digital subscription problems - wired.com and time.com

I want to support websites whose content I often read. I really do. But some of them make it so difficult to give them money.

I signed up for a digital-only subscription to Wired.com in November 2018, at their special introductory price of $5/year. That was fine.

In November 2019, my subscription renewed at the price of $19.99. I didn't know why I was charged that amount when their website indicated the regular digital-only price was $29.99, but I didn't mind.

In November 2020, I got an email that my subscription would renew at the price of $29.99. My card wasn't charged until two months later, in January 2021. That seemed strange, but no big deal.

In October 2021 (a month earlier than usual), I got an email notification that my subscription would renew at the price of $29.99. This time my card was charged in December. The charge was declined as I'd set the account up with a virtual credit card with a limit of $40/year.

I logged into my account to update my credit card information. The website gave me many difficulties, only one of which was updating my payment info. I did finally manage to enter my new card number, but there was no way to submit it for immediate payment. The site incorrectly showed my account as already paid through 2023.

Their system continued trying to charge my old credit card number - 3 more times over the next 3 weeks, and it kept being declined. I was only aware of this due to the automated notifications I got from my bank. At no point did Wired.com email me to let me know there was a problem.

At this point I was so bothered by it all that I chose to cancel my account. I found a link for doing so online, but like almost everything else on their account pages, it did not work. It redirected me to a Register/Sign in page, and when I signed in (again), it gave an error message.

So I emailed them requesting the cancellation. I also provided a detailed list of all the problems I'd had with their website, hoping they'd use the feedback to improve their website.

They replied, confirming that they were cancelling my subscription. No mention was made of the problems I had listed.

..

Now it is 2024. I still read articles on Wired.com fairly often. I use ad-blockers, so they aren't getting money from me that way. They still have a $5/year introductory price special. I decided to sign up for it, optimistic that hopefully they'd fixed some of the problems I'd had last time.

Their pages make it look like the the normal price is $30, as that number is crossed through and followed by "$5". Yet the fine print at the bottom of the page says "The regular annual rate is currently $80." Hopefully $80 is the price for the print+digital subscription, as I wouldn't choose to pay that much per year for this website.

Their $5 offer includes a "free tote bag". I think I got one last time; it's too small to be very useful. Also "FREE STICKERS" - that seems silly, but getting free stickers does sound nice - Good job, marketing team!

The cost of sending a small tote bag and stickers probably uses up most of the $5 they'd get in the first year. If the 2nd year costs $80, I would likely cancel my subscription. In that case, subscribing in the first place would be fairly pointless in terms of supporting them.

They also have a gift subscription option. That way there might be no automated renewals, which would avoid the problem I had in 2021. I could buy the gift sub with one email address, and gift it to another email address of mine.

But the gift subscription page doesn't work. You have to choose your Location, and of all the countries listed, "United States" is not in the drop-down! I tried with another browser; same thing. The page source shows that the drop-down does have an entry for United States, but its style is set to "display: none". Sigh.

That doesn't bode well for the other website problems having been fixed. I don't know if I'll still sign up the other way or not.

..

I've had similar problems with digital subscriptions to two other well-known sites. Problems which were bad enough to make me cancel.

Then there is Time.com. I signed up with them in February 2022 for $15. It renewed in Feb. 2023 without a problem.

Then out of the blue, in June 2023 I got a pro-rata amount of $11 refunded to my card, with no email from Time.com about why. So I emailed their customer service asking what had happened, and letting them know that I did not cancel. They never replied to me. I never heard from them again. I still haven't figured that one out, but have to assume that they don't want my money.

Oh, now I found this article from 2023/04/26:
Exclusive: Time to remove digital paywall , which mentions:

Details: Time currently has 1.3 million print subscribers and 250,000 digital subscribers.

- The digital content from Time's magazine will now be free, alongside all other content on the website, including 100 years' worth of Time's archived content.

- The company will still charge for the print product and still offer a paid digital version of the print magazine through retailers (like Amazon Kindle and Apple News) and through Apple’s App Store.

- Paid subscribers to the website will be notified of the changes immediately, and their subscription payments will expire when the paywall is removed June 1.

Oh, that was last year, and it *was* when I got the refund. I wonder why they didn't explain it then.

The Time.com website now still has a "Subscribe" link with a digital-only option for $20/year. That is good; I wouldn't want to have to go through Amazon Kindle to support them.

I suppose I could try subscribing again; I didn't have a problem with *their* website last time, at least.

paywalls

Lately when I open articles that people have posted links to and hit a paywall, I'm often relieved. I realize that I don't really want to read the article that badly (otherwise I'd disable Javascript or something). I get to save myself however much time I would have spent on reading it. I get to avoid reading the depressing (in some cases) content.

time.com's pages have some problems too.

The subscription page had a minor problem after I mistakenly entered my last name in the email field. After getting the edit message and correcting my entry, the Submit button didn't show up anymore. But refreshing the page and reentering my data fixed that.

The "Thank you for subscribing" page includes links for creating an account or logging into one. Neither works; they display an "Oops... Looks like we can't find what you're looking for" message. I imagine that is because the site no longer has content which requires a login. So that can be ignored.

They emailed me a link to the digital version of their print magazine. That's nice but I probably won't access it often. I opened it though to see what it is like. It displays one page in the browser at a time. There's a zoom button, but clicking it makes the page display smaller instead of bigger. The browser's zoom function doesn't work on the page. So I wouldn't find it easy to read anyway, unless I used the Windows magnifier tool to enlarge it. That isn't Time's fault though, as the digital magazine is hosted on a different site, emagazines.com.

Let's see. Using the site's Mobile View option provides easier-to-read pages with larger text, and that way the browser's zoom works ok too. But Firefox doesn't display the Forward (>) buttons sometimes, making it impossible to navigate right in the Mobile View. It works ok in Edge.

Hmmm. I've been contemplating again switching to Linux, if I ever find the time. How many different browser options are there on Linux?
Oh cool, Firefox, Edge and Chrome are all available for Linux too:
https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/2/22759123/microsoft-edge-linux-stable-channel

Skipping Girl Vinegar - Hand to Hold

The local college radio station, WUSC, played a catchy song today around 3pm. I checked the station's online playlist but none of the songs matched. Searching on the song lyrics only returned results for other songs. So I finally called up the DJ to ask what the song was. This is it:

The album is available on Bandcamp. It lists the genres as "pop rock power pop folk twee Australia". The "January 1, 2000" date shown on the Bandcamp page is not correct.
Per Discogs, the album was released in 2011.

I still haven't found the song lyrics online anywhere.

.

Last weekend, I was playing the radio in one room while also making the baklava in the kitchen. I thought of ways to play the music in both rooms at once. I first thought of playing it from the station's webcast on my laptop (which was in the other room), and connecting it via Bluetooth to the radio by the kitchen. But the webcast was out of sync with the over-the-air audio.

Then it occurred to me, that I could just tune the radio by the kitchen to the same over-the-air station, duh!!! The old school way. LOL