To add some color to the regulatory issue as I understand it, the court ruled that the impact of this rule would be over $100M so they’re required to assess cost/benefits of alternatives and submit them during the public comment period.

I don’t even know what the alternative would be apart from doing nothing. Making it more of a pain for consumers to cancel is zero sum on first order analysis (if I lose a dollar because I can’t cancel the company gets a dollar) but at a second order makes our economy less dynamic by entrenching incumbent companies and making it harder for consumers to allocate their money towards better alternatives.

If a company can trap your money in a labyrinth of process they don’t have to compete on quality or price. Simple as that.

FTC can still do it without the legislature. They just have to follow a more rigorous process in rule-making.

When you look at what is happening in Washington, it is disingenuous to say something was blocked because of a procedural issue. It was blocked because the party that controls all three branches of the Federal government didn't want it to pass.

I live here. We actually have fairly decent consumer protections... at least against product misrepresenation.

For example, our state constitution prohibits products being sold in containers which misrepresent the amount of their contents (albeit, it still happens).

Conversely, we also founded the pay-day-loan industry, which is just disgraceful (about a dozen states have banned entirely). Only passed because Allan Jones ("father of payday loans") donated $30,000 to PACs in the mid-90s.

I'm currently looking for greener pastures, up-to-and-including expatriation. This state overall has politicians' heads so far up their own...

State's rights doesn't give power to the people. It gives power to mostly gerrymandered state legislatures and to appointed judges.

Click to cancel is popular among the people. It was blocked despite this. If the people had power (as opposed to lobbyists, or big business), this would had passed federally.

> State's rights is just about always the best way to go

Generally agreed. I live in Canada and think we would be much better off if we pushed more legislation away from the feds and to the provinces. The needs/wants of Alberta/Saskatchewan is much different than Quebec for example.

Gun control is a major divisive issue in Canada as gun control is 100% at the federal level, but the preferences of how it is handles varies hugely between provinces, so much so that some provinces are threatening to not enforce the federal laws.

Im fine with the feds managing border enforcement, immigration, and military — and collecting taxes to fund those programs — but other than that they should leave to the provinces.

The other alternative is that everyone is subject to the mob rule of the major population centers which have much different needs/wants then those outside of the centers. Why not just give the population centers what they want and those in rural areas what they want?

That’s good and all for things that begin and end within a single state. Some things really should be done at the federal level. I don’t think a single service I subscribe to is based in the state in which I live.

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Usually, it’s only “states rights” when conservatives want something. To be determined if this sticks as it rolls out to more states, or the federal government attempts to infringe on state authority. No different than the Missouri governor overriding voters and repealing voter-approved paid sick leave and minimum wage law, Ohio conservatives attempting to override voters on reproductive healthcare, Florida raising the bar for ballot initiatives, Texas gerrymandering efforts currently in progress, etc.

“Maybe you do not care much about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.” -― David Frum

https://www.google.com/search?q=hypocrisy+of+states+rights

Creating a gym has relatively low barrier to entry. Buy heavy stuff and put it in an ugly warehouse: now you have a gym! The proliferation of CrossFit is pretty much exactly this

I think in this case you just need to change your mailing address with them. There is a California law (and from other comments it looks like 4 other states) that requires them to allow easy cancelations to CA residents. And since it is probably too much work for them to prove you are a CA resident, they just have the logic check if your address is in CA to enable the online cancelation (since they have online signup)

Can you not instead set the cap at a certain amount? You can do that on privacy, and can also set it to reset the cap after a certain amount of time (for subscriptions)

That's true. In addition to preventing payments, you also have to make a reasonable attempt to cancel service.

Recently in the case of Dish Network, I tried to call to cancel service, and the wait time is 45 minutes. There's no way I am doing that. (They don't let you cancel online or via chat, calling is the only option). Instead I contacted state attorney general's office and they made Dish cancel service.

If you can prove that you made reasonable attempt to cancel service then you're off the hook. In my case Dish sent my account to collections (for the 1 month it took to cancel service) and I wrote them back that I am not paying and why. Never heard back from them after that.