets recently I got a "mobile convenience fee" for an e-ticket even though the venue doesn't operate a physical box office. A recent hotel had a "resort fee" that was not opt-out even if you didn't use the amenities it allegedly paid for. These kinds of BS fees should go away.
Non-opt-out resort fees and facility fees and the like are especially annoying. They're also (presumably deliberately) a small enough portion of the total amount that they're not really worth getting into a big lather about.
I think we're agreeing. While a lot of airline fees are nickel-and-diming, they're also over and above transporting people from A to B, in many cases for as little money as they want to spend as possible.
These days they’re not that small. I recently paid $20+ in fees for a $60 face value concert ticket.
Booking fees for events are probably especially a large proportion and annoying.
I think that's all we want. To know the cost upfront so we can compare choices efficiently. We don't expect businesses to lower total cost, just be more cooperative and less exploitative in communicating it.
The higher price will be displayed up front and affected companies will have to compete on the real pricing.
Personally that's all I'm asking for. Transparent pricing. It amazes me how far business will go to to just hide how much they want to charge me.
Recently in California, restaurant have been great at making their prices as difficult as possible to try to figure out.
Ignoring your last sentence - I'm well aware. These changes increase price transparency and that's something we all benefit from. Junk fees are a way to exploit psychology and ignorance to extract more money out of consumers than they'd like to pay.
I'm okay with things being expensive - I'd prefer if they weren't but that's the way to the world - I'm not okay with things being expensive and companies advertising them at a far lower price.
That is fine because then someone decides to buy something based on what it costs. The status quo is that some company decides to backload the cost with hidden fees and then all competitors need to follow by doing the same or they will be "undercut". This is just bad for consumers because it makes it very hard to determine what they are paying for something and how to compare it with other prices.
That's fine. Just tell me the price up front.
You're defending hidden fees?
Free markets depend on information. Facts. Not lies.
Let's be honest here.
The people that claim to support "free markets" really just mean they support corporations being free to do whatever the hell they want.
Many people are confused.
A free market needs regulation to maintain competition. Companies dislike competition because it lowers profits, and will do what they can to avoid competing on a level playing field. Like adding hidden fees.
I think really there are two types of "free market" supporters.
The first is what you're arguing, a version that includes "free of monopolies" in the definition. A market full of competition. A market that has no choice but to serve their customers to the best they can because otherwise a competitor will take their customers.
The second are the anarcho-capitalists. They have the naive belief that corporations that do bad things will be punished by the market, making regulations unnecessary and stifling. To them, if one business is winning due to deceit, then the blame lies in the customer for being deceived. They think the decision that leads to the most profit is the best, side-effects be damned. They're insufferable and would gladly destroy the planet for an extra 5% profit on their quarterly reports.
I get the impression you haven't thought about this very hard.
Cool. Come over here to Europe and tell us how expensive our you pay what you expect concert tickets are.
Naive shilling for the capitalists doesn't get you anything, except more expensive concert tickets that is.
So let me ask you one question. Who do you think will pay more:
1. the person who sees all the costs upfront
2. the person who at the end of the deal will see additional fees
please tell me it is 1 and tell all of us how it is you "who understands basic economics"
As a free market fan, Khan seems to have been pretty terrible.
But this looks genuinely good! It's basically banning fraud.
---[EDIT], since everyone is asking for reasons here are two libertarian/conservative critiques:
• https://reason.com/2024/11/07/good-riddance-lina-khan/
• https://archive.ph/IjNmZ
As a pro-market fan, Khan is great.
Pro-market: pro-market advocates for policies that enhance competition and market efficiency. Understands that god markets are made. Pro-market advocates believe in creating conditions where businesses can compete fairly without undue advantages from government favoritism. Government regulation can be essential to correct market failures and promote a level playing field.
Free market: and ideological stance where markets are without government intervention. Belief in ideal world where market failures don't exist and if they exists that's a good thing.
>Free market: and ideological stance where markets are without government intervention
no, markets without government intervention are called "laissez-faire" markets. There would be no need for that term if that's what free market meant.
> There would be no need for that term if that's what free market meant.
I'm not following here: are you suggesting that given any two different words, it is impossible for them to refer to the same thing or mean the same thing?
no, I'm saying free market does not mean laissez-faire
There was a time, long ago, when libertarians opposed initiation of violence and fraud.
That was probably before the internet was invented. These days, a typical online libertarian opposes all government action as violence, but when you mention fraud, it's like: "but who decides what is or isn't fraud? if the customer signed a contract, it was their revealed preference to get scammed..."
I mean, I agree that Khan is the best possible option, but I disagree that pro-market isn't ideological.
Where the free market fans see child slavery and sexual slavery and rejoice (free to make any contract you want to after all), the pro market people believe that if you just put enough guard rails on it, greed will magically turn into a force for good.
Obviously I also have an ideology, but at least I'm honest enough to not pretend that capitalism (or communism/anarchy) are naturally occuring, instead of simply a choice we make.
Why do you describe “free market” as being ideological, and “pro-market” without those terms? Both seem equally ideological (or not).
Idealist: "the free market is perfect!"
Realist: "the free market has flaws, which can be addressed by..."
Replace "free market" with anything you like
The realist might be an idealist that is seeing inexistent flaws tho
They most likely aren't idealist, as that isn't a requirement. Anyone who's smarter than a potato can notice some of the more glaring failures (even if they don't understand the mechanism behind it).
Then that's not a realist, by definition.
> accepting a situation as it is and being prepared to deal with it accordingly.
or
> representing a person or thing in a way that is accurate and true to life.
That's the point, a wrong realist.
Very true.
The definition of realist has flaws...
Everything is ideology to some extent, but not everything is ideological to the same degree. The beliefs that a level playing field is good and that winning by means of political favoritism is bad are almost universally agreed on. Almost all political philosophies, including various shades of socialism and communism, agree that markets are needed to some degree if only for price discovery.
Republicans have made the term ideological a negative one. Sure, the dictionary definition is to relate to ideology; but in practice (especially when talking politics) it implies one is picking a worse option because it aligns with their ideology. So their claim above is one is picking free markets due to ideology, whereas another would pick pro markets because it's actually the best solution.
Because they are against one and for the other. Pro markets means whatever policies they agree with, which is of course how all broken highly regulated markets begin their run.
Those are pretty weak sauce.
The Reason piece is lazy drive-by snark. Calling the anti-trust standards of the 20c "hipster anti-trust" is just a-historical. Blocking consolidation of national chains is hardly some crazy innovation. In fact, it was Bork who was the rebel introducing the stricter "consumer harm" standard. People might argue which is the appropriate standard -- the one invented during the 1890s to break the most powerful trusts in history, or the one invented by a Regan appointee in 1980 to replace it. But the Reason snark does nothing except claim it.
At least the WSJ makes an actual argument about consumer harm. Unfortunately, their argument is: there has been so much consolidation in distribution, we need to consolidate retail to increase their bargaining power to balance. Given the geographical nature of grocery shopping, consolidation is likely to reduce consumer bargaining power further. That the WSJ fails to acknowledge the obvious fact that the greater power of a merged entity would act on both sides of the market is bad-faith.
> Khan seems to have been pretty terrible
to the contrary, she's great for free, competitive markets
she's just not good for winner-take-all M&A investors, and _that_ is a good thing
the average American - and even the average investor - will not benefit from her departure
Khan has been absolutely spectacular for the free markets. Transparency in pricing (with this law), transparency in cancellation of subscriptions, blocking acquisitions where businesses should fail.
The free market shouldn't allow monopolies, or duopolies to form. Bad businesses should fail, not absorb more capital and continue scaling.
Her policy changes have been countlessly shut down/overturned by courts since she's overstepped her authority.
> Her policy changes have been countlessly shut down/overturned by courts since she's overstepped her authority.
We have a dysfunctional Congress that can't/won't legislate to fill gaps that emerge over time with new circumstances. Someone will step in to fill those gaps. Sounds like you'd prefer to have corporate execs do so, focused largely on their stock prices, bonuses, and promotion prospects — cf. paperclip-maximizing AGIs [0] — than to have a citizen-advocate do so.
[0] https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/squiggle-maximizer-formerly-pa... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence
that should tell you she is doing the absolute right things :)
What do you mean? Minimising monopolies is how you keep the free market competitive.
I hope they reply. This is the first FTC in a while to try and get the free market "free" again, rather than captured.
Free competition should mean that you don't get punished for winning. There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly. Imagine Schwarzenegger being banned from Mr Olympia or Gretzky being banned for life from minor league ice hockey. So that the other competitors are given a fair chance of winning.
But every sport punishes competitors who are cheating or being unsportsmanlike. As it should be in the marketplace. But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly". While always turning a blind eye to rampant fraud and scams that are in the marketplace everywhere online and offline.
> There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly
Almost all North American sports have a player entry draft, where the weighting is based on your success. The best teams (eg the Detroit Red Wings of the 90’s and 00’s) are given garbage draft picks, while the bottom-feeders (eg the Edmonton Oilers of the late 00’s-early 10’s) are given (the opportunity for) superstars. This is clearly a punishment for doing well, and a reward for being terrible.
Most sports have a salary cap to prevent being able to buy your way to success. They recognize that having more money than your opponent gives you an unfair advantage and destroys competition.
It's funny you bring up Schwarzenegger, as his last Olympia win was mired in controversy for being almost certainly rigged.
Did he cheat? No, everyone used a similar amount of steroids. But to anyone with eyes and a basic knowledge of the sport it's overwhelmingly obvious that the organizers and judges threw it in his favor because of the attention it would bring.
Which is the issue when an entity becomes too big to fail. There is a power disparity that is virtually impossible to overcome as the leverage is so much that any opponent can be swat down with ease.
Things such as:
- leveraging economies of scale when dealing with suppliers and resources to the point of starving access to competition
- using lobbyists to write legislation in their favor or blockade opponents
- doing fuck all with no reservations, then pay out lawsuits and fines at an order of magnitude less than profit made and damage done
The economy is not a sport to be won. I think you are maybe prioritizing a some notion of fairness to those competing in the market, while to someone like Khan the thinking is more, how can we make the market function in a way that provides the biggest net-benefit to society?
This. The market should be working for us human beings, not the other way around.
I'm not an expert on these things, so I'm asking in good faith; what significant anti monopoly policies have been enacted in the US in recent history?
That’s because business isn’t an abstract activity that doesn’t affect anyone’s real life.
Okay, what about art? Should we punish and limit the most successful artists to give other people a chance?
No, because see above.
Art affects people's real life profoundly. For example TV shows alter the behaviour of entire generations of people.
> But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly".
This is a provocative claim. Do you have any examples?
It is repeated on the level of gospel here on HN that Apple is "a monopoly", and nobody even flinches at the absurdity of that claim.
That’s not in this thread, though, and it usually gets a lot of pushback.
Give us some examples of gigantic "winning" companies that haven't been engaging in cheating or unsportsmanlike behavior.
> There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly.
Constantly winning in a competitive environment with no runaway feedback loops[0] is evidence of cheating.
See also, casinos: the "legitimate" ones don't rig the game - they know the odds; they expect you to win something here and then, but if they see you winning consistently, they'll rightfully assume you're cheating somehow, and ban you from the venue.
> But every sport punishes competitors who are cheating or being unsportsmanlike. As it should be in the marketplace.
Marketplace isn't like sportsball. It's like war. On the market like in war, anything goes. The only people who can afford living under delusion of market sportsmanship are people who are already so well-off and safe they can treat it as a game; for everyone else, it's a matter of life and death.
> But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly".
The market isn't some divine ball game, or a magic ritual. It's a feedback system, with known failure modes. Wrt. monopolies, in particular, any good profit-seeking actor will aim at becoming a monopolist in their market segment, because that's how they can maximize profits while minimizing effort. At the same time, the market serves a critical function in organizing human society - but that stops working when monopolies pop up.
