Thursday, July 09, 2015

Out of Print


Read HERE.

I canceled my subscriptions to Details and GQ this week, after subscribing since the 1980s. As someone who works in print media, it pains me to admit this, but hear me out. Both mags allowed me to access the iPad edition with my print subscription, so the hard copies just started to pile up around my (tiny) apartment, almost always unopened. (And to be honest, there's a backlog of issues I haven't downloaded either, but at least that's not taking up space.) Where I fault Conde Nast here, though, is that the customer service website offered no option to convert my print deal to an iPad-only subscription. In fact, it seemed Conde Nast was so preoccupied with trying to make it impossible to cancel at all that the option never occurred to them. Instead, once I jumped through three or four hurdles, the only option it gave me was to MAIL ME REFUNDS for my already paid subscriptions, something I didn't even want. (There's really no way to cancel it AFTER it runs out????) Perhaps when the checks clear I will see about buying a subscription via iTunes. I'm guessing Conde loses 50 percent of the revenue by doing it this way, but that's what they get for refusing to give the customer what he wants.



  

7 comments:

BW said...

And then there's the "boy who cried wolf" practice of sending renewal notices way too early and way too often, to the point where you just ignore them. I ended up unsubscribing to magazines I totally wanted that way.

Gentleman, Annually said...

I paid for a subscription to GQ in college. In 1992. Since then, without any effort whatsoever on my part, they have followed my moves and sent me magazines in Texas, VA, DC, TX again, and UT-- for 23 years, and every year when they charge me I dispute the charge on my credit card. But they continue to send it to me. I read it, usually on a plane, but I wouldn't agree to pay for it ever. They don't seem to care that I won't pay for it and are willing to give it to me for free AND figure out where I moved to to do so.

Hot guys pictures said...

Jake is very handsome on that magazine cover, bet it was hard to do the photoshoot with him. :D

Digital Display of Knowledge said...

Traditionally print publications like Conde Nast, Hearst and Time titles are still run by the old print folks within these companies. They try hard to understand digital but almost always fall back to being hyper-protective of the print business. Their attempts to acquire new readers consists of pathetic Outbrain, Buzzfeed or Zergnet style content and disjointed subscription bundles. Conde Nast is a goliath that somehow at least tries to attempt new approaches, but it's two steps forward one step back. Though it's well known that Time Inc is a sinking ship. Which is no surprise, because the most inept dinosaurs are all that remains to run the place.

SSSDC1 said...

I am a print magazine designer by profession (Doomed. DOOMED!), and I'm right there with you Kenneth. I have this same issue with The New Yorker, which I read solely on my iPad. The print copies just pile up unopened until the pile teeters off balance and slides off the coffee table. I wish they would do what my publication does, and allow tablet-only subscriptions, which when done right even count in the official ABC circulation numbers. Recently I've just been tearing my address label off the cover while standing at my mail box, and leaving the issue in the lobby for someone else to take. But the extra effort is irritating. I've thought about "changing my address" so that the print copy goes to a friend, but none of my friends want it either.

Joseph said...

That was smart to cancel, even though you enjoyed reading the digital version. After all, you could have taken the unopened print ones and dropped them off at a nearby hospital or clinic, where they could have been put in a waiting room so that someone can kill some time by reading them.

Better you cancel the subscription to prove a point that they didn't do what you wanted.

Bravo!

Kenneth M. Walsh said...

Joseph: You sure told me!