That we’re ruled by idiots is obvious – all the clever people have better things to do with their lives than try politics. But it still amazes as to quite how stupid the people inhabiting the halls of power can be. For now they’re suggesting – insisting perhaps – that introductory offers must be banned:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Overcharging loyal customers will be banned under new plans unveiled by the Government[/perfectpullquote]What is overcharging a loyal customer? Charging them more than a new one. What is an introductory offer? Charging a new customer less than an old one. They are, obviously enough, the same thing.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Overcharging loyal customers could be banned under new plans being unveiled this morning by the Government. The so-called “loyalty penalty”, where existing customers see their insurance premiums or mobile contracts increase in price or are charged more than new customers, costs consumers £4.1bn a year. [/perfectpullquote]So, let us just run through this. You can, if you so wish, sign up with Amazon for a free trial of their Audible product. Audible Membership
Well, quite, Woo Hoo!
If you decide to keep it after the free trial you will be charged some amount of money for being a loyal customer. Those who turn up for the first time will – presumably – continue to be offered that free trial period. This is charging loyal customers more than new. This is offering a deal to new customers not available to extant ones. These are the same thing.
They’re also, by the standards government seems to be using, soon to be illegal.
Which is, of course, insane. And thus the proof that we’re ruled by idiots. But then we knew that, right?
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This is offering a deal to new customers not available to extant ones.....They’re also, by the standards government seems to be using, soon to be illegal.
Which is, of course, insane.
Why?
This is banning a particular form of customer encouragement. Quite an effective one - it's the one often used by drug dealers to get people hooked - the first one is always free. I would say that it was up there in effectiveness with providing misleading images of consumer goods. And we feel that such adverts should be regulated for all sorts of reasons.
A major justification for regulating adverts is that you should not be deceived into purchasing a product. And offering it for a low (or no) cost initially is a form of deceit - a customer looks at the splashed 'Free Offer' and misses the small print below.
We already legislate against such practice - requiring minimum sized lettering for such practices. They offend against the British sense of Fair Play, for one thing. Requiring discount offers to be open to all customers may not be completely effective in stopping such activity - it may even result in unforeseen results which are counter-productive - but I cannot see that the approach should be considered a priori so 'insane' that there need be no justification for that epithet.
In a world where free initial offers were banned, perhaps service providers would concentrate on advertising the features of their service that they considered particularly attractive? Which would surely lead to more customer satisfaction...
In a world where free initial offers were banned many might not try out a new (to them) service. The company might be expected to do less business and the customer might miss out on the benefits of the new product. Companies know that if they offer a free trial some will continue and become paying customers and some will not. The key here is informed customer choice, free offers help customers make choices without financial risk.
"often used by drug dealers to get people hooked - the first one is always free", an urban myth. Drug dealers know that if they give their product away they will go broke, they just don't do it (except perhaps if they have a monopoly, which they don't).
"Offering it for a low (or no) cost initially is a form of deceit", no it is not if, as Amazon clearly state, the free period is time limited with the option to cancel or continue with a fee. It is already illegal to misrepresent the offer, by for instance not telling the customer that the free offer is limited.
"a world where free initial offers were banned" would be a worse world for companies, customers, the economy as a whole and is a fundamentally unnecessary interference in the market.
Good regulation of business practise is necessary, stopping someone get a free trial to listen to audio-books is incredibly unnecessary and a very bad policy.
I wonder how your 'might' argument changes to 'is' by the end?
Here's some of my evidence that free hand-outs happen. Where's your proof that they don't happen? https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/33094/do-dealers-give-free-drugs-to-teenagers/38634
In any case, you are arguing against a position I did not adopt. I do NOT say that such a law would be necessary, or good. I said that there it is not so 'obviously' insane that claiming it so to be requires no evidence beyond the claim. I was essentially complaining about an argument being made by assertion, rather than by evidence. Much like your last sentence....