It's really very simple: all the goods and services and advancement we enjoy require market players to be actively putting in effort. To society, an entrepreneur is basically a donkey with a pole mounted to it, from which there hangs a carrot, just out of reach - the donkey just wants to grab the carrot, but the society only benefits when the donkey is chasing it. The donkey needs to believe they can win, so it keeps running, but it also can never be allowed to actually get their prize, because then it'll stop. That's why markets are regulated as to let people and companies grow and accumulate winnings, until a point, past which they'd stop participating (or worse, just go screwing around breaking things).
I.e. it's not about punishing someone for winning - it's about preventing them from complete victory, because then they become useless to society.
> While always turning a blind eye to rampant fraud and scams that are in the marketplace everywhere online and offline.
Who's turning a blind eye to it? Fraud and scams are the base state of the market; it's what it decays to if left to its own devices. Regulations are there to counteract this tendency.
--
[0] - Feedback loops like compounding interest. In sports, unlike in the economy, you can't just reinvest your win to get more wins, and then reinvest them in turn, until you're winning so much so fast that no one can ever hope to catch up with you.
> Constantly winning in a competitive environment with no runaway feedback loops[0] is evidence of cheating.
Right. How did Usain Bolt cheat? How did Michael Phelps cheat? How did ABBA cheat?
> any good profit-seeking actor will aim at becoming a monopolist in their market segment
Of course. And then hackers redefine the market segment to encompass that businesses product and ta-da, you have a monopoly. Like Apple.
If we're talking about real monopolies, then I couldn't agree more. But what hackers and the EU are doing is redefining monopoly in a dishonest way because they have personal grudges against a company.
> The donkey needs to believe they can win, so it keeps running, but it also can never be allowed to actually get their prize, because then it'll stop.
Here's something to blow your mind: The donkey enjoys running. Or let's take a real life example: sled dogs. They love pulling the sled. Entrepreneurs love working and love competing. Those who don't love it usually pull out of the game with their profits way before they have even national impact.
This is a huge divide in attitude I've seen everywhere in the world in my life. You have category X of people who see all kind of work as an immense suffering. They complain endlessly, do the minimum effort, and never get anywhere. And you have category Y of people who love working, because it's doing something productive and learning. That doesn't mean that they're satisfied with being abused wage slaves. Rather it is the first category who never advances in life, because they think it's all a scam. People in the second category also fail a lot because they take chances. But they usually get up again.
> Who's turning a blind eye to it? Fraud and scams are the base state of the market; it's what it decays to if left to its own devices. Regulations are there to counteract this tendency.
All governments and law enforcement seem to be turning a blind eye to it. About 50% of advertisements on Facebook and Instagram are outright scams, ie physical products from brand names that are advertised at bargain prices and if you "buy" it you will not get delivery because it is an outright scam. US and EU governments should fine Meta billions of dollars for having their main source of income from organized crime and fraud. But they are focused on completely irrelevant crap like app stores. Talk about sieving mosquitoes and swallowing camels.
Personally, I think she's for the free market. She is progressive, which is controversial, but I don't really see why non-billionaires run to the defense of big tech when their monopolistic status is scrutinized.
I totally understand why billionaires do, on the other hand. Worth watching Reid Hoffman embarrass himself on Jake Tapper on the subject of Khan recently for those interested
Because people have been conditioned through the media to believe that once the Billionares get taxed, you're next.
We're at an unprecedented levels of wealth inequality in America. Billion dollar businesses built on tax payer money, should contribute to the system. Instead we've designed a system where these companies would rather pay millions of dollars in campaign contributions and to lobbyists.
HN is full of people who think they will one day be the billionaires scamming people.
Ah, Reason.
The paragon of good and sensible arguments like, "Legalize Insider Trading".
This author has not written one of those pieces, but she is in good company with the ones who did.
I well mm used to like reason a while ago but this is laughable. The article does not show how or explain why or in which manner she affects consumers.
It says that she has been bad for them but there is no proof of this.
Instead it makes quite a comical attempt at trying to vaguely point at the sky and say she is evil or overreaching, but she is not and anyone whoa actually wants a free market can tell you that. I honestly just cannot understand what happened to Reason I checked some more or their side articles and wow the quality has dropped to a level that would make the NYT blush.
The article is pretty clear to me.
The main complaint is that the Khan FTC by default is against all mergers and acquisitions.
This is different from the previous standard that only mergers that harm consumers are bad. So now even mergers that benefit consumers are blocked.
That is an a-historical claim. That standard was THE standard from 1890-1980. The consumer-harm standard was the innovation of Bork under Regan in 1980.
Free markets - you know freedom isn't free right? You have to enforce it - and you do this by regulation.
Please name some of the terrible parts
EDIT: to make it easier here's a list of actions from perplexity:
Here are more explicit actions taken by the FTC under Lina Khan's leadership:
Lawsuit against Amazon (2023): The FTC filed a landmark antitrust case accusing Amazon of monopolistic practices in its online marketplace and Prime subscription service.
Meta (Facebook) lawsuit (2023): The FTC sued Meta to block its acquisition of virtual reality app maker Within Unlimited, citing concerns about monopolization in the VR market.
Microsoft-Activision merger challenge (2023): The FTC attempted to block Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, though it ultimately failed.
Kroger-Albertsons merger: A U.S. district court judge ruled in favor of the FTC to block the proposed $25 billion merger between these two major supermarket chains
Nvidia's acquisition of Arm: The FTC sued to block this merger, though it's not explicitly mentioned in the search results
Amazon's acquisition of iRobot: While not explicitly mentioned in the search results, this is another high-profile merger that the FTC has challenged under Khan's leadership.
Enforcement against data brokers (2022-2023): The FTC took action against several data brokers for selling precise geolocation data that could be used to track people's movements.
Zoom settlement (2021): The FTC finalized a settlement with Zoom over allegations of deceptive security practices.
Right to Repair initiative (2021): Khan's FTC unanimously voted to ramp up law enforcement against repair restrictions that prevent small businesses, workers, and consumers from fixing their own products.
Made in USA labeling rule (2021): The FTC finalized a new rule cracking down on marketers who make false, unqualified claims that their products are Made in the USA.
Penalties for fake reviews (2022): The FTC imposed multi-million dollar penalties on companies for using fake reviews and suppressing negative reviews.
Action against "dark patterns" (2021-2023): The FTC has taken action against companies using deceptive design practices known as "dark patterns" to trick consumers.
Increased use of Penalty Offense Authority: The FTC has revived its Penalty Offense Authority to seek civil penalties for violations of FTC administrative orders.
Ban on hidden junk fees: The FTC announced a rule requiring companies to show full prices for items like hotel rooms, concert tickets, and sporting events upfront, rather than hiding fees until the end of the checkout process
Changes to merger review process: The FTC has altered principles, practices, and policies of merger review that had been in place for decades
Expanded scope of enforcement: The FTC has taken a more holistic approach to identifying harms affecting workers, independent businesses, and consumers, with a focus on addressing power asymmetries and unlawful practices
Rulemaking changes: Chair Khan has orchestrated wholesale changes in FTC rulemaking practices and policies
Proposed ban on noncompete clauses: The FTC has proposed banning noncompete clauses in employer agreements
Increased focus on data privacy: The FTC has sued multiple companies for allegedly sharing customer data and warned about the "hidden impacts" of advertising tools like third-party tracking pixels
That's a pretty good list of things the FTC deserves credit for, in my book.
Literally the best government person we have had for competitive markets in decades
The hidden fees is what turned me off from AirBnb...
Because it would display the nightly rate as $X.
But then at checkout, it would add in "house cleaning fees" etc (which I don't dispute is a fair fee to include) but it at times can grossly misrepresent what your true nightly cost is when searching.
Maybe this will be a step in the direction like Telco's have had to do with creating simplified & standardized "nutrition labels" for pricing.
On AirBnB just check the "Display total before taxes" box on the search results page.
Not including fees in the nightly rate makes sense as some are fixed rate, and having the option to see the cost for the total stay (including fees) solves the problem.
In EU, you see the total and per-night inclusive all of fees and taxes when searching and comparing.
If you search for an area without dates, it comes up with some arbitrary dates and applies the fees and displays per night cost accordingly.
So it's technically possible. They just don't want to.
That's still not the total!
It can be done. Marriott show the total including taxes. Mind you, this was as a result of a legal settlement, so they get no credit.
I think it’s country dependent.
At least on booking.com it depends on what settings you have.
ironically a lot of people take issue with the cleaning fees as the hosts tend you require you to clean up before you leave
That's correct. Why am I paying them for the privilege of cleaning up after myself?
We all know it is a scam fee. People wouldn't be as mad over a hold on some amount (usually returned) insuring the host against an egregious sloppy mess.
I'd be interested to see whether a movie theater is considered an event. Our local one charges a convenience fee when buying online because ... they can?
I wish they banned all mandatory add-ons. If I don't have the choice it should be part of the base price.
The touristic railroad near me advertises a price, and then slaps on a mandatory Fuel Surcharge and Historic Preservation Fee.
Excuse me? How can I compare what I'm going to spend my money on if you're just allowed to lie to me?
Sidenote on fuel cost:
Fuel is almost back to pre-COVID costs https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=e...
and once you add in inflation it's even cheaper.
> How can I compare what I'm going to spend my money on if you're just allowed to lie to me?
You're not supposed to, that's the point. It's frankly shocking (and also not, but you know) how much businesses in America are allowed to bullshit you.
I signed on with a telco for high speed internet when we bought our house for $65 a month and by the time we got fiber and I could finally tell them to kick rocks, the bill had soared to nearly $200 for the exact same service over the course of 4 years. Why? Because they can, and go fuck yourself.
A hotel stay for a vacation was supposed to cost $851, but they demanded a $300 pre-authorization on top of that. Why? Because they can. I wasn't notified ahead of time, absolutely nowhere was this information given to me. And I could take that on fine, but why is this allowed? What if I wasn't so fortunate and was traveling by air, do I just sleep in a box because the hotel can't guarantee I'll be able to pay for $300 worth of room service I have no intention of buying?
I feel like this just happens everywhere now, I just expect it. I expect to get fucked over in one way or another, and on the one hand I'm sure it's my anxiety, but on the other hand there is so much expensive arbitrary nonsense that's just plunked down in front of me, and yeah, most of it I can handle fine, because I work in tech and make good wages. So I guess just fuck everyone who grew up at the income level I got, because I am fucking sure that my single mother trying her hardest as she was, wouldn't be able to get by if I was born like 15-20 years later than I was.
Edit: Oh and FUCK every politician who has ever farted out words something like "responsible consumption of healthcare" because sweet Jesus, healthcare billing is an utter nightmare. I don't think I have EVER, EVER in my entire life had some kind of medical event where I knew the costs going in that were then reflected afterwards. It's just all made the fuck up on the fly with no respect for the patients, when they are already stressed out and scared.
> You're not supposed to, that's the point. It's frankly shocking (and also not, but you know) how much businesses in America are allowed to bullshit you.
There's actually an administrative code in Washington that furniture (and maybe other) stores are only allowed to have a "Going out of business" sale _once a year_.
We could use one of those where I live. There was a furniture store off the side of the highway that over a period of like 4 years had at least 12 of them, and then would just change it's name each time.
Never bought anything from there since it seemed so incredibly sketchy. Then at last it went out of business properly and a U-Haul took over the space.
when you buy a ticket online, you are actually buying an option on the ticket, because you can go in and refund it at any time before the movie starts. the “convenience fee” is the option premium.
it would be fairer if this were opt-in. Some e commerce sites now allow you to pay a few extra dollars to have free returns, something similar would work for movies.
