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

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

#91

Post by AlwaysRock »

auggierose wrote: post #16
ctxc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What an odd question. I would prefer the movies that are on the service I pay for to be included in my package.

It's a different service, rentals, smashed into the service I pay for, prime "free" videos. That is what makes it frustrating. I do in fact sometimes end up renting those videos which is why they include them. But it's not a good customer experience by any means.

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

#92

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

phailhaus wrote: post #81

It's wild to me that the default payment plan for publications is a subscription-based model. The audacity! I'm just trying to read an article every so often, that is not worth whatever you're charging per month. 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 u…

I think news might be the only exception here- newspaper subscriptions have been around a very long time.

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

#93

Post by AlbertCory »

The headline is misleading; it's not just news publications.

>Email newsletters, a welcome letter from the editor, a mobile app download, podcasts, subscription benefits reminders and/or a series of reminder emails over the first week and month have all proven successful with audiences.

Nope, nope, nope to all of that. Annoying me has the opposite effect to what the MBAs want.

As someone below notes: you can go to privacy.com and set up temp credit cards, with a limited $$$ amount. They can try to auto-renew all they want, but they'll just get declined.

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

#94

Post by ascagnel_ »

colinmhayes wrote: post #52
registeredcorn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd prefer a higher subscription rate for the service. The sensation of paying for something, then paying on top of that thing is infuriating. It's like paying admission to enter a theme park, then having to pay a fee for each ride: either let me enter for free, and pay for each ride, or pay to enter, and ride for free. Assuming a higher subscription rate would be prohibitively expensive, then yes, I would prefer no…

You can change Amazon video to only show free options. A subscription that made all the rentable movies free would be prohibitively expensive. You should basically be thinking of prime video and the movie rental service as different businesses.

Really the issue is that Amazon is trying to use a single app ("Prime Video") for both the Prime Video service (all-you-can-watch library of limited content) and their video storefront (a la carte purchases of a larger library). They should have split them out years ago, or at least done a better job of segmenting the two.

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

#95

Post by m348e912 »

steve_taylor wrote: post #74
vasco wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Auto-renew is fine, as long as the product's billing system has the necessary protections, such as - low-friction cancellation - email users a few days before monthly renewals and twice before annual renewals - ability to remove the payment method altogether - don't require a credit card for a free trial If cancellation takes effect immediately, the service should provide an immediate pro rata refund.

Credit card companies could really make a difference with helping manage subscription services. For example, they could allow you to decline future charges from certain merchants essentially cancelling your subscription. You wouldn't even have to cancel with the provider, you can cancel with the cc company. Some credit card companies do the opposite! Apple Card will automatically provide merchants with your new card number if you order a card replacement, and you can't do anything about it. It's the reason I am no longer an Apple Card user.

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

#96

Post by josephcsible »

steve_taylor wrote: post #74
vasco wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Auto-renew is fine, as long as the product's billing system has the necessary protections, such as - low-friction cancellation - email users a few days before monthly renewals and twice before annual renewals - ability to remove the payment method altogether - don't require a credit card for a free trial If cancellation takes effect immediately, the service should provide an immediate pro rata refund.

> don't require a credit card for a free trial

This doesn't bother me as much as most of the other complaints here. How else can you keep someone from creating multiple accounts to get multiple free trials?

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

#97

Post by josephcsible »

Spoom wrote: post #21
jwie wrote: 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 seeing more companies terminate accounts immediately upon cancellation, especially for free trials. This makes people back out of cancellation while it's on their mind, and then they forget to cancel before the deadline. It's a dark pattern I really wish the industry would stop pushing.

Why isn't it already illegal for cancellation to take effect right away for prepaid services without being given a prorated refund? Isn't that basically theft?

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

#98

Post by InitialLastName »

brigandish wrote: post #39
CoastalCoder wrote: post #23

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."?

I have used my credit card company to do this, but like I say, it wasn't that I was particularly unhappy with their service, just wanted to use a competitor (grass looked greener). Ironically, the auto renew was the first real problem I'd had.

> it wasn't that I was particularly unhappy with their service

"The service is prohibitively difficult to cancel" is a perfectly sensible justification for being unhappy with the service.

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

#99

Post by josephcsible »

AlbertCory wrote: post #93

The headline is misleading; it's not just news publications. >Email newsletters, a welcome letter from the editor, a mobile app download, podcasts, subscription benefits reminders and/or a series of reminder emails over the first week and month have all proven successful with audiences. Nope, nope, nope to all of that. Annoying me has the opposite effect to what the MBAs want. As someone below notes: you can go to pr…

> you can go to privacy.com and set up temp credit cards, with a limited $$$ amount. They can try to auto-renew all they want, but they'll just get declined.

Doesn't your credit report (unfairly) take a hit if you do that, the same way it (fairly) does if you don't pay your electric bill?

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

#100

Post by koofdoof »

LanceH wrote: post #88
gnome_chomsky wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I used to tell the newspaper I was moving to Madagascar because they wouldn't have that on their script. Now they'll just push the electronic edition. 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 badge…

Try telling them you're going to prison instead. I can't imagine they'll have an inmate edition.
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