[Spivak]

This is literally what “sending you a bill” is. They don’t need to have an upfront agreement to charge your card. They need an upfront agreement that you will pay for services used at the end of the month. This is standard invoicing that these companies already do just without automatically charging cards.

When you pay your medical bills it’s still an explicit payment.

[jrockway]

So for newspapers and whatnot, the bill is the problem, not charging your credit card. You can close your credit card to stop the payment, but you can never get out of a contract you signed.

Businesses probably need contracts in order to function, but they are overused in business-to-consumer transactions. That's the underlying problem that we should solve -- you should be able to walk away, no questions asked, from paying for a newspaper or magazine.