> Take New York Times. Last I checked, you can sign up online, but to cancel your subscription, you have to call and subject yourself to a slick sales pitch and all sorts of questions. It's inconvenient and borderline immoral.

They asked me why I was cancelling. I said I don't really have time to get enough out of it to justify they cost. The "slick sales pitch" was to offer me a discount. I said I really don't have enough time for even that to be worth it. That was it.

I then made sure to tell him I was only cancelling the paper, not my crossword puzzle subscription, and mentioned that I realized this means that when my crossword subscription renewed (it was out of phase with my newspaper subscription) the price would be doubling because I would not longer get the 50% discount that newspaper subscribers get.

He informed me that this was not the case. Once you get the 50% of deal for the puzzle, you keep it as long as you maintain the puzzle subscription. I'd only lose it if I cancelled the puzzle, and later resubscribed while not having a newspaper subscription. I was pleasantly surprised.