this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2025

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Mildly Infuriating

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Leave it to a Bezos-owned company to confuse customers and mislead them for profit. (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 days ago by pivot_root@lemmy.world to c/mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world

33 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Misleading pricing:

Using the billing period as the header and showing the price for the billing period... except for monthly—which shows 1/4 the price and says "every week" in smaller, gray text.

Punishing non-subscription payments:

Adding a $6.50 (1400%) surcharge for wanting a weekly one-time payment instead of a recurring subscription.

Charging more for longer periods:

Monthly billing, once you remove the dark pattern and convert it to its actual price, is $2. There are 12 months in a year, meaning it would cost $24 to maintain that subscription for a year.

Why is the yearly subscription $29, then?

If you want to verify this for yourself, you're going to need to clear your cookies and reload an article a lot. They do A/B tests and show different subscription requied modals. This one was the worst.

all 35 comments

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[–] Godort@lemmy.ca 105 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Worked out to yearly prices from the weekly cost, they are:

7*52 = $362

0.5*52 = $26

Or $29

[–] bier@feddit.nl 6 points 5 days ago

It is because of your post I realized it's cent not dollars. I thought who pays 50 dollars per week for an online newspaper.

In euros AFAIK we don't really use cent very often and it would probably be shown as €0,50

[–] Pechente@feddit.org 74 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I remember that I wanted to subscribe to a German newspaper that advertised 6 months for 99ct or whatever. I wanted to see if the regular pricing after the 6 months was good but I had trouble even finding it and when I finally found it, the different subscription options were so opaque that I truly didn’t understand which plan to pick. In the end I didn’t subscribe. I have no idea why some companies make their offerings so inaccessible.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Write them a physical letter complaining about their website and mail it to them via international mail. That should get the point across nicely.

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.org 25 points 6 days ago

They know. Some of them admitted their paid tier only exists to argue that a tracking free website exists and they can advertise and track all their readers.

[–] Phoenix3875@lemmy.world 59 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I don't trust the "$29 for the first year". Does this mean it's going to get more expensive later?

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 24 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Things go up every year.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

except wages and welfare, of course

"hey why are people not buying as many things these days?"

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago

Because of tradition at this point.

[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago

Oh, absolutely.

[–] Libb@piefed.social 3 points 6 days ago

It's an introductory offer so, yeah, one should expect to pay full p^rice starting the second year.

[–] kn0wmad1c@programming.dev 38 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

There are 52 weeks in a year, so the monthly would equate to $26 per year, not $24. Still, cheaper than the yearly.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 35 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Wife used to subscribe to WaPo and my local Houston Chronicle. Both make unsubscribing deliberately aggravating. Unsubscribing via the website didn't work. Phone calls resulted in long hold times and automated loops, where they repeatedly demanded authentication and then hung up on you to force a restart. When we did eventually get someone to say the subscription was cancelled at Houston Chronicle, they just... kept billing us even after the account was disabled.

We ultimately had to go through our credit card to stop payment.

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 23 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I am glad you are aware of going to your credit card company when you can't resolve problems.

But... your requirement is to make one good faith effort to cancel (e: keep screenshots or timestamps of phone calls and notes), and if it does not work, you should go straight to your credit card company. It is not up to you to chase them or argue or beg.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 22 points 6 days ago (1 children)

But… your requirement is to make one good faith effort to cancel

Sure. But when you're starting the process you think "maybe I just did it wrong". By the end, you can see the pattern and conclude "these people are just scammers".

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

You're absolutely right about that, but I guess I've been through this enough times that I've just refined the process, like a river slowly smooths down a stone over years.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 31 points 6 days ago

For AI generated "news":

https://futurism.com/washington-post-ai-articles

[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 5 days ago

Thing is, with a yearly subscription they cannot raise the price for a year. With a monthly subscription they can raise the price whenever. Since it's Bezos, I expect you'd be paying more in a year when going for the monthly subscription as it's probably going to be raised after every 3 months. That's why they made the prices so confusing with the "only 50 cents" as favorite option. They want you to go for the cheapest option be ssue they can profit from that the most. They lure you in with cheap prices, then suck you dry.

[–] Limonene@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I loaded a bunch of articles until it prompted me to pay. I got the screenshot below. In my opinion, this is an intentionally misleading fake 50c/month offer.

[–] filcuk@lemmy.zip 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Fuck is 'core' and 'premium'??
Will they deliver the news all he way to my device e ery morning if I get premium?
The $2-3 subscription wouldn't be unreasonable, but I'd rather give it to an outlet that doesn't try to mislead me even before I become their customer.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Premium includes the stories that are critical of Amazon and billionaires, which Bezos usually has pulled from circulation.

[–] perishthethought@piefed.social 2 points 5 days ago

After your first year, renews at $120 every year.

Holy crap that's a big change!!

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 8 points 5 days ago

Oh he didn't invent the thing and he's certainly not unique using it. This is like being mad at just one specific bird for pooping on your car.

[–] Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I've cross posed this to !misleadingprices@piefed.social

[–] cobysev@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago (8 children)

I still don't understand why anyone would ever pay for access to news articles. There are plenty of free and legitimate articles on the Internet, and public access TV still broadcasts news. You never need to pay anyone.

Honestly, putting a price on access to news just makes me not trust that organization. It feels like a scam, like paying for bottled water when water is one of the most abundant resources in the world.

Paid subscriptions are only a thing because people bought into it and normalized it instead of boycotting it. That's why everything is a subscription nowadays and no one can just buy and own a product now. We have to spend our lives paying a regular fee for access to something we never own.

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 18 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

See, the problem is, free news has to make revenue from somewhere.

If they aren't taking subscriptions, then they are probably showing ads, so their content is at the mercy of their sponsors.

Even if they are taking subscriptions, they are probably showing ads. That makes it doubly bad.

The alternative is secondary sources (i.e. social media), where theres already a bias by whoever is curating it.

We are amidst an actual information war. Like, there are at least two totally separate realities existing on the US right now. A reliable source of news is important, and capitalism has destroyed all of the old outlets and left us skeptical of the new ones. Good job, everyone.

[–] ultranaut@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago

I pay for access to the local newspaper and a few other things. I agree it isn't ideal but the people producing the content need to eat.

Also, having a subscriber base directly providing funding can potentially make a news org more trustworthy. Being reliant on your subscribers for funding provides a mechanism of accountability to them that a news org dependent on advertising doesnt have.

[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago

I would understand paying for online news as an alternative to ads, and only if the news organization does actual reporting free from political or billionaire interference.

Off the top of my head, I can think of exactly one news website that seems to meet that criteria at a surface level.

For everything else, fuck 'em— archive.is :)

[–] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 7 points 6 days ago

Because the more a news source depends on ads revenue the shittier it is.

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 days ago

Do you work for free? No? Then why should journalists?

[–] Libb@piefed.social 4 points 6 days ago

Google offers things for free, see the shitty stuff they're doing?

Personally, I'd rather keep on paying for my newspapers and have them not do, or not as much, shitty things. And that's exactly what I do (plus I like to receive my news in print knowing no one is tracking what I'm reading and how) ;)

[–] Wildmimic@piefed.social 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I actually pay for 404 Media, because they are a small investigative outfit and do not do ads. That's worth something!

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

News no, analysis maybe, but I don't know if wapo actually does that.