Deceptive Patterns
‹ All examples New York Times

Before buying a NYT subscription, here’s what it’ll take to cancel it .

Author
jandll
Date
18 Feb 2021
Type
Hard to cancel
Publisher
Hacker News

Transcript of a 17 minute chat log of a consumer trying to cancel their New York Times subscription.

“Imagine having a business model so fragile that your only line of defense is to obscure the cancellation process through these tactics. Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way?

I mean best you’re doing is getting maybe another month or so of revenue from a customer who is just pushing the pain of cancelling because they are busy or lazy.

And at the end instead of getting what could be a dormant customer who can sign up later again, what you get is someone who hates your company.

What an incredibly stupid way to erode the brand of a publication, whose major asset to survive is precisely its brand.” - whoisjuan on Feb 18, 2021

Disclaimer: examples in the Hall of Shame are generally drawn from public submissions and cited sources; they have not been independently verified and may contain inaccuracies. They are presented as illustrations of design patterns, not findings of fact, unlawful conduct, or intent.