When I was back at the Academy, we used to get a copy of the New York Times every morning, and it was required reading for all West Point cadets. When you were a freshman, you’d be grilled by upperclassmen about what was in the paper, and you’d better be sure you knew exactly what was on the front page. Over the years, I continued reading the newspaper, mainly because I was introduced to it in the beginning and sort of thought of it as the newspaper everyone should be reading. Well, over the years, the quality has diminished, and it’s no longer the master newspaper it used to be, especially as the Internet has basically made their entire foundation far less than it ever was. But, of course, no one bothered to tell the New York Times that. They’re still convinced they’re the greatest newspaper out there. And they may be. What they don’t realize is that all newspapers, including theirs, has fallen into a cesspool of crappy journalism so that pretty much none of them are as relevant as they used to be.

So, some years back, I discontinued my paper delivery of the New York Times and even though I tried getting it online a few times in the past, I discovered it really didn’t have the breaking news that I needed as a consumer of daily news.

Now, my reasons for discontinuing the paper way back then didn’t even involve the quality of the paper back then. I shut down my subscription because the deliverer couldn’t seem to get the paper to my door. At first, he started delivering to the wrong apartment, meaning I had to grab it before my neighbor realized that he had a free newspaper for the day, and then the deliverer got really lazy and just started throwing it in front of my apartment complex, meaning that I had to be lucky enough to get it before 74 other families passed it on their way to work. When I couldn’t resolve this problem, I resolved it by walking away.

But the NYT continued to believe that I “needed” their newspaper, so they have continued sending me endless emails about how coming back to their newspaper will somehow benefit me. And each time their “benefit” seems to be an absolutely low price (for the first four or six weeks) before it turns into some normal price, of which never gets mentioned in any correspondence they send to me. So I don’t sign up. And they keep sending me these great “offers” to me, and it just continues to piss me off because I equate it to the old bait and switch routine, which is backed up by foot in the door processes. They figure that once I have their wonderful newspaper again, I’ll do anything to keep it after the low rate expires.

What they don’t seem to understand is that if I NEVER pay them a cent ever, that price NEVER goes up. And I don’t lose anything when I decide that their price increase was too much for me.

Unfortunately, the newspaper isn’t the only one who does this. I remember in the old days when I had Comcast. They did the same thing by hooking me in with some ridiculously low three for one deal that was massively affordable. Six months later, that $99 price then became something like $214. All other options that were affordable were almost like having no service at all, so in the end, I dumped Comcast and decided that watching television wasn’t all that beneficial with the working model they were trying to sell us.

So, whenever I see one of these “deals”, and I see them ALL THE FREAKING TIME, I opt out. I then feel that whatever company tried to lure me in was doing so for nefarious purposes and I tend to do no business with them in the future. That’s really been the only way I can respond and feel good about myself.