Turning Off 'Automatic Renewal'
Two ways to prevent the accidental extension of a paid subscription
I apologize for taking up your time with administrative detail. However, a problem that recently vexed an old friend leads me to address the issue of the automatic renewal of paid subscriptions.
Substack makes it difficult for subscribers to opt out of ‘automatic renewal’. Indeed, in order to avoid the self-activated extension of your paid subscription you must either push the button marked ‘cancel’ or ask the Substack author in question to turn off ‘auto renew’.
Pushing the ‘cancel’ button on a paid subscription does not deprive a reader of the services he has already paid for. Rather, he will retain the ability to see beyond the paywall until his subscription has run its course. Nonetheless, fear that ‘cancelling’ a subscription will result in immediate loss of access creates a reluctance to press a button that bears that word. At the same time, in a relationship as immediate as the one that connects a Substack reader to a Substack author, ‘cancelling’ a subscription can seem like the sort of personal rejection that people prefer to avoid.
With these things in mind, I am happy to wield my power to turn off automatic renewal for any subscriber who requests it. So, if you would like me to do this, send an e-mail message to oninfantry@gmail.com with ‘turn off auto-renew’ (or words to that effect) in the subject line and the e-mail address that is linked to your subscription.
Moreover, if your subscription has been renewed automatically in a way that fails to accord with your desires, please use the same e-mail address to let me know and I will arrange for an immediate refund.
I very much appreciate the people who take out paid subscriptions to my newsletters. At the same time, I have no desire to take money from people who, having concluded that the material behind our paywall failed to provide sufficient value, simply forgot to cancel their subscriptions in time.