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Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs

niemanlab.org

11–20 of 183 posts

Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs

#11

Some newspapers require subscribers to call a phone number to cancel their subscription. I refuse to subscribe to any service I can't unsubscribe from in a few clicks, regardless of the content.

Yeah, The Times (UK) does this, you cannot unsub unless you call a help-line that is firewalled by Rube-Goldberg UI contraption that takes rubix cube levels of motivation to get through.

Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs

#12

What I hate about subs for news media these days is the trend to have hidden tiers for subscribers. Basically, you pay a monthly/yearly fee and then all of the sudden you realize that are certain publications that are Exclusive for 'Gold' members or whatever! what a scam. They took a page from the SaaS business-space.

Reminds me of Amazon Prime where many movies have an extra paywall ("rent?") even if you own a subscription. So annoying.

Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs

#15
post #6

This is just lack of auto renew protections. Consumers are wise to this, and they’re not really canceling. I bet if you could turn off auto-renew they wouldn’t cancel. But, to nobody’s surprise, the MBAs don’t like options where the user doesn’t give away money by accident. Auto renew is one of those things that should be illegal to default users into.

Without auto renew half the SaaS tech landscape wouldn't exist. Many tech companies operate primarily a gym without knowing it.

Easy to subscribe, hard to remove, and 0 costs to keep up accounts of people that don't use it, that sounds like a gym subscription to me.

Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs

#16
post #12

What I hate about subs for news media these days is the trend to have hidden tiers for subscribers. Basically, you pay a monthly/yearly fee and then all of the sudden you realize that are certain publications that are Exclusive for 'Gold' members or whatever! what a scam. They took a page from the SaaS business-space.

Reminds me of Amazon Prime where many movies have an extra paywall ("rent?") even if you own a subscription. So annoying.

Would you prefer the movies you can rent were not there at all?

Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs

#17
post #6

This is just lack of auto renew protections. Consumers are wise to this, and they’re not really canceling. I bet if you could turn off auto-renew they wouldn’t cancel. But, to nobody’s surprise, the MBAs don’t like options where the user doesn’t give away money by accident. Auto renew is one of those things that should be illegal to default users into.

I'm currently subscribed to something for a year because of auto renew. The subscription is something useful but was going to use a competitor but once I'd paid it they made it so painful to back out I let it go, turned off auto renew properly, and will never use them again once this one lapses.

What's the service, if you don't mind saying? I'd like to avoid them if I can help it.

Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs

#18

What I hate about subs for news media these days is the trend to have hidden tiers for subscribers. Basically, you pay a monthly/yearly fee and then all of the sudden you realize that are certain publications that are Exclusive for 'Gold' members or whatever! what a scam. They took a page from the SaaS business-space.

What I really hate is that there doesn't seem to be some sort of Netflix-type subscription thing (or if there is I'm not aware of it and the subscribe now! banners blasted over everything never seem to suggest them).

If there's an interesting story in, say, the Austin local newspaper and I live in Idaho or wherever I am not bothering to subscribe to Austin's local newspaper just to see if the rest of the article is actually interesting. And sure sometimes you get three articles or whatever but even then it's insanity to subscribe.

Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs

#19
post #15
post #6

This is just lack of auto renew protections. Consumers are wise to this, and they’re not really canceling. I bet if you could turn off auto-renew they wouldn’t cancel. But, to nobody’s surprise, the MBAs don’t like options where the user doesn’t give away money by accident. Auto renew is one of those things that should be illegal to default users into.

Without auto renew half the SaaS tech landscape wouldn't exist. Many tech companies operate primarily a gym without knowing it. Easy to subscribe, hard to remove, and 0 costs to keep up accounts of people that don't use it, that sounds like a gym subscription to me.

Not wrong, though my experience is that most of them _do_ know it. At least the finance people do, if they're paying any attention at all.

Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs

#20
They signed up to read one interesting article.

The experience of news subscriptions, and especially cancellations, is terrible.

Where are the pay as you go plans? I'll give your site $20, then you can debit my account some fee per article that I actually read. And no auto-renew.

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