No, this is complicating things. A physical ticket can also be refunded prior to show time. It's not an option at all, it's just a fee. They are charging you to 1) pick your seat 2) not have to show up early 3) peace of mind knowing your spot is reserved - all of those things are conveniences in the purest sense of the word. In many cases, the fee is more closely related to a platform fee going to fandango or similar service.
i guess it's technically true that you can go to the movie theater, buy a ticket, and then get back in line to refund the ticket and leave, but this seems like an odd thing to do.
whereas buying a ticket in advance online, and then later refunding it (but losing the convenience fee), is common. "peace of mind knowing your spot is reserved" is what i mean by an option on the seat.
now maybe i'm in fact wrong and all convenience fees are exactly passing through the credit card/fandango fees etc., but in practice it sure looks like an option.
I think the "convenience fee" of online purchases is about the fact that if you want to buy a ticket days before showtime, you don't have to get a physical ticket at the box office in person.
Not necessarily that I agree with it though -- in many parts of the world you have no such fees when you buy a movie ticket online.
I'd categorize that under my "2) not have to show up early 3) peace of mind knowing your spot is reserved" points.
I don't necessarily agree with them either. It seems mutually beneficial to the venue to allow me to buy tickets digitally. It made sense maybe 20-25 years ago when the move online was a significant update to the then status quo. Now, it's just a revenue stream they don't want to give up that consumers see as the status quo, so why remove it? (from their perspective)
Maybe some places operate that way, but I worked on payment systems for a few years and since then I figure most convenience fees come from credit card processing rates being passed on to the customer - at least that's how ours worked.
https://www.creditdonkey.com/interchange-rates.html
They should ban hidden taxes too. The sticker price should be the final price.
I remember shopping in Japan.
The price on the tag, is exactly what you pay (same with services, like hotels).
Since this is Japan, it's a high price, but no surprises.
Also, the service is amazing, and they won't accept tips. If you leave money on the table, they will chase after you, to give it back.
> Also, the service is amazing, and they won't accept tips. If you leave money on the table, they will chase after you, to give it back.
I visited Japan some years back and loved this aspect of the culture as well. An Australian ski guide (this was a winter visit) explained it like so: "the Japanese attitude is to want to do a good job by default. Tipping implies that a good job is only done because of pay. The Japanese see quality service as intrinsically valuable in itself."
I believe that servers are also paid quite well.
Quick Google search says the average is $7.55 USD/hour (1,159 Yen). Seems like they're paid quite poorly.
Might be more to that story. Remember that Japan is a very socialized country, so CoL expenses are not what they are in the US.
I have a friend that basically shops as part of her job. She has been power-shopping, mostly in Europe (dream job, I suppose), for decades.
She tells me that she runs into the same sales associates, year after year, and has watched them “grow up” over years.
So it seems to be possible, at least in Europe, for people to make lifelong careers in the service industry.
Most retail workers in Europe don't make a career out of it by choice. I can tell you that for damn certain.
That actually goes for most jobs.
HN folks are privileged. We have careers that interest us, engage us, and reward us.
That's not the norm, in this world. I'm grateful for my career. I know quite a few folks that make excellent money, doing jobs they hate. In my mind, that's kind of a nightmare.
https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/icon_uk/11800056/855574/8555...
That's fantasy. The same thing is true in China. All it means is that the local culture doesn't tip.
Japan does have a well known “customer is god” cultural background; whether or not tipping has anything to do with that is here or there, though it is the expectation that if someone does a job, it is expected not to be half assed.
One of the big differences between here in Japan and other parts of the world I’ve visited and lived in, is the near absence of service staff who actively make a point of looking like they hate their life and treat you like crap, though this is slowly changing here too.
This kind of reply is what makes me want to quit HN forever. There's always somebody out there smarter who knows better. Why bother to try and contribute anything?
Yes, contributing mythology is in fact worse than contributing nothing.
This is geek internet. Suggesting that anything about Japan is less than peak perfection is controversial.
Same in UK.
As a kid, having grown up in the UK I knew that if the price label said £1.99 and I had £2 in my pocket I could afford it, with £0.01 change. First time I went to the USA as a young teenager I remember being quite embarrassed when the thing I thought I was getting for $1.99 was actually not $1.99 but $2.17 or whatever, and I had to leave without buying. Felt quite deceptive and totally incomprehensible.
> Felt quite deceptive and totally incomprehensible.
In the case of sales tax, it's deliberate propaganda. "Here's what we would have charged you if it weren't for greedy old Uncle Sam."
Propaganda? How is telling where your money is going is propaganda?
I have done a fair bit of travelling. The US is the only place I've been where the price shown is not the price paid. Adding on tips, and it becomes nigh on impossible to know how much something will cost you upfront. It's ridiculous tbh
Japan has the exact same sales tax rate(s) across the entire country, and it rarely changes. In the US, we have thousands of different rates and they change multiple times per year.
Also, while it is the norm in Japan to include the tax, there are some exceptions.
(Japan has 2 rates, 8% for certain items like food, and 10% for everything else).
Brick and mortar stores know exactly how much tax they have to pay, yet they don't show an all-inclusive price. It's clearly not a case of online retailers just not showing the tax because it's difficult. If they wanted to they could let you give your post code before checking out, and query the same database to show the post-tax price for everything.
Really, you expect them to go through every item in the store, multiple times per year, and update the price tags?
Aside from silly "sales-tax-holidays" I've never heard of the sales tax rates changing so frequently. I'm curious to know where this is happening "multiple times per year". Here in MA it's been the same rate for 15 years. And for the sales-tax-holiday situation can't a shop just say something like "everything will have x% taken off at the register" just like they would during a typical "10% off all items" type of sale?
If MA has a single rate across the entire state that hasn't changed in 15 users, they are very different from how most other states operate.
Here in Texas you will nearly always be paying the maximum 8.25%, its been that way for 30+ years.
Same here in PA. 6% for basically everything besides non-prepared food and a couple other categories which are tax exempt
Around me most stores change their price tags weekly, if not more often. They either have a sheet with new tags or a small printer and scanner and they swap out the tags on the shelf.
With price increases over the last couple of years from inflation, retailers have shown they are more than capable of doing so already. So yes
Price increases don't hit every item all at once.
What do you think all the people collecting a paycheck in a store do? Stand around and look pretty?
Have you ever heard the term "Fronting"? In most stores, employees are required to individually ensure each and every item on the shelf is organized and pulled to the front for optimum display. They do this sometimes multiple times a day. In busier stores, you will have to restock high volume items multiple times per day.
The technology for digital pricetags has been cheaply available since the first kindle in the late 2000s. Most companies have avoided spending the money on buying them because the cost of labor in America is cheap enough that you can just have the normal employees do it every day. Digital pricetags are only now becoming common. Mostly because store companies are trying to figure out a way to charge you a personalized price that takes as much of your money as possible.
> In the US, we have thousands of different rates and they change multiple times per year.
Yet at any given moment, every proprietor is miraculously able calculate the taxes due at the point of sale. The variety of tax regimes, and the fact that the amounts change doesn't impact the ability to calculate the final amount due.
> In the US, we have thousands of different rates and they change multiple times per year.
Where in the US do the sales tax rates change so frequently? I've never seen this.
My guess is that the comment means there is always some minor tweaks to tax laws, so that tax on certain products could change, and that may happen a few times a year. I don't think it means sales tax rate changes on all products a few times a year.
There is a caveat -- if you count the "sales tax holidays" in various US states, it means in those places, tax rates for some products change at least twice a year -- from 7% to 0% then back to 7%, for example.
That's a good reason to include the tax in the price in the US. How would consumers know how much they will pay otherwise?
I'm not sure Japan is the best example here. My experience is that most shops have the price excluding consumption tax printed very prominently in large numbers, and then price including consumption tax is printed in much smaller writing underneath.
The price excluding tax is the only one you can read at a distance, that draws you in. As someone from the UK who is used to seeing price tags show the final price you pay at the till, I was constantly disappointed that items weren't quite such a bargain as I'd first hoped.
On the whole there are still many things that are much cheaper than in the UK though :)
I have a feeling that's optional. It may even be regional. My experience was almost exclusively Tokyo.
I traveled to Tokyo for over 20 years, and always paid what was on the sticker.
I was told that the tax was included in the price.
I remember one of my bigger purchases, was a ¥75,000 Oceanus watch, and that was exactly what I paid.
If you go to a donqi the price tags list without the tax besides small text that either lists the full price or says "+10% consumption tax" or along those lines.
As a tourist you don't always have to pay the consumption tax though.
I have a feeling that you're right.
I remember the saleswoman asking to see my passport, when I was buying the watch (it was that big department store in Akihabara).
There was a period of a few years where they raised the sales tax in steps 5%, 8%, 10%, and stores were allowed to show the price without tax during that period, which has left some practices a bit messy since.
I believe this is the default for most of the world. Some countries have some strange differences like Argentina having a table charge on your bill, but here in Australia, the price on the box is the price at the till, with the exception of the card surcharges which are currently being reviewed to be removed.
The exception here is also the holiday surcharge (an extra fee on holidays and Sundays), which has to be "disclosed" before ordering. Usually there is a small sign somewhere that nobody pays attention to.
This is the norm in Europe.
It's crazy to me that in the US I can never be sure how much I'll end up paying...
The price part is essentially the same all over the world except for America, where you’re not entirely sure how much more you’ll have to add for taxes and tips.
> The price on the tag, is exactly what you pay (same with services, like hotels).
That's the norm, not the exception, in developed countries.
No -- it's the norm in countries that have a single uniform VAT.
It's obviously not the norm in countries that have sales taxes which vary by locality.
Whether a country is "developed" or not has nothing to do with it. The vast majority of countries in Africa have a VAT, while the world's richest country has a sales tax.
> It's obviously not the norm in countries that have sales taxes which vary by locality
Why not? If each store or restaurant or theatre or whatever in each locality know what price to bill you, they know the applicable price to show you upfront.
> Whether a country is "developed" or not has nothing to do with it. The vast majority of countries in Africa have a VAT, while the world's richest country has a sales tax.
The relevance of developed or not is how much of the economy is informal or includes a part of negotiation.
> Why not? If each store in each locality know what price to bill you, they know the applicable price to show you upfront.
Because it makes state-level or national-level advertising of prices impossible. Or even local-level in many cases.
> The relevance of developed or not is how much of the economy is informal or includes a part of negotiation.
No it doesn't, where are you getting that? Feel free to browse:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country
and Ctrl+F for "informal" or "negotiation". There are a lot of indicators of developing vs developed countries, but your idea is most assuredly not one of them. Also, sales tax vs VAT has nothing to do with an informal economy or price negotiation either.
> Because it makes state-level or national-level advertising of prices impossible. Or even local-level in many cases.
In large countries like Canada, and I would imagine the US, you probably don't want to advertise prices nationally. The cost of goods to will be different for a business in Vancouver and Southern Ontario compared to the Atlantic Provinces. Never mind small towns in remote communities connected to the road network, such as Northern Ontario. Especially never mind small towns in remote communities that are not connected to the road network.
> Because it makes state-level or national-level advertising of prices impossible. Or even local-level in many cases
Hardly impossible, just slightly less easy ("available for $X* (pre-tax)" / "starting at $X").
And are seriously claiming that ease for advertisers takes precedence over ease of use and pricing transparency for consumers?
> and Ctrl+F for "informal" or "negotiation". There are a lot of indicators of developing vs developed countries, but your idea is most assuredly not one of them. Also, sales tax vs VAT has nothing to do with an informal economy or price negotiation either.
Thank you. What I meant was that the only reason it might not be the standard in some developing countries is that they might have more informal economies with more negotiations involved. Literally the only legitimate excuse. But when that's not the case, from Morocco to Sri Lanka to Uzbekistan, price is shown upfront, everything included.
