The AtlanticReviews of theatlantic.com

I recently subscribed to The Atlantic after being attracted by snippers of fiction that came across my social media feed. As I was trying to move away doomscrolling and return to some of content I had enjoyed in earlier years with magazines like Yankee, Readers Digest, National Geographic and even Good Housekeeping. I thought I would get a good mix of fiction mixed combined culture, arts, science and the like. I've yet to even receive my first hard copy magazine but the digital content alone is enough to make me regret my choice. Rather than human interest it seems like the entire magazine is dedicated to anti Trumpism. Today I decided to check out some audio fiction and chose to listen to an article giving a contemporary analysis of Salinger's Catcher In The Rye. I wasn't two minutes in and anti Trump rhetoric started. I subscribed as an escape from the constant social media bombardment and looks like I paid to get it even worse. Regrets

Paid for a print and online subscription, cannot access any media at all. No help whatsoever from the chatbot. No communication is possible. Tried many a variant to gain access but nothing. Just another rip off in this day and age.

Enjoyed for the long form analysis until I found a quote in one of the David Frum shows that denied that Israel is committing a genocide...It has been defined as a genocide by the United Nations, leading worldwide human rights lawyers/experts/organisations and the international court of law; it's not a matter up for debate. The quote:"the message from the Democratic Party is, 'We are making it a litmus test that you say that Israel committed genocide in Gaza'. That is an intentional inversion of the truth of the Holocaust, a central event in modern Jewish history." How strange to say that calling something out for what is is (as legally defined, a genocide), is somehow denying the truth or taking away from the truth of the genocide (Holocaust) experienced by Jewish people in WWII. Calling it a genocide in Gaza, does not diminish/take away from the genocide that occurred to jewish people. Genocide is not something that has and can only happen to Jewish people. Very strange mental gymnastics to suggest otherwise, that appear to be rooted in victimhood rather than acknowledging that at this point in time, international consensus is that Israel is indeed committing a genocide.

I really like the Atlantic, I like the writers, I like the content. I'm not too sure why you'd write a review on trustpilot to complain about their journalism. That's not what this is for. Trust pilot is about a company's business practices. And the Atlantic falls so far short of where they should be on that front that even people who are fully committed to the writers and editors, and what they are trying to do, end up angry, frustrated and unsubscribed. The customer service is disorganised and full of glib sales-speak. It takes an age to get a response. They make mistakes. They don't read what you tell them. They are undermining the business. I imagine this business feels they save so much money by having poor, likely outsourced customer service that it makes business sense to do it that way. But it may put a ceiling on their growth. Instead of my enthusiastic support, and my recommendation that others subscribe, I feel angry tense and insulted when I see that site at this point. I will also say that for readers in the UK, the practice of auto-renewing subscriptions without explicit consent, especially gift subscriptions, is perceived as duplicitous to the point of being theft. Maybe that's accepted in the US. Not here.

I am a subscriber to The Atlantic. Online and in print. I find Adam Serwer closest to my belief system, calling out injustice to Women and people of color. Alexandra Petri makes me laugh. A few others bring perspective for me. But…. Jonathan Chait and David Brooks are infuriating, they walk that center lane, never veering left or right. Don’t make trouble they tell the Democrats. Stick with the center. The forever loyal opposition. Almost makes me want to resign my subscription.but…..

Most of what their writers are invested in are just opinions. They don't actually engage in facts, just idle remarks about the political landscape as they see it. Which is distorted by the influence of several donors. I think the lens they want us to see through is that of a rose colored neolibralism. Despite their protests to the contrary, most of what I read here is just the wealthy, liberal elites trying to preserve the status quo while pretending to be good people. If you're working class, this organization (and most mainstream media) could care less about you, your desire for a modest apartment or home, good, healthy food to eat, a small pension and universal, well-funded healthcare available to everyone. (FYI, good food available to everyone, was important to America a long time ago. Seeds used to be dropped by plane, found in seed libraries and a socialist construct that served our citizens well until greedy men decided we should pay for seeds. They lobbied our leaders and won. They were the first lobbyist to take away something we used to get from the government, our collective food seeds. Now you get to pay for them and quite a lot more.) The Atlantic pretends to be liberal. They are not. Some of these writers are making $300,000 a year. A couple even more than that. No one here is interested in class rebellion. Oh no. They will label you potential terrorists if you dare describe yourself a democratic socialist. Even though it's been around for quite some time in countries which have been named the happiest in the world. They are using Faux Fox news techniques to scare the ignorant and those too lazy to understand what it actually is and what most of us really care about. Which is only this: end the class warfare across the world and stop killing children and saying it's ok. You're calling us the terrorists? How does one sleep at night? Read instead: Mother Jones Jacobin CurrentAffairs (dot org) Counterpunch (dot org) Books from Seven Stories Press So much more out there deserving your attention than this neoliberal rag. There are people out there writing for you, the working class. They want you to have happiness in your life and for you and everyone in this country to meet their potential, because when you do, we all win. I want you be able to be the best you can be. There are people in the media who want that too. These are not those people.

Sadly, my experience with their customer service has led me to cancel the subscription. I have been a printed subscriber for 2 years, receiving the printed magazines in Spain. Worth mentioning that the delivery was always a month or months and a half late, but at least the magazines were delivered. Three months ago I stopped receiving anything, so I contacted their support, received automated emails with no resolution. I started chatting with someone from the support on the app, but they refused to send the missing issues, promised to renew the subscription for free for three months, but never followed through on that promise. Further emails never led to anything. I am a printed subscriber for a reason, and the lack of any effort to resolve the issue was really very frustrating. Reading all the posts here about the lack of any customer support is really disappointing, especially when nothing is being done to fix it. Such a waste of money and time.

We subscribed over three months ago and have not yet received a single issue. We've submitted four customer service requests online asking for help and have not gotten a single response directed to our issue. We've called twice during hours that their call center is supposed to be operating, and the message says they are closed even though it's between 9-4 EST. I guess we will just have to dispute the charge.