Sheesh, these are greedy bastards
Remember a while back when Rubert Murdoch bought out Dow Jones, the company that publishes The Wall Street?
I had a subscription when that happens. Still do - it doesn't expire until April 29th. I was debating on whether or not to renew it until just now. I just went online to suspend the delivery of my subscription for next week since I'll be in Monterey that week and thus won't be here to get the subscription. I was debating whether or not to "forward" my subscription to my parents' house, but I decided not to do that.
I have two very good reasons for that. The first one is the last two times I tried to forward my subscription, it didn't happen. I called them up, they made the change, and it never got delivered to my parents house. I even called them to complain and they read me off my parents' address in their system but it still wasn't coming and that didn't change the next day. The second reason is that in theory if I do a delivery suspension instead of forwarding, I'll get credited for the week while I'm not getting the subscription and I will have a week's more of newspapers. I figure that's my best bet since the last two times I tried to forward, it didn't happen at all, so at least this way it still won't happen and I might get a week's more newspapers than I would otherwise.
Anyway, I really don't like Murdoch and his News Corp clan. But they bought out Dow Jones while still had six months or so left on my subscription, so I figured, eh, I'll try it out with him, and if I don't like it, I just won't renew it. Which is what I'm going to do. Not only has the service gone down hill since Murdoch taken over, those delivery forwardings used to work before he took over, but they've also jacked up the price. Dow Jones used to charge $109 for a years worth of print subscription only. Now it's roughly double that at $213 for a years worth of print subscription only. You can get print and online for $260 for a year, but I don't compare prices with that typically since I never use their online edition.
So, they have more ads now, they've doubled their prices, and the service has gone downhill, and they expect me to renew? Right, not going to happen. They also got rid of a section in the C section that I really liked, it was news section with news from alternate news sources, not typically business news, so I can understand why they got rid of it, but it was almost always interesting, so I was disappointed when they got rid of it.
Oh, and their phone support hours are also less than they used to be, it used to go all the way until midnight eastern time Monday through Friday, now it's only 10 PM - or 7 PM Pacific time, which is what's relevant to me really.
I don't know, I'm almost tempted to write them a letter and tell them why I'm not going to renew. It's not even just the price increase that does it for me, it's the combination of everything I just listed that makes it so there's absolutely no chance that I'd renew. Content wise, it's still a very good newspaper, but when they're increasing the amount of ads, and cutting back on the service, I just don't feel any desire to send them any more money.
They've got an online renewal option now too, which didn't used to exist, but the online renewal deal only allows you to renew for two years both the print and the online edition, which is definitely something I'm not going to do. Ah well, it's been rather useful to have as it's made research for my Professional Reading Reports dead simple, all I have to do is read the newspaper and sooner or later I'll see a good article to use. Just used one of yesterday's articles for the third report. That report isn't due until the day we get back from Spring break, but I know myself too well to think I'll actually get any homework done over the Spring break, so I did it today so I wouldn't have to worry about have it automatically late because I didn't do it over the Spring break.
I had a subscription when that happens. Still do - it doesn't expire until April 29th. I was debating on whether or not to renew it until just now. I just went online to suspend the delivery of my subscription for next week since I'll be in Monterey that week and thus won't be here to get the subscription. I was debating whether or not to "forward" my subscription to my parents' house, but I decided not to do that.
I have two very good reasons for that. The first one is the last two times I tried to forward my subscription, it didn't happen. I called them up, they made the change, and it never got delivered to my parents house. I even called them to complain and they read me off my parents' address in their system but it still wasn't coming and that didn't change the next day. The second reason is that in theory if I do a delivery suspension instead of forwarding, I'll get credited for the week while I'm not getting the subscription and I will have a week's more of newspapers. I figure that's my best bet since the last two times I tried to forward, it didn't happen at all, so at least this way it still won't happen and I might get a week's more newspapers than I would otherwise.
Anyway, I really don't like Murdoch and his News Corp clan. But they bought out Dow Jones while still had six months or so left on my subscription, so I figured, eh, I'll try it out with him, and if I don't like it, I just won't renew it. Which is what I'm going to do. Not only has the service gone down hill since Murdoch taken over, those delivery forwardings used to work before he took over, but they've also jacked up the price. Dow Jones used to charge $109 for a years worth of print subscription only. Now it's roughly double that at $213 for a years worth of print subscription only. You can get print and online for $260 for a year, but I don't compare prices with that typically since I never use their online edition.
So, they have more ads now, they've doubled their prices, and the service has gone downhill, and they expect me to renew? Right, not going to happen. They also got rid of a section in the C section that I really liked, it was news section with news from alternate news sources, not typically business news, so I can understand why they got rid of it, but it was almost always interesting, so I was disappointed when they got rid of it.
Oh, and their phone support hours are also less than they used to be, it used to go all the way until midnight eastern time Monday through Friday, now it's only 10 PM - or 7 PM Pacific time, which is what's relevant to me really.
I don't know, I'm almost tempted to write them a letter and tell them why I'm not going to renew. It's not even just the price increase that does it for me, it's the combination of everything I just listed that makes it so there's absolutely no chance that I'd renew. Content wise, it's still a very good newspaper, but when they're increasing the amount of ads, and cutting back on the service, I just don't feel any desire to send them any more money.
They've got an online renewal option now too, which didn't used to exist, but the online renewal deal only allows you to renew for two years both the print and the online edition, which is definitely something I'm not going to do. Ah well, it's been rather useful to have as it's made research for my Professional Reading Reports dead simple, all I have to do is read the newspaper and sooner or later I'll see a good article to use. Just used one of yesterday's articles for the third report. That report isn't due until the day we get back from Spring break, but I know myself too well to think I'll actually get any homework done over the Spring break, so I did it today so I wouldn't have to worry about have it automatically late because I didn't do it over the Spring break.