Except for the one with the largest economy.
No sales tax in Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon.
And that's not a point of pride now, is it. If you're the best but others are clearly beating you in a few categories, that's more reasons to improve to try to be the best everywhere, not put your hands in your ears and pretend nothing is wrong.
And Canada!
Congratulations on living in a country where there are many people who are vastly richer than you.
Except 100 yen stores which are actually 110 yen stores.
If you're talking about sales taxes, they can't until you input your shipping address. Because they depend on where you live.
Nobody's trying to fool you by not including sales taxes. There's just no way to show them in advance, unless you want to start typing your address and zip code into every shopping website before you even browse.
In the EU, the site guesses the location based on the IP, writes "Delivery to Denmark [Change?]" and shows prices with Danish VAT.
If I'm signed in to the shop from making a previous purchase, they will use the location of the previous purchase.
If Denmark has just one sales tax rate or VAT, then maybe that can work OK for Denmark.
But this isn't about Denmark -- it is about the US.
In the US, there are over 13,000 different sales tax jurisdictions, and each one of them may have a different tax rate.
I wish the best to anyone who would ever be tasked with sorting that out with any semblance of accuracy using IP geolocation databases.
Maybe not have 13000 different sales tax jurisdictions?
Just a thought...
It doesn't really work like that, though. Sales tax is up to the states to sort out how to deal with on their own, and there's 50 of them.
Nationally (or as some may prefer, "federallly"), the sales tax rate is already zero -- and has always been zero.
> Sales tax is up to the states to sort out how to deal with on their own, and there's 50 of them.
To add on for any else trying to figure out the 13k number from this statement.
Counties can also apply their own additional taxes.
Cities can also apply their own additional taxes.
On top of just that, the cities and counties can set different taxes in the same area, such as a sugar tax or an alcohol tax or even a pre-prepared food tax vs groceries. It gets complicated fast.
it can get really easy: just don't let this madness sprawl out of control? :)
per state, I understand the tax. set it per state, and be done with it. maybe split it in some % with the city (I don't know if cities directly get a portion of it already or not?), so it's a win-win.
Maybe that works. I have concerns about IP geolocation databases being able to pin me down to a particular state, but maybe.
But even assuming "good enough" IP geolocation exists: In order for this to be implemented both uniformly and nationally, we'd need a new constitutional amendment that would grant the federal government the ability to regulate how sales taxes work within states.
Because right now, we have this: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The federal government doesn't need to legislate sales tax, just require it to be included in the display price. For physical stores this is trivial. For online stores geolocation + manual override works well enough elsewhere. Number of sales tax jurisdictions is irrelevant - either companies deal with it like they deal in areas with many smaller countries or they lobby their local city / state to fix the mess.
Take a good guess and let the user type in their zip code?
Zip codes are for postal routing, not tax rates.
Items I order at home are subject to a 7.25% sales tax rate.
My neighbor across the street (our front doors are maybe 80 feet apart) pays 6.75%.
We both live in the same zip code. We both live within the same city. We both live in the same school district. We each live in two different counties.
(And up the road a bit, a third county is involved instead.)
This seems less like a defense of pre-tax prices and more like an indictment of a thoroughly ridiculous tax system.
Not at all. I'm really not trying to defend anything here.
It is my considered opinion that it is all quite resoundingly fucked.
Enter your county then? Dunno enter something to differentiate.
That seems simple, too.
But some cities have their own sales taxes in addition to (or instead of) county sales taxes, so county alone isn't good enough.
Besides, there's literally 30 different counties in the US named "Hancock".
(If this were an easy problem to solve it'd have been solved a long time ago.)
---
I think we're already back to where we started, wherein: In order to display an accurate sales tax, we need to know the address, city, and state of the buyer.
Yes bc in the EU there is national VAT. In the US there is state and local sales tax. You can and will pay different sales tax between cities in a given state.
You can do this, albeit slightly less reliably, in the US as well. The geolocation isn't perfect, but you could easily put "With delivery to XXXXX [edit]" where XXXXX is a zip code you geolocate off an ip (or lookup in a user profile for a recurring user).
The zip code is not fine grained enough to identify tax jurisdictions in many places in the US.
A lot of sites, for example Amazon, don't update VAT until checkout, even if you set "Ship to [country]" when searching. Then the price suddenly jumps.
Yes, because my IP address doesn't give them a way to calculate tentative taxes? My IP can be used to serve me ads, but not serve me actually relevant information?
There's a very small % of traffic that actually uses VPNs
Correct, it doesn't. IP geolocation is nowhere near precise enough.
Remember, sales tax isn't something big like state-level. It's literally town-level, including tiny towns. Two sides of the same street can have a different sales tax.
Not to mention all the extra rules, such as individual clothing items under $110 being exempt in New York.
It somehow works almost anywhere outside of NA? It's really not a crazy concept - estimate it based on geolocation and say "more exact will be available once you enter your address". The problem is, that genuinely negatively affect the sales because people see the true price of things.
> estimate it based on geolocation and say "more exact will be available once you enter your address".
I appreciate this can be done and countries in Europe do it, I just don't see how this is any better at all than status quo:
* Current State: we all know the quoted price doesn't include sales tax, which will be added to make the final price in checkout after we enter our address.
* Final State: we all know the quoted price will likely change during checkout, when we see the final price after we enter our address.
So we make things more complicated for vendors, and we make it not just acceptable but required that vendors use our IP addresses for geolocation, only to give us a maybe-right-maybe-wrong final price. Does anyone feel scammed by not having tax included on the price in the listings of Macy's online store?
The only reason why status quo is there because people are less likely to remove items from their online shopping carts once they've added it. There are techniques and shopping check out flows that have been perfected over the years to drive up the online sales. Realistically, it won't move the needle for the people who are on this forum because of the average salary (a few dollars are usually not a big deal for us), but it can be a make it or break it choice for a good chunk of customers.
I'm not sure why one wouldn't want to know the real price before the checkout. It's a bit baffling to me. It could be a cultural thing as well, then I guess, there isn't really a right or wrong way of looking at it.
> I'm not sure why one wouldn't want to know the real price before the checkout.
Because you'd never actually know if it's the final real price or not until you entered your address! That's the entire premise of my objection, was that not clear?
If we want to talk about displaying final price for my confirmed shipping address then yeah, I'm all in for that.
> I'm not sure why one wouldn't want to know the real price before the checkout. It's a bit baffling to me.
It's just that, in the list of things I'd like fixed about the world, that's about dead last.
When you're used to sales tax being added at the register, it's not an inconvenience. Who cares.
Fair, I guess it's a cultural thing then. I absolutely have no idea what other municipality's taxes are the second I get out of mine. I wouldn't want to randomly predict whether it's 10, 12, or 15%.
> The only reason why status quo is there because people are less likely to remove items from their online shopping carts once they've added it.
Sure, in a world where the actual sticker price is displayed. Do you believe this will remain true when customers have to add items to the cart to get the “real” price?
That's literally how it works everywhere else...? For example, when I go to amazon.jp, even without logging in, it will show you tax included prices once you enter your postal code.
Ok I see what you mean now. On an ecommerce site this works but I don't see how it can be done in advertising.
Apparently they can track you to the nearest 5m 24 hours a day, figure out that your teenage daughter is pregnant and replicate your likeness and voice perfectly - but when it comes to sales tax its an intractable problem.
I believe you are referencing the famous Target case. As I understand the dad was angry that Target was sending baby-related coupons to his teenage daughter.
Finding out your teenage daughter is pregnant based on her shopping is easy. It’s actually harder not to notice. “Customers like you also bought” is an effective algorithm because people are mostly the same. Pregnancy has some very specific and unique needs which create a strong signal.
Nobody is in a shady back room poring over chat logs and GPS coordinates looking for pregnant teenagers. It just falls out of the sysem.
That's a non-sequitur unless the question being considered is specifically whether a data hoarder like Google should build in estimated sales tax in their store vs "a random shopping cart from a retailer I've never interacted with before".
I've been working at FAANG for the past 10 years, so this made me absolutely chuckle!
I can totally image a PM somewhere calculate the negative bps for this and call the experiment a failure!
Yeah, I totally get you! I've done exactly this work for semi-B2B company where it clearly showed the sticker price effect and we ended up removing the taxes from it. Unless it's legislated, it's obvious the way the companies will go.
> It somehow works almost anywhere outside of NA?
Is North America unique in allowing local municipalities to set their own taxes?
> It's really not a crazy concept - estimate it based on geolocation and say "more exact will be available once you enter your address".
That’s exactly what happens now, except the advertised price is actually correct instead of an “estimate”. I have an intuitive sense for local tax. How can I know what method was used to compute this estimated price?
Out of my head, if I recall correctly, Australia, Japan, Denmark do local municipal taxes as well (some are more flat than others).
Anyways, all I was saying that it's a solved UX problem, and the reason why you're not getting full price is because A/B testing has shown that when customers see the complete price, they get a shock and less likely to buy the item. This doesn't have much to do with websites caring about some edge cases that they'll somehow won't be able to give out exact price to you. In the worst case, the shopping websites could ask you to enter your postal code and show all prices with the tax included price.
So are estimated prices being advertised in Australia, Japan, or Denmark? Why is North America uniquely susceptible to A/B testing?
Municipal taxes are not an edgecase in the United States at least. They’re very much the norm, especially in telecommunications.
Because according to Japanese law, in most of the scenarios, the full price, to your best ability, has to be presented to the potential customer. Same goes for Australia, if I recall correctly. No clue about Denmark, I'm sorry. But assuming it's similar over there as well.
It's not that NA is the only one susceptible to A/B testing. It's more of a - it's-grey-area-to-illegal to not show full prices outside of NA.
Yes. Source: https://www.nta.go.jp/taxes/shiraberu/taxanswer/shohi/6902.h...
I agree, there are a lot of cases where they don't show the full prices. Especially in the recent years when they've been changing the consumption tax rapidly, and allowing shops to have some leeway. But online prices, almost everywhere, include tax. Even Shopify forces JP merchants to display them while selling in the area.
Huh, I find that very surprising. Are the estimates gamed at all? Is there any rule around how accurate they have to be?
You just put your postal code and it shows all prices according to your municipality, it will be as exact as you can get. Just go to amazon.jp, it should have a text input somewhere for your postal code to calculate the tax.
In terms of gaming, hmm… I guess, you could add wrong municipality’s taxes when you show the original price, and switch over at the checkout. But my assumption is that would be deemed illegal, as you are knowingly misleading the customer. Some in person stores still try a bit to mislead you by putting the full price in smaller font (like including the consumption tax), and exclude it over it in the bigger font. But I can still accept that, as I am informed about the full price somehow.
Ok well obviously if you have the address the correct calculation can be made. That’s consistent with the behavior in the US.
What is displayed for price before you put in postal code? What price do generic banner or TV ads display?
My guess is approximate (average?) tax. I'm currently outside of Japan, by default Amazon shows me the price in Yen and says it can't deliver to me. When I put down the postal code in Tokyo, shows the same amount. Probably takes the biggest city's tax rate when it can't determine it through geolocation.
What about billboards or banner ads? When an ISP in Japan wants to advertise their service do they include a price on the billboard?
What you describe sounds like the same thing that happens in the US. So what's special about Australia, Japan, and Denmark as you stated earlier?
Why wouldn’t they? Major ones are electronic, and you know the areas you are putting up your ads in, so you include the tax in it. You go to the store, sales tax either included in the price, or written in smaller font with the tax included price.
It actually happens in NA for specific industries as well! If you buy a flight from Google flights without making any additional purchases, you will get the sticker price because airfare display is regulated to a certain degree. Except in Japan and other countries, almost all display prices have to include local taxes. It’s a solved problem, but there’s no political appetite for it in US/Canada because it will hurt the sales.
