Yesterday I received my second free copy of Reason. Both came in a big white envelope stating “THIS FREE ISSUE because we haven’t yet received your renewal instructions.” Silly me, I thought I made my renewal plans pretty damned clear to Tim Cavanaugh, and to the telemarketer who ignored the do not call list and called me at home trying to persuade me to renew. The cover ends on this note:
Renew today. You won’t want to miss the next issue!
The smart money says I won’t miss the next issue, whether I want to miss it or not.
January 7th, 2005 at 11:29 am
I subscribed to the british science journal Nature for two years. At the end of the second year, I cancelled the subscription, as I hadn’t been reading it enough to justify the cost. For *ten months* thereafter, I got it regularly, every week, tagged with a notice “see what you’re missing! renew now to keep getting this!”.