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Burnham brings forward ban on 'subscription traps' to ease cost of living (www.bbc.co.uk)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/uk_politics@feddit.uk
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[–] 23 points 3 months ago (7 children)

I feel like accidental subscription renewals makes up less than 1% of people's spending. The first place to start with the cost of living is housing

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  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago

    Housing is a difficult one though - hard to do anything with, and so many "angry, loud, right-wing people in charge of the news" are very reliant on property becoming more expensive. Even though it would be much better to deal with, you can guarantee a lot of bad press for tackling the cost of housing.

    Everyone hates subscription traps, cold callers and being scammed by borderline-criminal businesses - so it's a safe and popular one to go after.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (3 children)

    I wish construction laws would be eased. It's a shame communities can block things like tinyhomes or container housing.

    Also i'd like to see some sort of module based building block style housing you can extend when you got the funds and need for it.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    I agree with the sentiment of trying to ease the cost of housing.

    But... building shitty little barely houses, just so the cost of bigger property can justify staying high, isn't the way forward. Housing needs to be made affordable to people again, and it needs to do that by property prices coming closer to peoples income. If we get there and people are happy with small cheap housing, then great.

    I'm seeing similar with holidays. In the 1990s going on a family holiday somewhere abroad and enjoying it wasn't uncommon. Now we're glamorising staying in a shed, in some farmers field, with no running water. "Off grid, shepherds hut" my arse, we're being conditioned that a shite holiday that we can barely afford is a step up.

    I don't want to go back to the waste of before, the masses of international travel and burned cheap fuel. But ... we need to call a spade a spade here. Selling cheap, at high prices is just more ripping people off, and leaving people in emotional austerity is damaging to wellness and social being.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago

    There are several reasons housing is expensive. Not creating alternatives to 100m2 750.000€ houses is one of them.

    I'm thinking let people do work from home, buy a ceap plot outside of cities and put a camper on or tinyhouse or even stacked containers which work great for refugee homes. We were living in caves for the longest time of human history. Then they can save the rent to eventually build an actual house if they want to.

    I know people living in 2 constructionwagons like Peter Lustig. If by choice i prefer this over seeing elderly having to collect deposit bottles.

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    • [–] 10 points 3 months ago

    No word of enforcement in the article.

    ICO is ignoring data complaints.

    Theres another story next to this on my lemmy feed about giftshops pheonixing repeatedly with dirt poor immigrants as the "owners" and never paying taxes. HMRC doesnt seem to have the people to check.

    Ofcom is spending all its time fining foreign websites.

    Its going to need a bit more than a law.

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    [–] 6 points 3 months ago

    Its not perfect but its a start. I hope these legislation take into account the obtuse nature of corps when you want to cancel or have a problem. A chatbot that sends you in loops says i cant help and then directs you to a 'knowledge page' is not actual help.

    I'd like to see users given the right to cancel services if providers don't fix problems.

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    [–] 4 points 3 months ago

    I swear every time I see him his glasses get bigger.

    Anyway, yeah, good news.

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