81–90 of 183 posts
It feels like microtransactions are the appropriate model to use here, but it will likely have negative incentives (e.g., prioritize clickbait even more.) The Apple News model is also fairly promising, but unclear if publications can support their businesses with it.
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.
The harder a service is to cancel, the more unlikely I am to ever re-subscribe. That's something they need to start studying in business/MBA school. That SOME customer churn reduction strategies directly lead to indefinite loss of customers. To give a specific anecdote: Ooma offers a very interesting service, hassle-free "landline" (VoIP) turn-key phone service, the price is reasonable, and they have multiple offerin…
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.
The harder a service is to cancel, the more unlikely I am to ever re-subscribe. That's something they need to start studying in business/MBA school. That SOME customer churn reduction strategies directly lead to indefinite loss of customers. To give a specific anecdote: Ooma offers a very interesting service, hassle-free "landline" (VoIP) turn-key phone service, the price is reasonable, and they have multiple offerin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do things play out if you call your credit card company and say, "Please don't allow any more charges from this vendor. I'm trying to cancel but they're making it hard."?
Semi-related: If you don't want to go through the process of trying to work with your bank to refuse auto-renewal, there are services like Privacy (privacy.com) that allow you to essentially make "virtual" credit cards. You allot a specific amount of money to one of their cards, then use that to sign up with. It also claims to help keep your accounts a bit more safe, since if that data gets leaked, it's not your actu…
Is there an option to create virtual "credit" cards on Privacy? I only can make debit cards.
In my case at least it would've been a payroll deduction so I'd never have to deal with cancelling. I'd just cancel the payroll deduction (as in it was a corporate rate).
A lot of people don't like Adobe having subscription services. I actually think subscriptions are a better fit for software. You never really "own" your software as much as you think you might. You've just created an incentive for the company to bump the major version and sell you an "upgrade" while abandoning your version. Adobe did this cameras they'd support with their RAW plugin. The RAW plugin just had completely nnnecessary minimum versions to force people to upgrade.
But Adobe's subscription model sucks. You have to purchase a year minimum. There are lots of dark patterns to auto-renew. Actually cancelling is difficult.
Compare this to Jetbrains (which I pay for). When you cancel you get to use any version you've paid for in perpetuity. They send you advance notice about renewals. I'm happy to pay it.
There are a number of news publications I'd like to support but I just don't want to deal with an opaque "introductory pricing" and having to call someone to cancel. I'm not supporting such practices with my money.
I realize some MBA somewhere has done the math on new subs lost vs continuing subs they'd lose but this is a classic example of short-term thinkin gyour way into extinction.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The harder a service is to cancel, the more unlikely I am to ever re-subscribe. That's something they need to start studying in business/MBA school. That SOME customer churn reduction strategies directly lead to indefinite loss of customers. To give a specific anecdote: Ooma offers a very interesting service, hassle-free "landline" (VoIP) turn-key phone service, the price is reasonable, and they have multiple offerin…
I cancelled my years long nytimes subscription a few years ago once someone told me that they had to call in and suffer through customer service retention reps in order to cancel their sub. I just couldn't stand the thought of being bled for cash due to their making it too inconvenient for subscribers to cancel.
One of the big problems is the CSR's only have incentives to retain people now. There is no extra penalty for alienating someone from ever coming back, it's the same as a non-renew.
With the web versions of this, every app that badgers me gets a 1 star review for badgering me by insisting that I review it. Every cancellation, I select "other" and tell them I don't do business with people that hold my subscription hostage until I answer questions.
Personally, I feel there is some fraud (or some other legal term here) going on when I press a "Cancel Subscription" button and it doesn't cancel. A regular confirmation box is fine and understandable, but they can't help but change the default colors and text on those, or word them oddly to make me want to back out. Bu "cancelling" followed up by mandatory questions/answers about why I'm quitting is forcing me to work for them building their data sets without compensation. Maybe I should send them a bill.
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.