The part with the registered letter (not just simple mail!) is for the regular (French) subscription. But to be fair, the best way to cancel these kinds of subscriptions where they make it hard for you is to just block the payment at your bank. In theory, you can get sued, but in practice, they will simply cancel your subscription. There are strong consumer protection laws regarding recurring subscriptions (because there is a lot abuse) and if the company wants to take it to court, they need a rock solid case otherwise it will backfire, so usually, they don't bother.

> I think you mean the New York Times, where one indeed has to play that game.

All kinds subscription of businesses do this exact same thing or worse, so the answer is probably "both." IIRC, the (large, chain) gym nearby required cancellation either in person or by registered mail. When I complained, their sales guy unbelievably justified it because "they've had problems with people canceling other's memberships."

That said, I actually did cancel the New York Times a few years ago, and I don't remember the process being too onerous. Though I'm not allergic to speaking to someone on the phone.

~$1 per week for a year, IIRC.

I think the process may be improved enough at this point that there is a web cancellation procedure available.

("Subscription Overview" when you are signed in to your account has a link to do this part.)

As for this change, I'm pleasantly surprised that they are following the "good" convention for foreign language sites that also publish in English:

E.g, https://example.{{ Insert country-specific TLD}}/en/

That said, URL's to articles are still a bit of a mess, as the this one shows...

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/2022-presidential-election/article...

Click through for the whole thing and you see `/article` is redundant and it's not just in English, the French articles follow the same weird convention.

Not sure why they've done that.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/faq/?question=i-want-to-cancel-my-...

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/40705-but-the-plans-were-on...

Tech types don't see the value in it. But regular people do.

I subscribe to the dead tree editions of four newspapers, and several magazines. But if it's available from Apple News, I'll go there first, because I know I'm insulated from the dark side of the subscription model.

(source: live an hour drive from italy, buy cheese and pasta there, and often go to france on business).

[0]: https://mondediplo.com/about

But my comment was on the fact that it was the only way to cancel. They could implement a system with single-click cancel (and it seems they did, here); it costs less than the current snail-mail system, and is more honest. But they don't because this system has a measurable impact on churn.

https://www.capitalone.com/digital/eno/virtual-card-numbers/

The fact that people think editors have anything at all to do with subscriptions illustrates a lack of basic understanding of the publishing industry.

Source: At various times of my life, I've worked for two of the largest newspaper companies on the planet.

I thought only Germany had this BS.

Why is this still a thing?

A hacky way to do it, I guess, would be for banks to make is really easy to spin up debit accounts. You drop exactly the right amount of money into the account, then when you want to unsubscribe just stop putting money there. I guess, though, some organizations would keep providing service and then consider you to owe them money, and eventually send it to collections... but if this was the conventional configuration for paying for accounts, I guess that sort of behavior on the part of the people looking for payments wouldn't be scalable, and so they'd have adjusted to just accepting the signal of non-payment=unsubscribe.

But stuff like this should be enshrined in law. See also AWS billing nightmares.

you are not missing anything, LeMonde is one of the worst papers ever out there.