I concede the point that in Baltimore, USA teh Baltimore Sun reported that in 1997 some drugs may have been distributed without charge, but since we are talking about the UK that doesn't seem all that relevant.
You did argue that free offers are a form of deceit, I that if they are not made deceitfully they are not.
The policy is colloquially insane, because it will made it harder for people to try products and harder for businesses to get product exposure. It has no upside.
But we will just have to agreer to disagree.
You have problems reading beyond the first paragraph? Read further and you will find more recent examples, and examples in the UK. I can readily find other discussion of the practice if you prefer - this, for example: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/crack-cocaine-drug-dealer-student-addiction-police-health-a8838886.html
It seems to me that agreeing to disagree really proves my point. Which was NOT that banning free offers is a bad idea, but that banning free offers is not prima facie 'insane', and it therefore requires evidence, rather than assertion, to label it so.
To accept that disagreement about whether the policy IS insane or not is possible, suggests to me that you accept that arguments may be made for and against it. Which was, as I have said, the original point that I was making...
Allowing dealers to give people free addictive drugs would be insane. We don't as it is illegal.
Allowing publishers to offer free trials of audio-books is sane. We might be making it illegal, that really is insane.
There must be a limit to the number of times you can misunderstand me, but I suspect that you are nowhere near reaching it yet.
I am NOT arguing for the sanity or otherwise of banning free trials, or any other method of trying to get a customer hooked on a product.
I AM arguing that seeing this issue as a problem and attempting to address it by law is NOT OBVIOUSLY insane. It may well be impossible to draft practical legislation - it may well be that legislation is not an appropriate method of addressing the issue, but I cannot see that it is so obviously 'insane' that no further discussion is necessary.
NOW do you understand?
I think that perhaps finally I do understand.
If I have understood you correctly you think there is a problem with people being offered free trails (of legal goods).
Whilst I think there isn't, in fact I think giving people the chance to try something without cost (without miss-selling) is a wonderful thing.
If I have understood you correctly you think there is a problem with people being offered free trails (of legal goods)
Fairly close. I think that there COULD BE a problem with people being offered free trials, or cheap initial offers, because this is an established psychological trick to get people to depend on a service, and then raise the price later. So the procedure could be two-edged, and it would be appropriate for regulators to watch that aspect carefully - and, if necessary, produce legislation to control this issue.
And if this is accepted, you can see why I think that it is not 'obviously insane' to consider legislation covering cheap or free offers. I am not saying that legislation is automatically necessary - just that it is a reasonable thing to consider. And, ipso facto, not insane...
Don't you think that seeing offering a free trial of a product or service as a psychological trick as a bit paranoid?
Products and services aren't addictive drugs, if the provider raises prices beyond what the customer is willing to pay they stop buying the service/product and in a free market look for a cheaper supplier.
I can't recall any free trials that I took as anything but beneficial, mostly because I decided I didn't need or want the product/service enough to pay for it, there-bye saving me money, whilst allowing me to genuinely evaluate the product/service without cost or commitment.
Don't you think that seeing offering a free trial of a product or service as a psychological trick as a bit paranoid?
Well; no, I don't. Because the tricks are so well known that they have their own slang vocabulary - bait and hook, subscription trap and the like. You will find warnings about the way people find it difficult to cancel all over the net. And we now have the Government worrying about it. So there are well-known and appreciated problems with free trial offers, and all consumer advisory organisations agree with me. If I am paranoid, I am in good company...
Note that this does not mean that new legislation is needed. But it does mean that there is a problem there which needs to be considered. Which is why I think that describing this concern as 'insane' is not justified...
All I can say it is that with Amazon's free trial it was much easier to cancel than it was to sign up in the first place. Signing up meant entering information, cancelling entailed clicking just one link in an email and then clicking one box.
Miss selling can occur with free trails, but that is true for any transaction, hence consumer protection legislation. And of course consumer groups are bleating on about free trails, they have to justify their existence and remuneration somehow.
