Collective Bargaining?
I have a subscription to the Java Developers Journal. Years ago (pre-tech bust), when they were trying to build a subscriber base for advertisers, they gave away subscriptions to anyone who was willing to fill out full page profile questionnaire at JavaOne.
In the beginning it wasn’t that good, but it quicky became the Java magazine with the largest subscriber base because it was FREE.
A couple of years ago, the glossy magazine was wrapped in a white construction paper cover. The inside of the cover was an updated full page questionnaire. The outside urged me, in a huge font, to update my profile to continue receiving the magazine free:
Interestingly enough, that did not instill panic in me and I didn’t bother filling out the form. At the bottom was the URL to renew online if you didn’t want to mail in the cover, but both forms wanted my e-mail address and I didn’t want to give it to them.
The following month, I received the same dire warning that that month’s issue was going to be my last. And for the past two years or so I’ve gotten “!THIS IS YOUR LAST ISSUE!” on every issue.
For quite some time now the magazine has been $69.99 (ouch!) a year for subscribers who weren’t grandfathered in. Even so, it seems that insisting to its readers that they had just received the last issue of an expensive magazine wasn’t working for them, so the white paper cover warning, still in a huge font, was reworded last month:
Although they had stopped lying about it being my last issue, I still didn’t bother renewing.
And this month? No paper cover at all. They have given up on getting responses from people like me. The URL to renew online now yields a “404 Not Found.” Apparently you cannot renew your subscription for free anymore.
Will they drop me? Perhaps. Will I fork over $69.99 a year for it? No way. I’m guessing their subscriber base (and advertiser revenue) will plummet if they stop giving away the magazine.
My apathy has got them exactly where I want them.
If only I cared. :-)