Not sure how telco taxes work in Japan but it would be impossible to advertise an accurate tax-included price in my city because not all the residents of the metro area have the same tax structure. Zip code isn't enough. The full address is required. So TV and print advertisements are pre-tax. I don't see how it could work any other way.
Yep, where I currently live based on IP geolocation I would be quoted incorrect state sales tax 100% of the time. Though it's sort of the perfect geography to be problematic (Vancouver, WA side of the greater Portland, OR metro area spanning a sales tax/no sales tax state boundary).
I live in Mississippi and my geo ip used to say New York City.
I will take the blurb which says taxes are an approximate calculation based on web browsing data available, vs, no taxes shown. We're gate keeping good features for large % of users over some edge cases.
So currently they correctly advertise the pre-tax price but since that’s not the correct total price your proposal is to display an approximate price which is also not the correct total price. I don’t see how this reduces ambiguity.
It's gonna be a much better ballpark number than the before-tax number is in almost all practical scenarios. So yes, I do think that would be a massive win compared to the status quo.
Unless you live on the border of Oregon or Montana. Or in a city.
I live in a city, and I have no idea how much the total is going to be before going to checkout right now, so arguably that wouldn't be a change for the worse.
This is at a merchant that, to say it lightly, has some prior knowledge of me and even has a drop-down menu to let me select the shipping destination out of my saved ones.
So far, that's only used for determining shipping times and availabilities – so why not also display amounts post-tax?
On an ecommerce site where you already selected your destination sure, the total can be displayed in some cases. How should volume discounts, coupons, and shipping incentives be handled?
What about a grocery store on the Oregon/Idaho border? Idaho charges sales tax to residents but that can be waived with an Oregon ID. Should this be reflected in the advertised price?
And what about billboard or TV advertisements or even banner ads on a webpage?
> How should volume discounts, coupons, and shipping incentives be handled?
I don't care, to be honest. If the merchant knows I can definitely get the cheaper rate without jumping through extra hoops, I don't see a problem in showing the lower price.
> What about a grocery store on the Oregon/Idaho border? Idaho charges sales tax to residents but that can be waived with an Oregon ID. Should this be reflected in the advertised price?
Wow, really? Fascinating/frustrating! There's always one more layer, I guess. Maybe... show two prices then? (I've seen this in duty free stores: Sometimes there's a "with international boarding pass only" price.)
> And what about billboard or TV advertisements or even banner ads on a webpage?
That seems like a case where I'd be fine with the net price being displayed. And yeah, I realize that then all other stores would be screaming unfair discrimination because people will compare the competition's flyer price to the in-store label price and everything...
Maybe the only solution really is to simplify the horror that is US sales tax, and that's obviously never happening. Think of all the jobs in tax preparation and software...
> I don't care, to be honest. If the merchant knows I can definitely get the cheaper rate without jumping through extra hoops, I don't see a problem in showing the lower price.
But that discount is contingent on what you might add to your cart in the future and the shipping options you choose. Items can have complex interactions when purchased together. This isn’t just tax. It’s shipping, discounts, gift wrap, and coupons. All of which are taxed and possibly at different rates. You have the luxury of not caring. The merchant doesn’t.
> Wow, really? Fascinating/frustrating!
That’s a tame example. If I buy a car in Oregon where there’s no sales tax I still might have to pay Washington use tax to get plates. This is still the case if I buy the car in Miami, or Toronto. So how does advertising work in that situation?
https://dor.wa.gov/forms-publications/publications-subject/t...
> Maybe the only solution really is to simplify the horror that is US sales tax, and that's obviously never happening. Think of all the jobs in tax preparation and software...
Our complex tax codes are not a conspiracy to create jobs in tax prep. The right to levy our own taxes was a primary motivation of the revolution. In our system of government power is decentralized. That means individual states, counties, and towns can charge their own taxes.
Say my city votes to provide free residential broadband to residents and fund it with a telco tax on private ISP service.
“Simplifying” the tax code by just not allowing the city to do that is literally antithetical to our society. It’s an undermining of the laboratory of democracy.
That may sound hyperbolic but “I find this complexity confusing” just isn’t a compelling argument for kneecapping our democracy.
Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler.
> This isn’t just tax. It’s shipping, discounts, gift wrap, and coupons. All of which are taxed and possibly at different rates. You have the luxury of not caring. The merchant doesn’t.
But that's already the case today. I see the price per item, not counting any potential bulk rebates or optional coupon codes, as it's not a priori clear what else I'll buy. On the other hand, sales tax can always be calculated per item sold, as far as I know.
> Say my city votes to provide free residential broadband to residents and fund it with a telco tax on private ISP service.
> “Simplifying” the tax code by just not allowing the city to do that is literally antithetical to our society. It’s an undermining of the laboratory of democracy.
That argument does make some sense to me, but there are many other types of taxes cities and states could levy other than sales tax, which is extraordinarily complicated as you've demonstrated.
> Our complex tax codes are not a conspiracy to create jobs in tax prep. [...] Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler.
I agree, but also given the incentives here, I'd be surprised if that industry wouldn't put up heavy opposition if anybody seriously campaigned to simplify sales tax while avoiding the reduced autonomy/decentralization you mention. I'm all for avoiding Chesterton's Fence, but taking that way of thinking too far can cement the status quo beyond what's useful and resonable in many cases.
> But that's already the case today. I see the price per item, not counting any potential bulk rebates or optional coupon codes, as it's not a priori clear what else I'll buy. On the other hand, sales tax can always be calculated per item sold, as far as I know.
That’s fair. I guess I just don’t see the value in displaying the per-item tax when there’s still a bunch of other unknowable charges. But I agree, as far as I understand it would be possible to show the per-item price with sales tax.
But my experience with tax is that it’s always more complicated than you expect, even when you think it’s more complicated than you expect.
A higher price is more accurate than the pretax price
> A higher price is more accurate than the pretax price
Well, no, it isn’t. Consider the Oregon/Washington border. An IP could bounce around there. Oregon has zero sales tax so the pre-tax price is literally correct for Oregon residents. Adding estimated tax will be less accurate.
Similarly I could live in unincorporated King County such as White Center and not be subject to Seattle tax while still being subject to King County and Washington tax even though the other side of the street is Seattle.
There’s a sugary drink tax in Seattle. The border is Roxbury. There’s a 7/11 on Roxbury in White Center. Should a 7/11 sandwich board on the Seattle side of the street across from that 7/11 advertise the price with or without that tax?
Gate keeping what?
You know where you live, you know what your local sales tax is. The current system works fine.
It works ok-ish. It works significantly better in almost every other country in the world. Yay for status quo bias!
> You know where you live, you know what your local sales tax is.
No, I in fact don't know, because I have better things to do than to keep up with what my city and state have extended sales tax to this month, what carveouts exist ("no sales tax on unhealthy snacks except ice cream" and stuff like that) etc.
And there is absolutely no excuse for in-person stores that do, in fact, have perfect a priori knowledge of all of this.
Or, just get rid of sales tax anyway. It is the 2nd or 3rd time the same money has been taxed, depending on how you view it, and it's pretty ridiculous that a person with $100 in their bank account (post-taxes) still does not have the equivalent of $100 of purchasing power.
It’s the transaction that is taxed, not the money.
By your logic I shouldn’t have to pay income tax on sales because my customers already paid income tax. We could simply the whole thing by just making dollar bills worth $0.66.
> By your logic I shouldn’t have to pay income tax on sales because my customers already paid income tax.
People often believe that because something has been for a while, it must always be so. Not too long ago we didn't have sales tax (introduced in the 1950's), and things were fine.
You are taxed on your income, and you are taxed on your expenses. If you invest that money or do anything productive with it, it gets taxed again. That's such a ridiculous idea - pick one and stick with it. Make it whatever percentage it needs to be, and that's it.
When someone looks at their bank account - that ought to be the final word on how much purchasing power that individual has. It shouldn't be handwavy minus 7-12%.
Mind you, that's 7-12% in addition to the 20-30% you already paid.
Only the income on the investment is taxed though. The capital isn’t double taxed.
I’d love to abolish regressive sales taxes and return to 1950s level progressive income tax rates. You have my vote.
Progressive income tax is also silly. Just because you earn more money than someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government.
The idea of "Paying what you can afford" is BS everywhere it's been implemented - from school tuition to soccer camp to taxes. Everyone feels burned and like the "others" aren't paying what they should be.
Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credits, no so-called "loop holes"... nothing. Every citizen pays the same percentage (whatever it needs to be).
The incumbent tax apparatus would never allow us to have something so simple, though.
For a nation that got it's start in no small part due to being over-taxed, it's very interesting to see just how much tax shenanigans we tolerate today.
Our philosophies differ.
> Progressive income tax is also silly. Just because you earn more money than someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government.
I think "pay what you can afford" is fair because the only way to make half a million dollars (or more) a year is to disproportionately reap the benefits of society. Marginal income tax is fair in the sense that everyone does pay the same. Your $11,001st dollar is taxed the same as everyone else, just like your $578,126th dollar. If you don't want to pay the highest rates then take advantage of deductions (aka incentives aka loopholes) and invest in creating jobs.
> Everyone feels burned and like the "others" aren't paying what they should be.
I definitely don't feel this way and I am happy to pay my marginal rates. I just don't think they go far enough.
> Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credits, no so-called "loop holes"... nothing. Every citizen pays the same percentage (whatever it needs to be).
Do you propose a flat income tax or a flat wealth tax? Should capital gains be taxed as income?
> For a nation that got it's start in no small part due to being over-taxed, it's very interesting to see just how much tax shenanigans we tolerate today.
My understanding was that the issue was lack of representation or ability to levy local taxes but I admit my knowledge of that point in history is weak. The America of today is certainly different from revolutionary times. I would say it is better.
> disproportionately reap the benefits of society
This is where we fundamentally disagree.
You buy products because you want/like them. The people who make them are not disproportionately reaping benefits of society - they are reaping benefits of creating productive and desirable products.
This view flirts with the idea that people "extract" wealth from the public, and that people are taken advantage of and/or manipulated into buying things.
> I definitely don't feel this way and I am happy to pay my marginal rates. I just don't think they go far enough.
People universally feel the government (local, state, federal) overwhelmingly wastes their tax money - yet so many people demand others pay more of their earned income to this uncaring ineffective machine. Tax receipts will never be enough for the government, and some people will continue to advocate plowing more of other people's money into the dark abyss. That's madness.
> Do you propose a flat income tax or a flat wealth tax? Should capital gains be taxed as income?
I propose a straight flat income tax percentage, without any deductions, credits, anything. While the percentage is fixed, the dollar amount obviously scales with income. Things like capital gains are solved this way by taxing the actual income you generated from the investments.
I'm making up numbers, but say it's 20%. No matter if you earned $1 of income, or $1,000,000 - you pay 20%.
I think a person who gains $10,000,000.00 a year should be paying a higher tax than someone gaining $20,000.00 a year because a person can’t personally create $10,000,000.00 of value in a year. Or even $8,000,000.00 of value. The only way to do that is to own a disproportionate slice of the American economy. When money moves value is created. The incentive should be to spread that wealth out, not to concentrate it.
A flat tax of 20% would be ruinous to the poor and lower middle class. That can’t be sustained without an enormous increase in income or some guarantees around living expenses.
If I understand your definition of flat tax then capital gains would be untaxed as well so the wealthiest would pay even less.
I understand the ideology. Taxes should be simple and equal. I just don’t think that ideology is worth defending. The price is too high when the benefits are so unclear.
> because a person can’t personally create $10,000,000.00 of value in a year. Or even $8,000,000.00 of value. The only way to do that is to own a disproportionate slice of the American economy.
This is a very problematic view of the world, and is not in line with reality.
