Don't Subscribe So Casually

https://thebestworstcase.substack.com/p/dont-subscribe-so-casually

by shmublu • 2 months ago

130 94 2 months ago

thebestworstcase.substack.com

sa-code• 2 months ago

I would go a step further, cancel as soon as you subscribe. It's still valid for a month because you've paid for it!

If you ever need to use the service again just re-subscribe (and re-cancel)

In fact, what is stopping you from cancelling all your subscriptions right now? You can always buy back in when you like

orsorna• 2 months ago

Some don't treat months as discrete units. Uber revokes your membership immediately.

jLaForest• 2 months ago

Do they also give a prorated refund? Otherwise that seems to be blatant theft

3form5• 2 months ago

Also a common practice for free trials. Adobe does that if I'm not mistaken.

Love seeing companies worth tens or hundreds of billions acting like they couldn't spare a cent from underhanded shit like that. Scrooge McDuck type of behavior, except he also had some redeeming qualities.

everdrive2• 2 months ago

Uber revokes your membership immediately.

Sounds like a great object lesson -- this a service that is will to take your money. Better to cancel now and not look back.

noja• 2 months ago

Because for some subscriptions the price goes up.

jerf2• 2 months ago

But the entire scheme here is to not have them continually. It's better to pay month+$2 in six months when you need it, than 6*month for the months you don't.

If you rotate subscriptions sensibly, they're much cheaper than the old cable model. If you're not looking, they can really bleed you out and be much more expensive than the old model.

sublinear• 2 months ago

The core value for most subscription services is their convenience. There's usually another less convenient way to get the same thing cheaper or free.

Most people are literally paying so they don't have to set all that shit up again and the cost is trivial to them.

If that's not you, fine, but my point is that nobody is "right" about this topic. Services exist because they make money.

Semaphor• 2 months ago

When I actually use a service, it's more work to resubscribe. But money is also tight enough for me that I'm on top of my subscriptions and don't have any I don't need (and when I'm unsure, I set reminders to cancel)

BloondAndDoom3• 2 months ago

Recently cancelled something early so I won’t forget, they didn’t send my shipment even though I paid for it. They said I cancelled, tried to work with support but given after a point.

So yeah, not all companies do that.

mschild• 2 months ago

Did you receive your money back?

If not, time for a charge back with your card provider.

throwaway2027• 2 months ago

I saw some small business owner complain about this behavior on twitter some time ago and he mentioned he only saw non-Americans do this and it made him really mad or something and he didn't provide the service and banned them or something. Funnily enough I do think this happens so sometimes I cancel instantly and sometimes deliberately wait until there are a few days left on the subscription exactly out of paranoia behavior that you'll get a worse service or something, that they must have some database field early cancel and mess with you or something.

bji9jhff• 2 months ago

Why would they salt their own field it's hard to understand

boplicity• 2 months ago

This is indeed my standard practice. In my head, I just tell myself "I'm buying a month."

dominicrose2• 2 months ago

The Playstation store subscriptions have different tiers and within each tier different prices depending on the number of months.

These psychological tricks don't need to work every time (or on everyone) to be effective.

amunozo• 2 months ago

I currently do this with language models subscriptions.

soperj• 2 months ago

Wouldn't this be a good use of a 1 time credit card number?

paconbork• 2 months ago

Yeah, this is the main thing I use privacy.com for

winddude• 2 months ago

Kinda' ironic posting a service that promotes two types of casual subscriptions, inbox clutter, and "micro transactions"

sdoering2• 2 months ago

Especially when one considers how friggin difficult this service makes it to cancel a (paid) subscription.

shmublu• 2 months ago

yeah. would love other recommendations for similar services that handle it better if you have any

everdrive2• 2 months ago

It's the most HN technology there is: "Has technology caused problems in your life? Well good news, this additional technology sits at the top layer to protect you from the prior technology."

xg15• 2 months ago

Can be extended to social media accounts as well.

musha68k2• 2 months ago

One way I've "reset" my subscriptions is by invalidating the credit card they're on so most of them just stop billing. YMMV it's a bit of a blunt tool and not always foolproof, but it's worked for me before.

satvikpendem3• 2 months ago

I'm pretty sure you can harm your credit and have the debt get sent to collections by doing this, at least it's common for gym subscribers not paying their fees.

musha68k2• 2 months ago

Good point. Fortunately, where I live, subscription fees are typically charged before the next billing period begins, so there usually isn't any outstanding balance carried over. Credit-building in the North American sense also isn't much of a thing here. My understanding is that, even in North America, most of the benefit comes from just consistently paying your credit card bill, although I can't say that with certainty.

elzbardico• 2 months ago

Nowadays I am adopting the "Mom Strategy for Subscriptions (TM)": Eat what is in your plate before asking for more stuff.

atulatul• 2 months ago

I tried this idea for the books and gave up. No rules for book purchases.

