I’m regularly reviewing services that I have a subscription with and if I don’t use that service any more I want to unsubscribe, which is more often than not a rather unpleasant experience.
My recent example has been Motion Array, which I wanted to try for one of my creative projects, but couldn’t find content that would be appropriate, so I decided to cancel my subscription.
Easier said than done!
While their FAQ says…
Yes, downgrade to a free account and you won’t be billed again. You’ll be able to access free video assets only.
… their plans to switch to, don’t show any free account. I’m sure it’s somewhere, but I couldn’t find it.
So my solution in such a case is to change the payment method to one of my virtual Revolut cards with a spending limit of $1, forcing the payment to fail and the subscription to cancel as a result.
Just as I got an email that the subscription payment failed, I saw this post from Michael Tsai where he shares the news that the US Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday announced a final “click-to-cancel” rule that aims to simplify the process of ending unwanted subscriptions to products and services.
Perhaps the European Commission will one day realise that those cookie banners are absolutely useless and instead announce a law to end targeted ads.