As I mentioned recently, Match changes $107.94 for a six-month subscription at the end of a three-day trial. Did you know that back 2006 Match changed only $65.70 for six months? Thats quite a markup.
I was reading an article in the Atlantic about The Management Myth. While looking at the subscription form I noticed this.
By paying with a credit or debit card, you authorize The Atlantic to charge your account now as well as before the start of the next renewal 12-month term (10 issues) and, without interruption, for all subsequent terms at the guaranteed low rate then in effect unless you tell us to stop. You may cancel at any time during your subscription by contacting customer service and receive a full refund on all unmailed issues. If your credit or debit card cannot be charged, we’ll bill you directly instead.
A year subscription for $20 and you only get 10 issues. Can you imagine a dating site turning you off for a month or two a year? And they kill trees and a magazine can’t be updated once it’s shipped. (Not true anymore with the launch iPad.)
Reading on…wait a minute, what’s this? I may cancel at any time and receive a refund of un-mailed issues? So if I read five issues, then decide to bail on the subscription, I get refunded for the pro-rated amount of the remaining six issues (or is that four or five depending on which months included the skipped issues?) It looks like the magazine industry could learn a thing or two from online dating.
Back to the fine print at dating sites. Match, for example, says:
If you resign, you’ll enjoy subscription benefits until the end of your then-current subscription term; your subscription won’t be renewed after that term expires. However, you won’t be eligible for a prorated refund of any portion of the subscription fees paid for the then-current subscription period.
I get to read the magazine as it were, yet I’m locked into a subscription and get nothing back if I end the contract early. Dating sites don’t kill any trees to deliver their service, and the cost of keeping a subscription running is literally pennies, yet there is no pro-rated refund for early cancellation. If I cancel after three months, dating sites gets 3/6/9 months of “free” revenue from me while refusing (usually) to refund my money. This is big reason why dating sites are so profitable.
Let’s not forget that dating companies have paid millions of dollars to advertise, many months building complex technology infrastructures that scale to millions of users and they have rooms full of people keeping things humming along 24×7. All of a sudden a dating site subscription seems like a bargain. Plus, if you like to eat and drink as much as I do, spending $100 every few months for a chance to meet someone is entirely reasonable.
However, I’d like to see dating site meet consumers in the middle. If you are about to bill my credit card, send me a text or an email. I use several subscription-based online services that do this and I appreciate the effort.
Make it easier for people to join and leave and dating sites will make more money. This is a difficult concept for the dating industry to stomach, but there are lots of companies living by this rule and making a tidy profit. Focusing on short-term revenue often leads you down a path you didn’t want to end up on. Just look at SinglesNet. Once the #1 website in terms of traffic back in the day. Match admits it basically stole it from them as traffic plummeted last year.
What if Singlesnet had not been so difficult when it came to subscription issues? Would they have made more profit in the long term if they had not stonewalled so many people trying to end their subscription?
I hope the online dating industry will continue to strive towards being profit-driven with a conscience. It’s better for everyone involved.