But for something like netflix, I create a list. And when I start repeating something like Seinfeld, Breaking Bad, etc. rather than not-yet-watched items from the list, I cancel the subscription. And I don't renew till some time passes (6 months). Only then there are a few different movies/ series I can add to the list.

IFC_LLC• 2 months ago

A very simple handling:

Buy a domain. Get Proton, or Apple, or any other custom-domain email service.

Setup catch-all incoming mail.

Every merchant receives an email like merchantname@donotwriteto.me

Then you can either sort those out, or if they are malicious and not deleting you from your email lists, you can block the incoming traffic on that email.

This way you still can verify your email, comm stays private and you can have your own peace of mind, but you don't have to keep the spam in your primary inbox.

cube00• 2 months ago

Highly recommend this, I no longer need any spam filtering following this approach.

My old Gmail would be loaded with spam and the filter would screw up and mislabel legitimate mail. Now, no spam at all.

It also helps when your email is involved in a data breach which is becoming the norm now.

Although be prepared for awkward in person interactions when a business wants your email. Everything from "no, your email silly not mine" to "I own this business name you can't have it in your email address"

hundchenkatze• 2 months ago

This is good advice for email/newsletter subscriptions, but that isn't what the article is about.

iLoveOncall• 2 months ago

You obviously didn't read the article at all since it's about paying for subscriptions.

CachedaCodes• 2 months ago

It's def good advice.

I've been doing something similar with Firefox relay to have proxy emails that I can regenerate if needed, it worked well but not for every site. Recently I've been testing SimpleLogin and it worked every time, it's by Proton.

rectang• 2 months ago

Companies who wish for more casual subscribers should support services (such as Apple App Store subscriptions) and anti-dark-pattern laws which reassure the public that unsubscribing will be easy.

Then the complacency and other psychological effects that this article seeks to inoculate users against will be maximized.

m463• 2 months ago

I think costco membership has two reasons...

Yes, the people who "subscribe" to costco are more loyal, etc.

But it also excludes. The general public is probably a lot more labor-intensive for costco, and they eliminate that.

massysett• 2 months ago

Their "shrink rate" is low. Members are less likely to steal.

mmh0000• 2 months ago

Plus, how are you going to sleep 300LBs of mayo without someone noticing?!

Havoc2• 2 months ago

Same for online feeds like YouTube. Good to occasionally clear out anything that hasn’t delivered good vids in a while

rchaud• 2 months ago

I never saw the point of subscribing. The home page will show you videos from channels you've watched whether or not you've subscribed.

satvikpendem3• 2 months ago

I want to see a chronological list of videos of channels I liked and subscribed to as my feed, not whatever garbage is on the home page.

Havoc2• 2 months ago

It’s a good way of circumventing the algo feed.

Which naturally is why Google has been making it ever harder to actually use it

I never saw the point of subscribing

Guessing you’ve never used it extensively? My home page and subscription feed contain similar themes but are definitely not the same thing

satvikpendem3• 2 months ago

Agreed, I have a few hundred subscriptions and now use PocketTube to manage them into categories but I should probably cull a lot of them. It's a shame as many channels make some great one-off videos and I subscribe for hoping for the next one but it seems like they never come.

0x59• 2 months ago

I think generally people have trouble not subscribing casually which could be why so many services are setup the way they are. In US society we give people the Freedom of choice with all of the beautiful and ugly side-effects that comes along for the ride.

borski2• 2 months ago

Privacy.com solved this problem for me. I just sign up for trials with a $1 card, and I sign up for memberships with a unique card number and a “use once” flag.

markhalonen• 2 months ago

same. It's brilliant and I pay them nothing.

I tell friends and family about it all the time, but I can't seem to convince anyone to use for it every subscription like I do.

Cider99862• 2 months ago

Are the cards ever declined for being virtual?

borski2• 2 months ago

Nope. I've never had one decline. Nor have I ever had any of the $1 cards fail to be authorized for a trial, no matter how much the service costs.

asw01• 2 months ago

The post makes some really great points.

Sophira• 2 months ago

If someone offered you a magic button that gave you ten dollars now, but carried a high probability of altering your tastes, your routines, and the way you think, would you press it?