The people who earn $10MM a year make decisions that impact the lives of thousands (10's of thousands, or 100's of thousands) of employees. They are usually also directly responsible for millions of dollars in salaries every month.
The myth that executives running a business don't earn their pay is silly.
> A flat tax of 20% would be ruinous to the poor and lower middle class.
Also not true even a little bit. Most of the lower and middle class already pay more than 20%.
> Progressive income tax is also silly. Just because you earn more money than someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government
Ok...
> Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credits, no so-called "loop holes"... nothing. Every citizen pays the same percentage (whatever it needs to be).
Flat percentage? A flat percentage means that if you earn N times what someone else earns you pay N times as much tax as they do.
But you just said a couple of paragraphs earlier that just because you earn more money that someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government. If that's going to be the basis of your tax policy shouldn't the tax be a flat amount?
A flat percentage means exactly that - everyone pays the same percentage. Everyone derives the same value from the government, ie. the same percentage of their income.
Let's say the flat percentage is 10%.
Alice makes $10 million/year, so her tax is $1 million/year.
Bob makes $20 000/year, so his tax is $2 000/year.
Alice and Bob get the same benefits from the government so what is the justification for her tax being 500 times as much as Bob's?
If you want to make it a flat dollar amount, you won't find an argument from me.
I happen to think a flat percentage without deductions or credits is the best compromise with the people who think everyone else isn't paying their "fair share". If everyone pays this 10% (or whatever) then there's no quibbling about this or that deduction or tax shenanigan (buying art, etc).
Doesn’t this imply that the government provides our income?
Yup, I know what sales tax is in my state and can do the math in my head pretty easily to get the approx. amount. If you live in a state for any length of time you should be able to do this too. even if its something odd like 7.25% you can figure out what 10% is really quickly and know it'll be a little less than that.
I'm not sure who these presumably tech-adjacent folks are who can't look at a posted price, know something about the tax/tipping/etc. conventions are, and know about what the final bill will be.
That said, I DO agree that hidden facility/resort/etc. fees and the like should go. For years, there was a conference center restoration fee tacked onto hotels all over NYC even the project wasn't even approved. Rental cars at airports are also a nightmare. There is no reason for them.
GP mentioned "sticker price", so I suspect they possibly meant physical goods or services. If you're in a retail store, there are no real obstacles (except for business unwillingness to be honest to the customer) to calculate and disclose the final price. A store knows where it's located, and that's where the sale happens.
Right, but even when they do have your zipcode (because you added beforehand for checking stock for example) they don't update the prices. It would be nice to have the option
Every local store I walk into is trying to fool me by not including sales taxes, why would online stores be any different?
Why do US states allow counties and cities to raise so many taxes?
Usually (across the world and across history) the power of taxation is very jealously guarded, and local government is usually only allowed to gather a limited range of taxes. Historically sovereigns have treated attempts by subordinates to raise their own taxes as tantamount to treason.
...why shouldn't they?
You haven't given any reason why not.
And sales tax is one of a limited range of taxes.
In this thread: people claiming how exceptional the US is, to justify not having the final amount on price tags.
You guys can think of lots of reasons to justify why you can't do things like the rest of the civilized world does, be it prices and taxes, medical insurance or something else. The US is not some sprcial snowflake country.
The new rule does have clarification that they at least have to show you the final price with taxes+shipping before they're allowed to take your credit card. Those ones I get, because they can't be calculated without knowing your billing zip code.
Do you want to put in your shipping address to every website before you can shop?
Very easy, we can get inspiration from the web shops 10 years ago (and still a majority of honest sites today) : the price of the item and somewhere close the base shipping price and a (legal minimum size) link "shipping price" redirecting to a shipping price table. We can even impose the table framework like the nutritional information on food to avoid volontary complexification of that page.
It's funny, because when I buy from China, their stores have little trouble estimating my country's import tax, and my state's selling tax. But US physical stores can't manage to put the final price on their tags.
A zipcode should be plenty and grocery websites do that already.
ZIP codes are not specific enough.
In some areas, sales tax is actual multiple taxes from different overlapping jurisdictions: state, county, city, and sometimes special tax district. ZIP codes don't align with any of these, so you need to know exactly where the buyer is in order to properly calculate sales tax.
There are places where adjacent addresses in the same ZIP code have different sales tax rates.
Even within a state a single 5-digit ZIP can have multiple tax rates if it spans multiple cities; true where I live.
Unfortunately, there are 13 zip codes that span across multiple states.
There are 41,000+ zip codes.
And 13 of them do not uniquely identify which state you're in.
A zipcode should be plenty and grocery websites do that already.
There's probably a Things Developers Believe About ZIP Codes list out there somewhere.
The zip code I live in spans two different cities (as well as different counties in my state). It's stupid but also it's reality
Yea, that'd be pretty swell. The only reason websites moved away from that was to "lower friction" - it's better for the consumers who end up buying the product if they know availability and pricing up front.
The only reason websites moved away from that was to "lower friction"
It was never the norm that websites never asked for your shipping address or zipcode before allowing shopping. That's really silly.
My statement was overly general and that's a fair criticism - however I do remember e-commerce in the early days of the web. That early web experience for me was that generally users were required to make an account (mostly to verify age and ability to pay) before they could interact with items or create a shopping cart. In that era the interaction of sales taxes and the internet were much more complicated and shipping times and costs much more variable. I know that when my father was buying train books he'd often need to go to conventions in other states to pick up items in person because sellers were afraid of getting scammed out of their shipping fees.
When shopping physically that shouldn't be necessary. Should it?
But I guess that would outside FTC jurisdiction?
Most online shops have a good estimate of your location based on IP. And already use it to estimate shopping costs, right?
Amazon in particular probably did a lot to normalize free (in country) shipping in many cases. But it's silly that there should be a sticker price that is the final price under all circumstances.
Mind you, I'm all for more up-front transparency in general, especially to the degree that comparison-shopping is inconsistent to the degree it displays or doesn't display often significant add-ons.
I suspect the answer is instead to establish two tax rate calculations:
One for in-person shopping (like VAT) -- you pay the tax according to local rates, but it's factored in already.
one for online shopping, ("E-VAT") -- you pay a national rate tax and the seller is responsible for paying gross sales based on that percentage to the state and the rest goes to the IRS.
Problem comes with the Sin Taxes that have been established. For instance, in Seattle, sugared drinks MAY incur a tax depending on what kind of store you bought it from (e.g. the normal costco has to tax it but the business costco doesn't), but that doesn't affect some folks and then there's tax-exempt organizations like churches that can have their sales tax waived and then there's states where sales taxes are a majority of the income is from sales tax but only if you're local and
oh god it gets bad.
At which point they'll just segment the market based on zip code and once the ecommerce platforms and big sites start doing it it'll become the norm
Good for me, my zipcode is the Walmart of zip codes. No so good for people who's zip code is the Whole Foods of zip codes.
a reverse IP lookup should give you a good estimate and you can always ask the user to enter their address for more accurate price.
Surely this is outdated advice in the world of "Protect your privacy with NordVPN" all over youtube.
> a reverse IP lookup should give you a good estimate
Not really, no.
care to elaborate on that? also, it's not that hard to ask users to enter their shipping zip code to get more accurate prices. some websites do that already nowadays. my point is reverse ip lookup is a good enough starting point for the first estimation.
IP addresses aren't related to locations. A third party database with voluntary contributions isn't exactly reliable and is frequently incorrect.
Zip codes also aren't great either. A single zip code can cover many different tax jurisdictions, even different states.
My home ISP has an exit point in a different city from where I live, so even without a VPN the IP lookup is only accurate to country level.
Nope. I hate when website use IP for anything, especially language selection. I travel all the time as well as use VPNs for work, and the idea that my IP represents anything other than what network I’m connecting from is just lazy UX.
Yes let’s keep a shitty UX for most users because of a few abnormal users. Be honest, frequent travel and shopping over VPN is an edge case here. The vast majority of users are shopping and buying from home with a VPN.
Or better yet, give municipalities an incentive to stop layering a kinds of taxes. Just have a VAT and be done with it.
> The vast majority of users are shopping and buying from home with a VPN.
I bet that's wrong, and that a huge chunk of shopping is from cell phones that usually have an effectively random IP when they're not at their home location.
It would be interesting to see the numbers. I know for my wife and I, most shopping is done at home on phone or tablet and connected to our home wifi. And even shopping away from home is generally in the same county, so taxes are the same (or close enough for an up-front estimate).
> Or better yet, give municipalities an incentive to stop layering a kinds of taxes. Just have a VAT and be done with it.
Switching our tax regime to VATs, effectively flattening 13,000+ sales tax jurisdictions down to 50, would be a monumental undertaking involving rethinking and reorganizing financing of literally everything below the federal level. And in the end it would solve a problem that is at best a minor annoyance to most Americans.
The juice ain't worth the squeeze.
Be honest, frequent travel and shopping over VPN is an edge case here.
Everyone is an edge case in some form. You, included.
Just have a VAT and be done with it.
This just illustrates that you don't understand the that taxes have multiple purposes, and why taxes are the way they are. Attend a few city council meetings.
I understand why we levy taxes. I’m not a moron (or a jerk). Other countries manage with a much simpler tax scheme; we can try and do the same.
America doesn't want to be like other countries. You may remember there was a war or two about that.
Yeah, I see a lot of advice on here that websites should make some guesses and you can always correct them later if it turns out they're wrong.
That seems like terrible advice. Oh, the price is $X. And once you've entered all your info "just kidding." I'd much rather know there are some things not included up-front if they're not reasonably factored in.
Do you often order things for delivery at home while you're travelling? Then the price will change when you provide the delivery address — just like it does now.
Meanwhile, 99% of people will see the price they can expect to pay.
They should just ban sales tax. Many states already have 0% sales tax, like New Hampshire, and Delaware.
Hidden and not yet calculated are different things. They should just make a broad and sweeping stances on these hidden fees. The fact they play whack-a-mole from implementing this from industry to industry as the 'need' arises seems silly. If a price is advertised or quoted, it should be inclusive all the things with tax being the one exception.
> The sticker price should be the final price.
God I wish this applied to buying cars as well
If you’re assertive enough, it is.
“Oh, sorry, looks like we’d already applied the undercoat to your car.”
“Ah, thanks!”
“That’s an extra $400 charge.”
“I’m not paying for it. I didn’t want it. You can have it back if you want.”
"Darn, sorry we can't make a deal. Hey look at all the people who need cars that are waiting!"
This is not as much of an upper hand as you think it is, often these shenanigans happen after sitting at the dealer for a couple hours while they do whatever it is they do. Do you value your time so little that you'll just walk out of a transaction over less than a 1% difference in cost?
The dealer knows how to play this game way better than you, if you walk into a dealership without having a plan to score a deal then you already lost
Yes, I have literally done exactly that thing and ended up with the dealer eating the price. The dealer has time and effort sunk into closing the deal, too, and they’ll almost always chose a bird in the hand.
And also-freaking-lutely would I walk instead of eating a BS charge. Sometimes it really is the principle of the thing. My principle is I’m not paying a penny for something I didn’t ask for. A dealership I’d be caught dead doing business with will eat the bogus charges instead of losing a customer forever. Conversely, next time I need a Toyota, I have the business card of the guy I’ll buy it from and he doesn’t even know it yet. He treated me well last time and his investment in that deal will keep paying him back.
Yeah. Last time I bought a car, at the last minute, it included "factory installed" extras that included a first aid kit for a car that wasn't built yet. I may or may not have actually walked (a couple of the options were actually useful) but I was "I'm not happy but I'll close the deal NOW if you add it to my trade-in" which they did.
Amazon Autos?
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Autos/b?node=10677469011
The one upside I’m aware of for taxes being added separately is high awareness of what the sales tax rate is.
