The worst part is it poisons the whole business model for me. Even if your company could restrain itself from these tactics I won't know that until it is to late and even if I did research it there isn't any reason it couldn't change to be awful from being OK. The end result is I turn my nose at the very idea because subscription services are fine with me as an idea but in practice I just don't want to waste the energy dealing with them.

For every "you" avoiding subscriptions, there's an idiot like me who has had several $5-10/mo. subscriptions for years because I keep hitting the "call customer service to cancel" wall and procrastinating.

Yup, this is exactly the answer.

It is unfortunately more profitable for them in the end.

Which is precisely why we need these types of consumer protection laws.

If it does, then "record profits" sure is a bizarre way to punish them.

It absolutely does. I got bit by the NYT back when they had call-to-cancel, and I won't subscribe to any company that doesn't have an unsubscribe button. I just search "bla company unsubscribe," and if it's call to cancel, I won't subscribe.