Avoiding zombie subscriptions

One annoyance of the subscription economy is that we sometimes forget to cancel something. I’ve done it. Brian X. Chen, the consumer technology columnist for The New York Times, tells us how to avoid automated subscription renewals that we didn’t intend:

Maybe you meant to subscribe to Audible for only a month to listen to that new book. Maybe you really wanted to check out the Peloton workout app only during a free one-month trial. But most digital subscriptions (including news organizations) take advantage of your forgetfulness and renew automatically.

When it comes to subscriptions I want to use only for a short time, I’ve gotten in the habit of canceling the subscription immediately after beginning it. That way, I don’t have to worry about forgetting to cancel and finding an unexpected credit card charge. (There’s no downside to canceling ahead of time.)

Here’s how to do that with Apple and Android devices:

On an iPhone: Let’s say you subscribe to a streaming app such as Crunchyroll, which offers a two-week free trial. Immediately after subscribing, open the Settings app on your Apple device. Click on your name. Tap Subscriptions, select Crunchyroll and then select Cancel Subscription. You will still have access to the service for two weeks.

On Android devices: Let’s say you subscribe to a free trial of Peloton. Immediately after subscribing, open the Google Play Store app. Tap the Menu icon and then tap Subscriptions (on some phones it’s labeled Payments and subscriptions). From here, select Peloton and cancel the subscription. You will still have access to the service for a month.

You can do the same thing if you signed up for a subscription on websites like Netflix.***. The methods aren’t consistent, but there’s usually an option to see your subscription details under the account menu and then select an option to change or cancel the subscription.

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