On 1 October 2026, New York City’s Click to Cancel rule came into force. It applies to automatic renewal and continuous service subscriptions, including music streaming services selling subscriptions in the city. Businesses must clearly explain their terms and provide a straightforward cancellation process through the same method used to sign up. If somebody joined online, they should not be forced to telephone, visit a shop or complete an obstacle course to leave. For Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and the wider subscription streaming market, it disrupts one of the quietest and most effective levers in retention: making the exit just difficult enough that some people do not bother using it.

When leaving becomes work

I noticed this on YouTube the other day. Subscribing to a channel is immediate and obvious. Unsubscribing means opening a sub-menu, finding the option further down the list and then answering the question: “Are you sure?” Yes. I am sure. OF COURSE I’M FUCKING SURE! That is why I clicked unsubscribe, ya knob! It is not the same as cancelling a paid subscription, but it reveals a familiar design instinct. Joining is treated as a conversion to optimise. Leaving is treated as a failure to obstruct.

I also experienced a similar thing with LinkedIn Premium in the last month. I activated during a promotional period, assumed I would remember to cancel it, obviously forgot because of reasons… and then received a substantial renewal charge. Their customer support team kindly refunded it because I acted quickly, but under their terms they were not obliged to. I still had to notice the charge in my bank statement, find the right route and ask in a sort of handwringing, milquetoast kind of way. The process still left me responsible for remembering the deadline and undoing the renewal. Come to think of it, gyms have been doing this for years with their monthly membership subscriptions. Bastards.

Then there is Adobe, the big kahuna of… whatever this is. Where friction becomes an ACTUAL BILL, an obscene financial charge to stop being a customer. For anyone who’s been reliant on Adobe Creative Cloud to do their job - assuming that’s most of you reading this - you will know you have to pay for an annual plan, billed monthly. A one year commitment, minimum. In the UK, customers who cancel more than 14 days after signing up can be charged 50% (!!) of the remaining annual cost. The Competition and Markets Authority is actually investigating whether that term is unfair and whether customers receive sufficiently clear and timely information about it. This is not retention. It is an exit toll and as a business practice, it stinks. Funnily enough, someone just vibe coded all of Adobe’s products using AI and made them available for FREE. MMMMMMM delicious karma.

What healthy retention looks like

Retention targets are not inherently bad. Subscriber numbers and database size matter. Marketers, YES - YOU THERE 👋, may have KPIs tied to renewals, retention rate or net audience growth. The problem begins when protecting the number becomes more important than understanding the relationship. A database may contain 500,000 people, but that figure does not tell us how many are actively participating. How many open, click, stream, buy, register or attend? How many have stopped paying attention? How many subscriptions renewed because somebody forgot the deadline? A subscriber who remains only because leaving is difficult has not been retained, they are trapped.

We refer to outgoing subscribers/audience as churn. Churn can expose weak onboarding, poor relevance, excessive frequency, disappointing value or the wrong acquisition strategy. However, it’s not always all bad. Some churn is preventable and some is not. People also drift away because life fucking changes, right? Money is needed elsewhere, tastes move on, the current campaign does not interest them - many reasons. Ok, so are you interested in the same things you were last month? Probably not? You might return to those interests in your wanderlust, especially when prompted or reminded. And that’s where A.R.M. / CRM steps. Our job is to understand the difference, reduce avoidable churn, and accept that no audience remains permanently engaged.

Retain people through value rather than friction. Set clear expectations when they join. Use welcome journeys to establish the benefits. Give people control over frequency and preferences. Look beyond opens and clicks when engagement declines, because somebody may still be buying, attending events or participating elsewhere. Then run a proportionate re-engagement journey that reminds them of the value, offers them more control, and gives them a genuine reason to return.

If you love them, let them go. If they remain inactive, release them cleanly. Honour explicit unsubscribes. Suppress people from routine marketing where appropriate, keeping only what is needed to prevent accidental future contact. Legal permission to use another channel does not automatically make doing so strategically wise. The objective is not to chase somebody through every available route. It is to manage the end of the relationship as carefully as the beginning.

Make staying worthwhile

Friction can delay cancellation, preserve a database record and protect a short term KPI. A cancellation fee can even extract one final payment - YUCK. None of those things can restore interest, create value or manufacture loyalty. Let people enter the audience easily. Give them a strong reason to participate. Notice when the relationship is weakening and try to improve it. Accept when it has reached its natural end, then let people leave with enough respect that they might one day choose to return.

The goal of A.R.M. / CRM is not to make leaving difficult. It is to make staying worthwhile.

RBNR Industries helps music and culture teams build healthier audience lifecycles, from acquisition and onboarding to retention, reactivation, suppression and measurement. If you’d like to learn more or talk anything A.R.M. / CRM, HMU today! Let’s talk ✌️