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Comment by corbet | Hacker News Reader

I bailed on the Economist a couple of years ago after at least a couple decades...thought I was the only one who felt it had declined. I haven't really found a good replacement still.

If nothing else, the pain they put me through to end the subscription was enough to prevent me from ever signing up again.

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Their “customer retention” process is extremely aggressive, even by most traditional print publications’ standards.

I have recently bailed too - I was subjected to multiple exit interviews when cancelling my subscription (two online and one over the phone). This certainly put me right off resubscribing at any point in the future.

I canceled recently and had to escalate to “I have told you to cancel three times and if you cannot cancel now I will have to dispute the charges with my credit card company.”

Been there. It's not just the economist, most services that include the node "Send an email to unsubscribe" are a problem for me.

I'm paying everyone via paypal and just cancel the paypal subscription without ever bothering replying to any email. That works wonders :-)

You should see the unsubscribe process of FAZ and SZ in Germany. It is like signing up to a gym or a phone contract. FAZ does not even accept credit cards! they want your IBAN and approval for them to charge you every month (like an utility bill) for one year. Then if you forget to cancel x days in advance it restarts.

And wasn't there a law (in EU) that signing up should be as easy and cancelling, if anyone remembers. Most of them allow signup via website but ask you to call to cancel (even after cancelling online, SZ).

I say this as a previous subscriber to FAZ, SZ, and the Economist.

If you’re in the UK, your local library may have access to the Economist as an online magazine

My county’s libraries use Libby, and I get to read The Economist and many other magazine ‘for free’ (reality is my council and other taxes pay for it but you get my drift)

This is also true in the US, where Libby is common too. I read the Economist, the New Yorker, and the New York Review of Books for free that way -- the Washington DC public library system (which even people living in the DC suburbs can get a library card to) subscribes, for example.

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