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Comment by davidrusu | Hacker News Reader

These companies should realize they are playing an iterated prisoners dilemma game with their customers. Just because your services aren't right for me today, doesn't mean I won't come back in the future and pay for your services again now that I know what you do.

But I doubt I'd come back if my last experience with a company has been a bad cancellation procedure.

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> Just because your services aren't right for me today, doesn't mean I won't come back in the future and pay for your services again

I suspect that it is quite rare though for someone to actually come back.

What about word-of-mouth recommendations? If a service doesn't work for me and I cancel, I may still recommend it to someone else. Not so much if I know they're going to hate me for it if they try to cancel.

Varies by business, for sure.

I'd say the chance is much higher for B2B businesses. Say my Shopify store fails so I cancel my subscription. But I'll likely come back and try my luck again with Shopify on my next idea since I've learned the platform.

With the risk of generalizing, this is what I do with some streaming services. I subscribe then cancel after 2-3 months after I've finished watching what I was interested in. I do this with HBO, Showtime, Hulu, Netflix, etc..

I do the same with Leetcode, cancelling my subscription after I'm done prepping then resurrecting it if needed.

Wrong attitude, and wrong. If I am trying out a few things that don't pan out, I may want to cancel. Then I may want to come back in a few months. Also, this space is moving quickly, so if they aren't improving the product quickly then they will die quickly, so I am sure the people using these tools are trying things out every now and then. Also, you are tainting your word of mouth. Just because I cancel doesn't mean I can't recommend it to someone else who may have different needs. But if it's a pain to cancel I won't be doing that.

Someone will be much more likely to come back though given that they want to, if they know they won’t be held hostage.

I have cancelled and come back on a number of services, both personal and for work.

I have NEVER come back to ANY service I had to call to cancel.

I've been in and out of so many services! The fact that it is easy makes me come back again to many of them.

And still, you don't want to spend your support team's time helping customers cancel their subscriptions.

On top of that, you don't want them complaining that they cannot easily stop the service in online forums nor to their co-workers.

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