The description of insane relates to proposals to ban free trails, colloquially it looks pretty mad to me.
As Joad used to say, "It all depends on what you mean by..."...
Taken literally, such a proposal might mean banning test drives in a car you might purchase. Which could justify the description of 'mad'. But equally, the target might be free trials which are designed to trap people into continuing once they are hooked, which seems a reasonable sort of activity to suppress.
In practice, I suspect that it would prove impossible to draft legislation which accurately targets the latter without affecting the former. However, 'mad' is a perfectly justifiable description of much legislation which is currently on the statute books. Almost all Equality and most recent Environmental legislation merits this description. So being 'mad' seems to be no reason nowadays for not going ahead...
You'll get no argument from me when it comes to a great deal of legislation, too much of it is absolute lunacy. Mrs. May's zero CO2 emissions target being a prime example, impossible, unnecessary as well economically catastrophic.
The thing that surprises me is that it's mathematically provable lunacy, and proven in practice with experience in other countries. And yet no one is allowed to complain - and it they try, no one listens. Charlie Mackay's excellent book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds" refers...
Mackay's work really details much of what is going on today, but I think that it goes deeper, far deeper.
Our modern world is one of moral relativism, devoid of yesteryear's religious imperatives people find themselves at sea, unsure of what is right or wrong, both in terms of personal morality and in a wider social context. We have passed the buck to others to decide for us what is and what isn't correct behaviour, if another finds offence in our actions or words it is we that have transgressed. Unable to decide for ourselves we allow others to judge us as individuals or in a wider sense sit meekly at the court of public opinion, like flotsam on an ocean.
Mrs. May probably doesn't have any real knowledge of climate change processes or indeed any interest in what the UK's CO2 emissions will be in 2050, when she is unlikely to be around. The motivation in pushing what really is a ridiculous policy agenda, is simply to gain plaudits from the collective; to have her moral compass polished by the masses.
The collective is generally as equally uninformed, or perhaps more accurately as misinformed. May panders to their fears and she hopes that they will return her gestures with approval; she seeks absolution and even redemption by advertising her environmental credentials. This highlights the weakness of her ego and her lack of intellect, but that is a not an uncommon phenomena.
None of us are immune, we live in our times and can't escape them. It appears that the Age of Enlightenment has come to an end, today is an Age of Sentimentality, judging and referencing each other by how much offence is taken and how much virtue is exhibited. The search for truth, particularly in in terms of what it is to be a human being, but also increasingly in the physical sciences, is being abandoned, feelings are becoming more valued than facts.
This is emotional incontinence, a sign of a lack of self-confidence and intellectual weakness and it is very worrisome. In normal daily life it allows for all sorts of problems, especially in respect of child rearing and relationships, but in leaders it is much more dangerous.
Our rulers have given up on trying to support us in making our lives better, they are not interested in policies that will inculcate positive outcomes, but instead seek validation and approval in what really is a vain attempt to hide a complete disconnection from reality and a total abdication of the responsibility to seek that which is inherently good and avoid that which is ill. In doing so concrete reality is being jettisoned, lest it cause discomfort.
Whether it is appeasing those whose neurosis makes them overly concerned with the climate or in turning reality on its head by dissolving genuine and measurable differences between men and women, the outcome of the policy is unimportant. Policy makers, executive agencies, non-governmental bodies, medical practitioners, media pundits and educationalists are all drowning in a morass of misguided self-indulgent distorted pathos, all in a vainglorious attempt to do the right thing; precisely because the aspiration to find that which is true has been abandoned, lazily in favour of that which doesn't disturb the individual or upset the many.
They have forgotten that morals and objective analysis, both of which should guide policy making, when borrowed and unearned are neither moral nor objective. Having given up on the aspiration for excellence they have turned themselves into distorted mirrors of collective idiocy, they have abdicated the responsibilities of leadership to become what is in effect an empty, inaccurate and unpleasant reflection of vacuous mawkishness. It is both pathetic and calamitous.