141–150 of 183 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What publications are you subscribed to? Which publications do you read? I find that high quality publications give quite an honest and objective view.
Right, AN objective view...
not entirely their fault -- the entire electronic payments system has evolved to make non in person micropayments difficult
also possible pubs aren't confident enough in the value prop of individual articles to price them
I hate virtual economies + in-game currencies but for newspapers specifically, as an alternative to subscription-gating, it might be an improvement
anonymity is also a consideration; KYC fine, but the payment processor can know who I am without telling the content vendor
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Got names? Useful to know and to avoid.
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…
The customers they lost don't show up on any metric. I've often wondered about how to measure aversion instead of conversion.
> US Air Force Brigadier General Edward Lansdale reportedly told McNamara,[3] who was trying to develop a list of metrics to allow him to scientifically follow the progress of the war, that he was not considering the feelings of the common rural Vietnamese people. McNamara wrote it down on his list in pencil, then erased it and told Lansdale that he could not measure it, so it must not be important.
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…
My guess is that the MBAs are right, and losing the business of people like you is outweighed by larger gains.
There is a cliff though where if you go over it you do alienate everyone and sentiment turns against the company and it'll fail. That isn't measurable though so nobody cares, and they'll just leave and land at a different company and try to juice it as well.
But overall with every business in the country doing this, it becomes pretty toxic. You're not actually producing things that people really want, you're producing things that maximally exploit consumers.
At some point, though, does the whole culture and economy fall over that cliff and you get systemic failure?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I do see the flip-side where that's a feature. You get a new card and you have to make sure you migrate over all of your subscriptions and bill-pay to the new cc. Would be nice for Apple (or someone) to build more features around that so it's easy to see recurring charges and bills automatically.
That's why they do it I believe. But if they pair that up with subscription management it would be nice. Interestingly they do this exact thing with App Store subscriptions. You can cancel anytime it's done through Apple, and not the service/app you subscribed to.