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Comment by ziml77 | Hacker News Reader

Good lord yes. I subscribed to the Wall Street Journal for a bit, but then ended up low on cash and needing to cut back on spending. Of all the subscriptions I stopped at that time, they were the most annoying. Because, even though I was able to sign up easily online, there was no way to cancel other than calling them. That disparity in ease between starting and stopping my subscription is why I will never pay them again.

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I was low on money and cancelled my Audible subscription for a month only to realize I lost all my tokens. I never resubscribed because of that.

I later learned that they have some special limited "pause subscription" mode that retains tokens, but I didn't see that when I was cancelling, and I shouldn't have to research different ways to cancel a subscription.

I just cancelled audible this morning, and did not see any pause subscription. It may have been there, but I was annoyed with other dark patterns. "no! i want to stay subscribed!" as a bright orange button, and "continue cancellation" as a muted grey button, for example.

When subscribed to audible through apple I get "your credits never expire" clause... I've cancelled my subscription, subsequently restarted when I need more credits, and cancelled again... still have 4 credits.

Exactly, I failed to cancel the subscription the first time due to probably that dark pattern.

I pressed the Submit button but the next page fooled me so I thought I could close the browser tab.

I realized I was still charged a few days later, I went back to ensure I was cancelled where I realized I didn't complete the flow because you have to click "Continue cancellation" on the page that you land on despite thinking you’ve completed the process.

Nice lil F U on the way out.

NYTimes used to be like this, but last time I looked they had fixed it. Making unsubscribing hard is just such a slimy dark pattern. Immediately creates anger and hatred from users. I guess someone has demonstrated math that shows it is more profitable in some cases, but it is still disgusting.

> I guess someone has demonstrated math that shows it is more profitable in some cases

Don't underestimate how deeply, fundamentally, mind-bogglingly incompetent most decision-makers are at most companies. Not only do these people have no evidence to suggest it's more profitable (long-term, anyway), they literally do not care. The vast majority of decisions made at the vast majority of corporations in the U.S. today are driven by the Principal Agent Problem, made by people who will never be held account for any of their decisions, nor suffer any consequence for any downstream or long-term effects of anything they do. It's all just a game of who can suck the most blood out of the company short-term before finding another host. These virulent parasites will never give a shit about such mundane concepts as "supporting data".

I'm convinced this is one of the most significant social problems in the U.S. A huge number of American adults spend a third of their lives in an environment where there is no acting towards a common good, and in many cases are actively encouraged to behave in antisocial, cutthroat ways towards other people. There is no way everybody just leaves that at work when they go home and suddenly become good and caring citizens. That's not even counting all of the direct damage they cause directly through the business itself.

Can confirm that the NYT has fixed it, as I recently went to go see how much of a pain in the ass it was to cancel. I was at least considering cancelling because I just don't read NYT enough to really justify the expense. Since it's such a huge PITA, I chose a day when I had some time, because by golly I'm sticking with the process to the end, no matter how long I sit on hold with "customer retention".

Oh, you can just click a few "are you sure?" buttons, and that's it? All done online? Well, it isn't that much money every month, and I do read the NYT. If I can easily cancel, then...oh, what the heck, let's keep the subscription.

But I had to pick up a phone that day...

I cancelled my NYT subscription a couple of years ago and had to chat with customer "service" to cancel. One of the things they asked me about was keeping the crossword subscription ($20/year), which I might have done. But I was so irritated by the annoying process that I just wanted to cancel everything. So they definitely lost money thanks to their "customer retention" tactics.

Same here. And you have to call on East Coast business hours (I'm west coast). I am a crossword aficionado and would enjoy having the NYT crossword puzzle fresh each day. No way am I keeping a subscription that was so hard to cancel.

It was changed because of a California law IIRC.

The Wall Street Journal lets you cancel your subscription if your address is in California, but not if it's in another state. If I wanted to cancel my subscription, I'm just going to pretend to move to California for a day or two. Maybe that's fraud and I'll go to prison for the rest of my life, but it's still better than calling them.

>” I'm just going to pretend to move to California for a day or two. Maybe that's fraud and I'll go to prison for the rest of my life, but it's still better than calling them.”

That’s the best part, California’s prisons are over capacity so you’re likely just going to be given parole and community service! /s

No downsides!

When I canceled my NYT Crossword subscription (they got rid of the convenient .puz file format that could be downloaded), I had to call.

I found the CA law and explained to them how what they were forcing me to do was illegal in the state of CA, started citing the law, and the NYT rep immediately tried to cut me off so it wouldn't be recorded, I assume.

If they've truly changed things, good for them.

They're never getting another cent from me.

Exact same experience, I signed up for them as part of a class in college and honestly liked their reporting. If they hadn't made me call them and sit through a call center lecture I would probably be paying for them now that I have money.

Both the WSJ and the NYT used to be awful. But now, in California, this sort of thing is no longer a problem. We have a rule here that subscribing online means you should be able to cancel online.

That makes me want to subscribe to companies' services like this even less: if they need a law to force them to treat customers right, then I really don't want to give them my money.

I checked the date on the linked article and it's from yesterday. online "geo-ip" stuff always says i live in georgia, dallas, or oklahoma - and one time tacoma!

I'm not sure this is as solved as you envision.

Huh, that's interesting. I suppose I'm lucky my IP shows me as being in SJ. TIL.

Dallas makes the most sense as that's where at&t's fiber terminates from this area. If i lived a little further south it would go to either georgia or whatever major city is along I-10 in texas, don't feel like looking at the map.

Starlink used to show me near chicago, but now is pretty consistently also dallas. T-mo is most likely to show me on the east coast.

I live in Central Louisiana.

My worst is a similar financial institution, which bills monthly and contracts annually.

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