Corollary: Don't gum up my hacker news feed with blog posts championing the antidote that everyone loves, because they don't matter.
As to the actual content of the article: Netflix advertises their cancellation policy less than they advertise the fact that they accept all major credit cards. That sidebar is just a bunch of comforting words; a long-form sales blurb for people that want to read something while they teeter on the fence.
'Now suppose one brave ISP would make the following promise: "Try us. If you don't like us, we'll keep your email address functioning, and we'll forward your email for free to any other ISP. For life. Hop around from ISP to ISP as many times as you want, just let us know, and we'll be your permanent forwarding service."'
(Yes, there was a time when people actually tied their email to their ISP's domain.)
As a user, I want to know what information is going to be requested of me prior to commencing completion of the forms. I don't want to reach the payment page after filling in countless other fields to discover that my preferred payment method won't be accepted or the shipping rates are unacceptable. Placing form fields on a single page means that the user doesn't have to hand over information at the risk of not receiving something in return.
Requesting an email address or password multiple times is frustrating too. Hacker News gets this right. To sign up, all a user has to do is type text into two fields, click a button and it's done - ready to use.
What you want doesn't necessarily correlate with what will make a business the most money. I'd bet that significantly more people complete the forms when they're split, and people don't have a significant negative reaction to being "tricked" into a multi-step sign up process.
Now this doesn't mean that cancellation may be a non-significant factor. I just think that it is more of a macro factor than a micro one that can be done right on just your own site and be expected to have an impact. If the last three sites the user signed up on had shitty cancellation, your text promising ease of cancelation is undoubtful to convince them. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have it; it does mean you should manage expectations in terms of it's influence on conversion rate.
If I've come to this page generally it is probably too late to try and convince me not to cancel something.
Win-win for the developer and the user, then.
Personal gyms practically make their living out of impossible-to-cancel memberships.
Some economist should do an analysis of how much money is spent on unwanted/unused subscription fees. I bet the answer would be interesting.
I'm consistently surprised at how many people think its okay to push the bounds of what's acceptable in this area. I've taken the view in my business that "no games" is the only way to build long term value and I receive feedback daily from my customers how refreshing our approach is.
It is definitely a win-win for everyone, including investors, when a business can build long-time value. I'd argue its the best type of win.
