3min chapter

Time and Attention cover image

108: Subscriptageddon

Time and Attention

CHAPTER

How to Reassess Your Subscriptions

As soon as you subscribe, getting into the habit of saying, Oh, I'm subscribed to this thing, it's going to renew in a month a week or a year. You've forgotten that you subscribed by the end. Or it's a sunk cost at that point. So even though there is this trend of monthly to yearly subscriptions, if that interest ebbs and flows, you'll notice that you hit a pain point at the time of renewal. And then you have to choose to renew and pay again. That's something I do with pretty much every app I subscribe to that has a yearly subscription is right after subscribing to it. I'll cancel it in that admin panel and then

00:00
Speaker 2
Oh, it is. Okay. But then so, but something like focus made every month, this kind of reminder makes me reassess. So I think as soon as you subscribe, getting into the habit of saying, Oh, I'm subscribed to this thing, it's going to renew in a month a week, a year. I got dinged with the rise thing because I thought it was renewing a month, not seven days. Yeah. But yeah, the normally I always make a reminder to let myself from kind of assess as things go on. And then you don't end up in this wormhole where you end up subscribing to all these apps that you've forgotten about. Yeah. And that seems to be
Speaker 1
a trend that's happening with these apps too, where they're going from monthly subscriptions to yearly subscriptions. Yes, you've forgotten that you
Speaker 2
subscribed by
Speaker 1
the end. Or it's a sunk cost at that point. You think, Oh, I spent $100 on some app might as well get a lot of value out of it. And you don't end up canceling. Fortunately for the app store purchases. So if you go into the app store, it's not easy to get there. You go to the app store, you click your face in the top right, then you click subscriptions. You can cancel any subscription before it renews. And so the subscription stays value that valid up to the point of renewal. So even though there is this trend of monthly to yearly subscriptions, if that interest ebbs and flows, you'll notice that you hit a pain point at the time of renewal. And then you have to choose to renew and pay again. That's something I do with pretty much every app I subscribe to that has a yearly subscription is right after subscribing to it. I'll cancel it in that admin panel and then reevaluate if it's necessary. So it's kind of a rolling thing. The ones that I have left here on my list, they're worthwhile. I've deemed, but a lot of those are set to cancel as well. But checking the app store, looking through your credit card bills as well, it's kind of harder to catch the ones that are a year long. So you have to do this for a longer period of time, unfortunately. But you end up catching ones that are often $100 or more if they're every year. $10 a month, $8 a month. It's not hard to reach that amount of value that you deliver to the customer. And so you really catch those and usually you can reach out to these companies and ask for a refund. I have never had somebody say no. Out of all the times I've noticed it on my credit card, it's a good habit to get into anyway, just looking at your credit card for scams, for people using it or something like that. Mind the subscriptions at the same time. Nice. All right. Are there tactics?

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