I'm more ok with "hidden" taxes, because the business is supposed to just hand that over. If they're putting something on the receipt that says "tax" and its not associated with an actual government-applied tax, that's just fraud., we don't need special rules to address that (yet). Its not hidden in an attempt to trick you into buying something at a higher cost. Its hidden because calculating the taxes requires additional information from the user.
Rules for thee but not for me.
You don't know what the sticker price is going to be until you know who is buying it from where for what.
Until then, all you can do is quote a price.
Welcome to reality, kid.
If you're buying it for resale, you don't owe tax. How do you put that on a price tag?
There's use tax. Depending on what you use a product you buy for, you might owe a different tax rate. How do you get a final price out of that?
You don't. When you quote a price, it's a quote.
I’m not very confident this is going to survive our next “populist” administration. Whatever faults you can attribute to the current administration, the FTC has taken many actions that have been pro consumer over the past 4 years.
This will probably be what I'll miss most about Administration 46 - some crazy pro-consumer policies and motions for anti-trust, price gouging, and corporate transparency have happened in 2021-2024, and I'm certainly going to miss the strides. The next administration will remove what has been, or ignore the continuing proceedings in the bigger actions (a great example of where the latter is going to happen are the Google-Chrome breakup and TikTok ban.
I need this for my internet provider, advertised price is $25* ** ***
Network access fee: $2.65
Municipal upgrade fee: $16.30
Fees end up costing nearly 80% of the entire bill. There are no taxes or gov surcharges of any kind.
*(with autopay discount)
**(with autopay direct deposit discount)
***(will not be reflected on first 3 bills)
ETA: here's their current promotion: https://i.imgur.com/TfwsdQv.png $20 for service, $20.49 in fees! fees are 102% of the supposed price!
Well, at least we're now in a modern enlightened time when there's a standard FCC-required Broadband Facts "label" that can be referred to. It does make it easier to compare.
It still seems kind of new and I can't find one for Spectrum (my ISP) or I'd share it here myself, but: I pay exactly $59.95 per month, as the service is advertised in my area, and that's that. There are no itemized fees/taxes on my bill.
I don't remember the last time I had an ISP with weird fees associated with it -- it seems like it has had to have been around a decade now, at least.
(Cellular, too: My cheapskate all-you-can-eat cellular service costs me $35 per month, flat -- to the penny.)
My Internet provider charges $50 per month exactly, and even the taxes are included! How cool is that? They aren't doing that out of goodness of their heart though. It is due to competition from T-Mobile 5G internet, which also has this policy.
Agreed. The FCC should act even more broadly. Why doesn't it?
I wish that "Online Coupon Price Tags" in stores would also be banned. I'm talking about these yellow price tags that show lower than "Club" prices, which are only valid if you collect a coupon online.
Like FTC, I estimate that banning these would save U.S. consumers millions of hours they currently spend searching and clicking on pointless coupons on their phones before making purchases. It would also increase happiness, as it's extremely annoying to pay $20 extra, knowing that a lower price is available if only you spent ten minutes struggling with a store's website on your phone.
Whoever invented this is evil and is destroying happiness.
>I'm talking about these yellow price tags that show lower than "Club" prices, which are only valid if you collect a coupon online.
Which store is that with the yellow price tags?
Safeway, Walgreens.
Kroger too
You have to log in with an account and “clip” the imaginary coupons in their app for the price to apply when you scan your card
I'm less mad about those since it's basically just price discrimination. If you are price sensitive enough that you're willing to clip the coupon then you get the cheaper price.
At the expense of other people's time.
And feature phones (aka dumbphones) have been seeing a sales uptick. I wouldn't say they're popular, but there are people without smartphones who are excluded from these types of coupons.
those tags are working as intended - some people don't read the "online only" part, grab the item, assume the discount is applied at checkout, and end up paying full price. other people will download (and probably never uninstall) the spyware app and start feeding a juicy profitable data stream back to HQ.
because how are you ever going to stay in business doing something as niche as selling groceries without leaning hard into surveillance capitalism
Whoever invented this is evil and is destroying happiness.
Lina Khan is my second hero in life after Evariste Galois.
Even if they throw her out it won’t change what she’s done: she put fear in the bellies of some truly terrible people who had almost forgot what the word “restraint” means.
Ms Khan, I salute you.
Agree. Somewhat. But given that Elon Musk (who wants to shut down the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau completely) is likely to have a lot of say in these type of things, I think they'll forget that fear.
And the public will just accept arbitrary oppression with no limit?
No, the investor class will arrive at the negotiating table one way or another on a long enough timeline. It will be up to them if they still have legs to walk on.
The really scary fascists aren’t stupid: Thiel and those guys are buying bunkers in New Zealand as fast as the checks clear. They understand something that the American public lost sight of for a moment: the American Public is terrifying, the American public is slow to wake but arbitrarily brutal once roused. Pushing the American public into a corner has been the last mistake of a great many men better than Elon Musk.
If the podcasts spin it well enough, they'll have a large leeway
Rogan and Lex went from interesting Internet shit to terrifyingly effective accomplices of aspiring fascists really abruptly.
I’m not sure even they realize how dangerous they’ve become.
I’m sorry: we’re past the point where you can normalize Thiel world and not be a menace. I like both of those guys in general, I hope they have the moral courage to take a stand against the really scary shit.
But until they’ll flat renounce this psycho aspiring despot shit they’re net negative.
The fact that it was ever legal to combine "taxes and fees" into one line item is baffling.
One is a thing 100% under control of the business trying to sell me a thing, the other 0%. Why should anybody get to scalp me and legally be able to blame it on the state/city government?
Wonder if this going to be permanent or will be reverted as soon as the new FTC head is in office.
Time will tell - the change I'm really hoping will stick is the outlawing of non-competes without consideration.
I would not be hopeful. From AP news:
> Four of the FTC’s five commissioners voted to approve the rule. Commissioner Andrew Ferguson, – who is President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to replace Khan, was the one dissenting vote.
https://apnews.com/article/ftc-junk-fees-rule-hotels-tickets...
One republican commissioner voted with the rule, and Ferguson dissented based on lame duck rule making, not the merits, while agreeing that the FTC rule making was valid for businesses like tickets and short term lodging.
That's a moronic dissent. It's either valid or not, lame duck or no.
Edit: The full decent reads like choosing fealty to Trump over good rule making. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/ferguson-junk-f...
A lot of people probably weigh this too much. Forcing companies to have some skin in the game is good. But, in practice, if a company really wants to enforce a non-compete--even with consideration--it's probably not great unless you're in a position and want to take a sabbatical with substantially reduced compensation.
This is absolutely true and when I read my first non-compete my dad calmly explained how unenforceable they are due to hardship exceptions and lack of specificity. However, I had a very business minded father to ask and most people don't. Non-competes have been abused to scare uninformed employees into staying in positions they want to leave or as revenge for someone leaving.
The fact that they're so often unenforceable is probably a decent argument that they're an irrelevant complication of labor interactions that we don't need anyways. They only ever made sense with executives and those folks usually have large sums of money attached to their compliance.
The few months when I actually had a non-compete in place it was quite specific and didn't apply to me.
But, yeah, as a generic thing below the level of a CEO becoming the CEO of a direct competitor (in which case lawyers have presumably put specific contracts in place if they're competent), they don't make a lot of sense beyond NDAs in play. No properly-managed company was ever going to pay me a bunch of money to not work at a random company in the industry who was probably a partner anyway.
Come January 21st, expect junk fees to explode. But don’t worry, as long as you make at least $10,000,000 per year, you’ll get a huge tax cut.
I'm glad (if it doesn't get reversed by the next administration).
But I'm also baffled... how did this take this long?
Why wasn't it done way back when they did it for airline tickets, in 2012?
The House passed a bill [1] earlier this year covering these fees for hotels.
It passed 384 to 25 suggesting there is pretty good bipartisan support for ending such fees at least for hotels. Here was the vote breakdown:
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/6543Because details matter and are hard. If you don't get the details just right a court will strike the whole thing down for good reason.
It’d be a shame to ask hard work of our government that spends a trillion of our dollars every year
They did do the hard work - it took many years.
Not sure about going all the way back to 2012, but maybe they were more worried about the Mayan calendar? /s
But as far as under this administration, it seems like it took half the term to right the ship and get the leadership moving in the right direction. I think a second term would have been impressive.
I used to work for a major airline many years ago. I remember when they introduced these crazy fees e.g., seat change fee. I was really disappointed then and soon left. I learned Don Carty then joined Dell who soon started their Byzantine ordering process. I was again disappointed. I still buy Dell monitors because I like them but I never buy from their website.
I remember an episode of the TV show Happy Days when the restaurant owner started charging money to use the toilet stall. It was a sad joke and many businesses are following suit.
This is great if it gets rid of the "resort fee" or "urban fee" that I have had to pay at hotels. Happened last week. An extra $40 a night. It is almost impossible to refuse and find a new hotel right when you are checking in.
From the FTC (9 points, 1 comment) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42441347
Do restaurant service fees next! "Here's the bill, with a 10% service fee added so we can pay our staff more without raising menu prices."
We almost eliminated those here in California until they chickened out and exempted restaurants.
Narrator: It's not so they can pay their staff more.
Hopefully this does away with the fraudulent “cleaning fee” when you book a hotel for $200 and then get a charge for $450.
Maybe. If they document how dirty the room was after you leave, and how clean it was before hand they can get away with this. Generally smoke smell is the only thing they would bother doing this for though. If you just leave the normal mess behind they shouldn't be charging extra.
Yeah I’m talking about an existing practice where the fee applies to all bookings and is just a way to fraudulently advertise the booking price.
WTF! Definitely paid corporate shill. Legalized corruption in the USA. "A judge in Texas blocked a rule that would cap credit card late fees, and an appeals court in New Orleans blocked a requirement that airlines disclose baggage and other fees upfront."
Seems like a no brainer. Can they tackle sales tax next?
and service fees at restaurants. The price on the menu in Seattle or SF is ~25% lower than what the product actually costs.
Minnesota banned these this year! It goes into effect Jan 1st. https://minnesotareformer.com/2024/05/20/governor-signs-junk...
Imagine if that guy became VP...
We have a very nice little island of sanity up here :)
California was set to ban that, until Scott Weiner carved out an exception for restaurants.
His name sounds exactly like someone who'd sabotage a public benefit.
Count the service charge toward what you would’ve tipped.
Wait staff reading this: bosses at restaurants like this are stealing from you if that doesn’t go straight to you. I tip very well, but I’m not tipping twice. And yes, if it’s a “service charge”, that’s the same as saying “tip” from the customer’s perspective.
Would boycott get a chance? The honest restaurants bragging "NO FEES" would gather more customers and the others follow.
Wondering, is there already US places that works without tips like in most other places ? (Owner pays a decent salary to its employees, include that in all products they sell and don’t expect tips)
Various restaurant operators have experimented with what you described but haven't succeeded. The big issue is that servers hate it specifically because owners use the additional revenue to "pay a decent salary to their employees. " This generally includes all the employees, not just the formerly tipped ones. The kitchen staff ends up getting a significant pay bump, and servers get what amounts to a cut in their take-home pay.
At the higher end, the labor market for waitstaff is competitive, and restaurant operators who have experimented with this have had trouble keeping server positions filled (with the opposite effect in the kitchen).
Thanks. Perhaps what’s lacking is a legal decent minimum wage then.
Yeah, I love that healthcare surcharge at SFO restaurants.
Healthcare surcharge: 6%
tip: 20%
tax: 8.625%
= total: 34.625%
The healthcare surcharge is taxable, because it shouldn't exist, it should just be a 6% increase in the menu price.
what is a healthcare surcharge?
SF has something called Healthy SF where employers have to offer health insurance plans, or pay into a city-managed health account. I think the last time I looked, for a lot of businesses, it's basically a $2.25/hr raise for your employees.
edit: The best part is, if your employees don't use the money (maybe they don't know about it or don't have any health care expenses), the business can eventually reclaim it...
