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To be honest, it's insane to me that there's no law about this. If you're a subscription business and you see 0 activity on a paying customer for 60 days, you s

To be honest, it's insane to me that there's no law about this. If you're a subscription business and you see 0 activity on a paying customer for 60 days, you should be required to ask them whether they want to continue using your service (and no answer should result in service cancellation).

hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago
The immediate second order effect of such a law would be to raise subscription prices on everyone to account for this automatic churn. I would wager that most people who aren't watching their bills closely enough to notice they haven't actually used their Netflix account in a year aren't very price sensitive. They have money they are, by revealed preferences, willing to throw into the pot, which lowers the service cost for everyone else who does actually use it. If anything one should be the least sympathetic to their plight, from a welfare angle. The business model you're actually looking for is a utility, or a pay-per-use model. Getting charged per API endpoint hit, or by TCP packets sent, or something. A subscription service is explicitly designed to avoid all that, because our brains like nice round predicable numbers. Sophisticated users everywhere use this model, but most of us have better things to be sophisticated all the time.
- stavros 2y ago
  I'm not sure "it's fine to rip off people if they're rich" is a convincing argument.
  - jaza 2y ago
    Robin Hood and his Merry Men would beg to differ.
- zorked 2y ago
  > The immediate second order effect of such a law would be to raise subscription prices on everyone to account for this automatic churn. That's fine.
  - hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago
    It's not fine to the millions of monthly active users who would have to cancel because prices rose from 14€ to 16€. It's inherently a consumer-hostile action to pass such a law, despite how it first appears.
    - everforward 2y ago
      This sounds like you're arguing that it's more customer-friendly for people who forgot to unsubscribe to subsidize people who are actually using it. "Churn" is just another word for people leaving when the costs exceed the value of the service, and as such is entirely beneficial to consumers. Low churn often means consumer-hostile actions like making it hard to unsubscribe or failing to remind users they're subscribed, other than the occasional service that has such obvious and widespread value that customers never unsubscribe. I struggle to think of examples of those services, where neither I nor anyone I know would want to unsubscribe. I can think of a few that I paid for too long because cancelling was a pain in the ass (up to and including cancelling cards because it was easier).
      - hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago
        >[I]t's more customer-friendly for people who forgot to unsubscribe to subsidize people who are actually using it You characterize my position exactly right. I only point out there are many options people might not use Netflix for two months beyond just forgetting to cancel it. >Low churn often means consumer-hostile actions Raising prices is the ultimate consumer-hostile action. That's where you have to start. It's unavoidable when you legislate higher churn. >like making it hard to unsubscribe or failing to remind users they're subscribed, Allowing competitors to price in an easier unsubscription flow is superior to legislating it across the board, for the minority of users who care about that more than a lower overall price. Heck, some companies go even further and offer this thing called a "money-back guarantee", or will just prorate you if you ask nicely. But again you usually pay extra for these niceties, because agreeableness can and should be a valued good in the world. > I can think of a few that I paid for too long because cancelling was a pain in the ass Well, I sympathize, and I've sometimes paid for subscriptions I didn't end up using too, but such is life. We don't always make the most out of what we pay for. That's not a good reason to inflict harm upon the majority of satisfied users of those things by causing their prices to go up using legislation, though.
layer8 2y ago
I disagree, because this would force all services to store the time of your last activity, even if they don’t want to track any such data for privacy protection. In addition, it would be prone to accidental cancellations losing you an important account, or the service could just claim you didn’t click the renewal button if for example they want to get rid of unprofitable customers (if you don’t use a service you also don’t generate ad impressions, or similar), which is difficult to disprove after the fact. How hard is it to check your monthly bank statement and see if there’s anything unexpected? One normally should do that anyway.
- sureIy 2y ago
  > How hard is it to check your monthly bank statement Mind-boggling to me that you'd even have to do that. I get instant notifications for all purchases, we're in 2025. Once they stole my number and 10 minutes later I had already contested the charge, blocked the card and requested a new one.
- squigz 2y ago
  I feel like the vast, vast majority of businesses that are conducting monetary transactions with their customers are storing, at least, their last login time.
andai 2y ago
As a counterpoint, I found that Google had deleted all my servers from the GCP trial. I thought it's like AWS where it automatically starts billing you at the end. In fact was pretty sure I was paying for them (Google is definitely sending me strange unmarked invoices for something) but it turns out you have to activate it manually, and when I didn't, they just nuked the whole thing.
- myroon5 2y ago
  Neither default makes sense for everyone in this case.. better enforcing explicit preference choices
carlosjobim 2y ago
If something is to be considered insane, it is to demand a law for this. Mind your business – used to be written on the currency. If I buy a chicken and leave it in the fridge without eating it, should I also demand my money back from the supermarket?

hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago

The immediate second order effect of such a law would be to raise subscription prices on everyone to account for this automatic churn. I would wager that most people who aren't watching their bills closely enough to notice they haven't actually used their Netflix account in a year aren't very price sensitive. They have money they are, by revealed preferences, willing to throw into the pot, which lowers the service cost for everyone else who does actually use it. If anything one should be the least sympathetic to their plight, from a welfare angle. The business model you're actually looking for is a utility, or a pay-per-use model. Getting charged per API endpoint hit, or by TCP packets sent, or something. A subscription service is explicitly designed to avoid all that, because our brains like nice round predicable numbers. Sophisticated users everywhere use this model, but most of us have better things to be sophisticated all the time.

stavros 2y ago
I'm not sure "it's fine to rip off people if they're rich" is a convincing argument.
- jaza 2y ago
  Robin Hood and his Merry Men would beg to differ.
zorked 2y ago
> The immediate second order effect of such a law would be to raise subscription prices on everyone to account for this automatic churn. That's fine.
- hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago
  It's not fine to the millions of monthly active users who would have to cancel because prices rose from 14€ to 16€. It's inherently a consumer-hostile action to pass such a law, despite how it first appears.
  - everforward 2y ago
    This sounds like you're arguing that it's more customer-friendly for people who forgot to unsubscribe to subsidize people who are actually using it. "Churn" is just another word for people leaving when the costs exceed the value of the service, and as such is entirely beneficial to consumers. Low churn often means consumer-hostile actions like making it hard to unsubscribe or failing to remind users they're subscribed, other than the occasional service that has such obvious and widespread value that customers never unsubscribe. I struggle to think of examples of those services, where neither I nor anyone I know would want to unsubscribe. I can think of a few that I paid for too long because cancelling was a pain in the ass (up to and including cancelling cards because it was easier).
    - hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago
      >[I]t's more customer-friendly for people who forgot to unsubscribe to subsidize people who are actually using it You characterize my position exactly right. I only point out there are many options people might not use Netflix for two months beyond just forgetting to cancel it. >Low churn often means consumer-hostile actions Raising prices is the ultimate consumer-hostile action. That's where you have to start. It's unavoidable when you legislate higher churn. >like making it hard to unsubscribe or failing to remind users they're subscribed, Allowing competitors to price in an easier unsubscription flow is superior to legislating it across the board, for the minority of users who care about that more than a lower overall price. Heck, some companies go even further and offer this thing called a "money-back guarantee", or will just prorate you if you ask nicely. But again you usually pay extra for these niceties, because agreeableness can and should be a valued good in the world. > I can think of a few that I paid for too long because cancelling was a pain in the ass Well, I sympathize, and I've sometimes paid for subscriptions I didn't end up using too, but such is life. We don't always make the most out of what we pay for. That's not a good reason to inflict harm upon the majority of satisfied users of those things by causing their prices to go up using legislation, though.

layer8 2y ago

I disagree, because this would force all services to store the time of your last activity, even if they don’t want to track any such data for privacy protection. In addition, it would be prone to accidental cancellations losing you an important account, or the service could just claim you didn’t click the renewal button if for example they want to get rid of unprofitable customers (if you don’t use a service you also don’t generate ad impressions, or similar), which is difficult to disprove after the fact. How hard is it to check your monthly bank statement and see if there’s anything unexpected? One normally should do that anyway.

sureIy 2y ago
> How hard is it to check your monthly bank statement Mind-boggling to me that you'd even have to do that. I get instant notifications for all purchases, we're in 2025. Once they stole my number and 10 minutes later I had already contested the charge, blocked the card and requested a new one.
squigz 2y ago
I feel like the vast, vast majority of businesses that are conducting monetary transactions with their customers are storing, at least, their last login time.

andai 2y ago

As a counterpoint, I found that Google had deleted all my servers from the GCP trial. I thought it's like AWS where it automatically starts billing you at the end. In fact was pretty sure I was paying for them (Google is definitely sending me strange unmarked invoices for something) but it turns out you have to activate it manually, and when I didn't, they just nuked the whole thing.

myroon5 2y ago
Neither default makes sense for everyone in this case.. better enforcing explicit preference choices

carlosjobim 2y ago

If something is to be considered insane, it is to demand a law for this. Mind your business – used to be written on the currency. If I buy a chicken and leave it in the fridge without eating it, should I also demand my money back from the supermarket?