This is actually a very interesting question, because I can see someone's answer being different between this question as stated, and the same question but where you would be paying the $10 instead of the button giving you $10:

If someone offered you a magic button that carried a high probability of altering your tastes, your routines, and the way you think, but it cost $10 to press, would you press it?

Specifically (and somewhat paradoxically), I think more people would say yes to the second question than to the first, because people would start thinking about it as a transaction where the purpose of pressing the button has changed from "receiving money" to "changing myself", even though in both cases it's stated upfront.

Of course, in the context of subscriptions, the purpose is neither of these things (it's to receive the content that subscription is offering), so the first question is definitely more relevant in this situation than the second. It's still interesting to me, though.

CobrastanJorji2• 2 months ago

Oh yeah. Imagine the product offerings for food alone. "We can make you care about good wine versus bad wine in a way that the average sommelier will find very normal and perhaps even a touch impressive." Or "We can make you and your children enjoy vegetables and seafood as much as you enjoy desserts." People would be willing to pay tens of thousands. And then imagine "We will make exercise be a part of your routine like you've already been doing it for years" or "we will make you like your job" or "we will make you regularly open up emotionally with your spouse."

sebastiennight3• 2 months ago

You could, sadly, easily 10x the willingness-to-buy metric (and dollar amount) if the marketing promise became about one getting others to change their opinions, preferences, and behavior and avoiding making any changes to oneself.

Though, re-reading your comment now, I am curious

We can make you and your children enjoy vegetables and seafood as much as you enjoy desserts.

Why seafood?

croisillon• 2 months ago

thanks for teaching us to carefully vest the services we are using https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/07/revealed-how-s...

singiamtel• 2 months ago

My relationship to subscriptions has changed since I started using https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ . To show up in my inbox demanding my attention is a big privilege I'm not willing to give away so easily anymore.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 2 months ago

Meanwhile I see "Subscribe" and "Sign-In" on this web page

xet7• 2 months ago

Apple products are not anymore more expensive than competition. Other prices like RAM, harddisks, etc prices have risen so much.

I had some affordable TV subscriptions, but after a while I did not find more good shows, or there was too many ads, so I canceled them. Anyway, usually it's enough I have watched some movie once.

With some subscription that I pay, I'm paying for some change, or some new experience, or that I can use some software or hardware for some time. If after paying nothing changes, there is no ROI.

gobdovan• 2 months ago

gym memberships are subsidized by people who barely go to the gym and would be better served by buying day passes

In my country, they're priced in such a way that day passes never make sense. If a monthly subscription is 50 EUR, a day pass is 18 EUR. So you'd need to go less than once a week for it to be better than a Gym subscription. But at that level of gym-going, you'd never see any kind of progress, unless you do very specific training, like very heavy lifts.

So, as a rational actor you're left concluding that the only options are:

- gym membership: you can grow muscle if you go daily; you won't see much benefit if you don't. <- reasonable

- no gym membership: you feel bad. <- suboptimal both for money and for muscle

- day passes: no muscle growth <- reasonable but then you feel bad about yourself

So, the middle is squished out completely and you're left either feeling bad or buying a membership. This presupposes you don't have alternatives for growing muscles, such as calisthenics, parks, free weights at home, which is the case for many. I can only conclude daily passes are for heavy gym goers that are traveling and don't want to lose progress, or other situations with people whose demand temporarily inelastic or non-repeatable.

bombcar2• 2 months ago

Day passes are there to make the monthly look good. And if the average user goes to the gym twice a month, they’re optimal for the average.

But day passes force you to admit this and be sad, whereas if you have a monthly pass you can be happy because obviously tomorrow you’re going to go to the gym.

Cider99862• 2 months ago

Is it really your money if it can be withdrawn without your express action?

I like Monero(a privacy respecting cryptocurrency), but obviously you can't subscribe to anything with it because only I hold the keys to make a transaction and there is no tech I'm aware of that allows trustless subscriptions.

I wonder if there are any smart contracts type thing that allows this. Or does it have to be a custodial service to be able to be charged for subscriptions.

It has only really bitten me once. TorBox, a debrid service for free streaming torrents costs $33/year if you subscribe, but $36 for a year if I do a one-time payment. So, $3, but I feel like they should discount you because no chargebacks with crypto and lower fees.

BrenBarn• 2 months ago

I have a simple mantra that is somewhat broader than this: Question convenience. Convenience isn't always bad. But every time you make a choice to increase convenience, especially when it's of the form "make it so that X will happen automatically in the future so I won't have to think about it anymore", you are effectively outsourcing your own life, and that's something to be cautious of.

Don't Subscribe So Casually

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