Done with The Economist
And I am never subscribing again.
As I wrote a month ago, I’ve been seeking a way to read the news on paper. This is for a few reasons. I want to stay informed via high-ish-quality journalism. I want to avoid the daily news cycle and all its clickbait. I want to spend less time on distraction-driven apps. I want my kids to see me reading paper and not just screens all the time.
I first tried the Sunday New York Times, but I found it was challenging to make the time to read all of it. The pile of unread newspaper became yet another nagging burden to carry.
I then tried The Economist. While I liked several of the articles and feel the quality is reasonably high, I had qualms. A good chunk of the magazine is devoted to world news. That makes sense; the world is important. However, most of the articles were about problems rather than positives. I care about the world’s people and their problems. But I also believe the human mind has not evolved to take on suffering of that magnitude. All the wars, poverty, brutality, injustice … it’s just too much. And I can’t do a thing about it. Shouldn’t I invest that energy and attention in closer-to-home news that might impact my family more directly, or where I might have some role to play?
That said, I didn’t decide to cancel until this week, when I received a new issue having not even opened the last one. Once again, I was failing to make time to read it.
I have some excuses. I have two young kids who are playing sports and have lots of friends. This hoovers up most of the spare hours in the week. Also, my wife is not a reader and is highly extroverted, so individual reading time is not on her priority list (other than reading with our kids).
But the real issue is that I don’t prioritize this type of reading. I’m up right now before my family is awake. This would be a perfect time to rip through an issue, but I’m not. I’m writing this blog post. I have too many other interests competing for my scarce blocks of me time, so I try to cram news reading into the nooks and crannies of the day. That works for skimming an RSS feed, but not for digesting a high-brow publication in full.
I’m okay with that. Life is finite. We can’t do everything we want to do.
Why I’m never coming back
And so I went to cancel my subscription to The Economist. I Googled how to do that and wasn’t thrilled with what I saw. You have to talk to a customer support agent to cancel. So be it. Luckily I was in zeroth place in the virtual queue, so I soon had an agent in the chat. They assured me they were happy to help with my cancellation.
The agent then proceeded to consume the next 30 minutes of my evening with progressively cheaper discount offers. With each offer, I repeated my one-liner, “I’d like to cancel.” Then there would be entire minutes of silence (during which I would rush back to the kitchen to keep making family dinner), followed by another offer like this:
I can certainly understand your time concerns, and how it can be a challenge for you. However, we do not wish to lose a valuable subscriber like you, who enjoys our contents. And, I do have the right option for you, which is specifically designed for our busy subscribers. I would like you to change you to try Espresso for a month…. [etc. etc.]
After 25 minutes of this back and forth, they got to the cheapest offer, which would refund around $220, almost my entire subscription amount. I repeated that I’d like to cancel and said I was getting frustrated.
They finally gave up on the offers and agreed to cancel. With no refund. While their penultimate offer included a $220 refund, they now said that all they could do was cancel my auto-renewal 11 months from now with no money back. I spent 30 minutes on this chat just to cancel an auto-renewal?? I said if I can’t get a refund, I’m never subscribing again. They apologized and insisted those were the terms.
Fine, I said. Sign me up for the goddamn Espresso subscription at seven bucks a month, give me the $220 refund, and please cancel that auto-renewal.
Then came the cherry on top:
Certainly! I would be happy to help you with the changes. However, I wouldn't be able to apply the offer and cancel the subscription at the same time on this chat as system doesn't allow me….
Rest assured, you have the flexibility to manage your options anytime. And, if you wish to change your mind later, As our valued subscriber you may contact us anytime and let us know which subscription suits you best to make any changes or upgrades as per our policy.
So I have to do another support chat to cancel the Espresso subscription. Amazing.
I did that chat the next morning. It took 11 minutes and involved two more “before you go” offers.
To The Economist: 🖕. You wasted my time with your bullshit. You hire good writers, but whoever’s designing this cancellation process is an asshole who deserves public shaming. This is my modest contribution to it.