[Someone1234]

If a company does this, I am NEVER subscribing again.

Whereas if a company makes cancelling/renewing super painless I'm going to come and go as a customer as it fits my needs. This results in more overall business for the company.

I am literally going through this right now: A company called "Ooma" makes dongles that provide voice-over-IP for landline phones (inc. a telephone number), for $10/month with "no contract." But our use-case isn't every month, it is once every few months, and they require call-to-cancel/hassle-to-cancel, so now we're reviewing alternatives that are more legitimately flexible.

They're literally going to lose my recurring business only because of this anti-consumer practice.

[mdoms]

I subscribed to The Economist for a quarter. Loved it, read every article in every issue. I ran into some slightly difficult times so I decided to cancel, intending to pick it back up later. But their cancellation process was full of dark patterns (ultimately I had to make a phone call to an operator in Singapore) and there's simply no way in hell I'll ever come back.

I cancelled my Netflix at the same time and have come and gone several times since, as they make it as easy as possible.

[nireyal]

Yes! Good for you, bad for Ooma and other companies who use this dark pattern.

[clcaev]

FWIW, I've been a happy voip.ms customer for a decade or so.