The restaurant association balked at this, and encouraged businesses to list out the increased cost as a separate line item on the receipt, instead of raising menu prices, basically raising a middle finger and saying "see what you idiots voted for, now you pay for it!" I don't know why I'd be mad that I have to pay for someone's health care. That's sort of how it works, doesn't it?
Since then, it has taken on a life of its own. Some places call it a health care surcharge. Others call it a SF surcharge, or a cost adjustment, or inflation fee. It's not a tax, it's not a service charge, it's not anything but whatever arbitrary number the business wants to charge without raising their menu price. And thus, it's taxable.
Not likely; sales tax is extremely complicated in the US. There are 13,000 sales tax jurisdictions, and many of them have different and incompatible rules for things like sales tax nexus.
I think legitster is suggesting that the sticker price on the product should be the price paid, rather than a uniform sales tax code. If the seller knows what to charge the buyer, then they know what they need to put on the sticker.
Local retailers would oppose this in very strong terms as a thumb on the scale in favor of online retailers.
Online retailers would presumably still be able to show pricing before knowing a shipping address, so their pricing would be pre-tax. That would make the apparent price differential even greater, and on every item.
I think this would make the marketplace less clear for consumers.
Online retailers could be required to use the best available estimate of the user's location to calculate the tax, like they do for ads.
So if they are logged in with an address on file, it could be that. If not, they could use geolocation, with a note that the tax is estimated. And let the user input a location in a box to show the exact tax.
> they could use geolocation, with a note that the tax is estimated
So we'd go from the current regime where the displayed price is wrong to another regime where the displayed price is wrong? Allegedly, something like 40%+ of Americans use VPNs. They would pretty much always see the wrong price.
In practice, the ramification of this would be that your local indie retailers (where we are much less likely to be persistently logged in) would be forced to incorrectly show higher prices to a set of people, while the giant retailers who already have your billing info can show you 100% accurate pricing all the time, regardless of VPN.
I don't see any clear wins in that scenario.
40% of Americans using VPNs cannot possibly be true.
Sounded off to me, but I wasn't able to find a better number when I looked. Maybe it's counting work computers where the stack is maintained by IT staff?
Oddly enough, the average EU consumer has no problem understanding that the label price is the full price of a purchase, while online prices might include extra stuff such as delivery.
Maybe you're just less intelligent than the average consumer and need some more protection? Or is it something else?
> Maybe you're just less intelligent than the average consumer
I'm not one to police tone, but really? Did it make you feel better to say that?
> is it something else?
Yes, the something else is that you're missing the point that my comment was specifically about the disparity in the prices large online retailers would be able to display (e.g. without sales tax) versus what offline retailers would display (with sales tax).
If Amazon and a local retailer are both aiming for the same $1,000 for an item net of tax, this would mean that Amazon could display $1,000 as the price while my local retailer would have to list it for (say) $1,100. I don't think local retailers would like that very much, even though the consumer would end up paying $1,100 either way. You may disagree.
A business already has to take care of the sales tax. So they can just show it on the price tag.
No they cannot. Taxes are not uniform. Walmart probably won't deal with this, but in many states business (read farmers) do not pay sales tax on some items (read likely to be used on a farm) and so stores that want to sell to business will have the ability to verify you are a business to give that discount.
It is worse for online where until you log in they have no clue what taxes will apply. If you are buying a gift for someone in a different area I don't know what tax rules apply but there is good odds they won't know until you get to the shipping information what the real taxes are.
> but in many states business (read farmers) do not pay sales tax on some items (read likely to be used on a farm)
The legislation in most of europe clearly handles this - the price displayed is for the intended customer. If you go into B&Q (home depot equivalent), you'll see prices including sales tax. If you go next door to a timber merchant none of the prices have sales tax included. If you're a business, you don't pay the sales tax. The businesses know what their taxes are, and are required to have accurate accounts anyway. For those that are maybe numerically challenged - they'll never pay more than they see on the sticker.
> It is worse for online where until you log in they have no clue what taxes will apply.
Enter your shipping address to see pricing. Exactly the same as it is now. Give an estimate based on IP. Exactly how it works in Europe, which has the same problem.
The issue with online sales is real, but customers exempt from sales tax could just have their final price lowered. That would be the opposite of the current situation. Since there are many fewer tax-exempt sales, and tax-exempt buyers are presumably more sophisticated and less price-sensitive, this would be a net win for customers.
If you sell a widget in a store, you MUST be able to compute the sales tax. Otherwise, you can't sell it.
And if you can do that, then you might as well print it on the price tag (along with pre-tax price if you want). No buts.
Ditto for online, after you get the customer's ZIP code.
My favorite example of this lunacy is the restaurant nearby that sells pies. If they box your pie for you to take home, it's a grocery item and not taxed. If they give you utensils to eat it in the store, it's a restaurant meal and therefore taxed.
They literally can't know the price until you tell them whether you'd like a fork with it.
Now, this restaurant works around it by having both prices listed, but I can imagine a million freaking variants of that for an online sale: "you have to pay our local taxes, but almost maybe yours, unless you check out on a Sunday between noon and 5PM, which is a tax holiday on your block (but not your neighbors' across the road), so understand that the price may change between when you add it to your cart and when you click the 'pay' button."
I'm only a little bit exaggerating.
Then put two freaking price tags: "pies to go" and "eat here". Problem solved.
There are zero legitimate reasons not to show true prices.
Stopped reading after the first paragraph, huh.
> And if you can do that, then you might as well print it on the price tag (along with pre-tax price if you want).
Fun fact: sales tax rates are not stable. Our state publishes quarterly tax changes at the county level; city-level changes are presumably too numerous for the state to publish in the same format.
Inclusive pricing can obviously be done in-store, but it also more or less ensures that some of the items in your store will have incorrect prices some of the time.
At least here in California, the state collects the sales tax on behalf of all the local jurisdictions, so they publish and update them all simultaneously (twice a year) and in the same format.
Interesting...there must be a state law that requires jurisdictions to synchronize any changes to sales tax rates to a single calendar.
You can't print the price on a price tag because different customer pay different prices.
Bullshit. First, you absolutely CAN JUST PUT TWO PRICES on a price tag. Moreover, business customers (in a grocery shop, yeah right) can just get a discount at a point of sale.
Move to Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire or Oregon. No sales tax.
most states have some trick.
I think you have to look at it wholistically:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Median_h...
Not a trick, just they get their income from other sources / taxes. But we're specifically talking about knowing the final price you will pay, in advance, which requires knowing the sales tax.
nitpick: "holistically"
Lol, I didn't even think when I wrote it that way. That said, it seems to be in the dictionary as an alternate spelling of holistic.
I guess the english language lets this stuff happen a lot, but not alot. I definitely did it by accident (not "on accident"!)
That's a state matter so not really within the FTC's jurisdiction I think.
Luckily some states (OR, AK, others) don't have a sales tax.
Great! My wife was reading me ticket prices for an event on Ticketmaster yesterday, I kept telling her she needs to add them to the cart and start checkout to know the real price. She did just that and to my surprise the price didn't change at all!
This is awesome. There's more to do, but it's a step in the right direction. This law should really apply to all merchants in all industries, as the original 2023 proposal stated (allegedly). Still, I'll take it.
Gotta love that TicketMaster convenience fee that is for online ticket purchases --- which you still have to pay if you get your ticket at the door, because that is also convenient!
Official release: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/12/...
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42441347)
The fact that sensible and fair rules like this that favor the consumer don't get anywhere in the usa is proof of the regulatory capture by the corporate elite. The us isn't a democracy, because it isn't ruled by the people, it is ruled by the corporation and rich.
Americans keep voting for rich assholes who oppress them while telling them they are giving them freedom.
Would love to see what gymnastics the incoming FTC head uses to undo this rule.
It’s a start. I’m bummed at how narrowly scoped this is. When the RFC period was open I wrote in to highlight how apartments charge surprise pet rent fees that don’t appear until the application process.
i can't remember the last time i paid face value for a concert ticket. the scalping is absurd. it's worse than any fees, by far.
Im all for this. I’m worried though that now the junk fees will just be added to the normal price without ultimately changing anything.
No, the reason they tack on the fee as a "tax" is literally to confuse and otherwise mislead the public to the true cost of the product they're buying, or mislead where the money is directed. they're buying from. If you believe in the Tennant's of capitalism at all, then you must have clear price representation.
Nitpick: "tenets"
Nitpick: Scottish lager only please
Isn't Airbnb a good example of this? In some locations you have to open each listing to get the true price and it's a huge waste of time. In locations, what you see on the map is the real value, cleaning and other, fees included.
I wish sales taxes would be added - some cities charge very large taxes on hotel rooms and so it might be worth staying in a hotel not far away with more reasonable taxes.
Market actors are allowed to charge whatever they want. Price controls are super bad. It's not the role of the state to mandate a specific price. It is the role of the state to make sure prices are fair and transparent. Deception cannot be tolerated in an efficient market.
I mean, they will be, but that's the point. No more surprises. You can actually compare prices without going through checkout first.
That does change things though, it gives you a fair point of comparison.
And that comparison is important - when junk fees are allowed more honest companies suffer because consumers might shop around and end up choosing the option that is actually more expensive. Those consumers might be on page 12/13 of a form and just accept the fee to avoid the hassle - or they may assume everyone (including what looked like a more expensive competitor) is baking the fees in late in the process and not bother investigating deeper.
Hidden fees create market inequities.
Doesn't look like they got to DoorDash hidden fees in this decision?
Looking forward to all the freedom and efficiency the market will reward us with when Trump rolls this back.
Even the most fundamentalist of free market fundamentalists should be cheering transparency in pricing. The price signal works best when it's not obfuscated.
Now waiting for a webapp that autoscans your bill for junk fees and can report them to the FTC.
...for the next four weeks, anyways. Good effort nonetheless!
Can we be done with "resort fees" and "taxes" as well? Hotel prices should include all of this
> The rule would require service fees, resort fees, and other charges commonly added to bookings to be included in advertised prices.
Sounds like that's what will be happening if the rule sticks.
Now do the same with airline companies. WizzAir charges the crap out of you for everything they can. Do not fly with WizzAir!
A recent WizzAir flight was advertised (when I searched for the route on their website) for €21. I rejected all optional extras, and that was the total price I paid.
No checked luggage, probably only a small cabin bag that fitted under the seat in front, no priority boarding, no seat selection.
It's a budget service, but the advertised prices aren't deceptive.
Trust me, you got lucky, they "randomly" selected passengers with those kind of bags for inspection due to measures, 1mm above? charged! Emphasis on randomly, because the pattern was simple: foreigners? charged, locals? go on. We've saw a poor guy squeeze the hell out of his backpack to no avail, it fitted the measuring box, still, charged because "you had to squeeze it"; guess what, plenty of room under the seat, the guy could put two of them. On me? bag had wheels, foreigner, automatically selected for inspection, took the wheels away, still charged because "it had wheels first". I've flew a dozen companies, not even Ryanair, the low of the lowest treats passengers like this.
A significant difference here is that the airline fees are ostensibly optional. You could, in theory, fly Spirit with nothing except the clothes on your back and they wouldn't charge you extra. But with event ticket sales and the like, there is often no possible way to avoid the fees. That means there's a much stronger argument for requiring that the fees be rolled into the price.
Or they do something silly where there is an "Online Convenience Fee" when you buy online, but if you try to buy it at the box office, there's a different "Box Office Ticketing Fee." The event promoter should pay the cost of their ticketing service provider(s) out of the money they make, not have the purchaser pay it separately.
That's not in the US so unaffected.
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Under Trump, there will be a roll-back for every other industry.