I first discovered Netflix 18 months ago. I signed up and gorged an average of 2 DVD’s a week for $20 a month. Several months later I wanted to cancel, and anticipated a difficult process. It was a breeze. From the Netflix website I clicked on “My Account” and then I clicked “Cancel”. That was it. The cancellation feature wasn’t hard to find. I didn’t have to call a phone number to “approve my cancellation.” Nothing. Ironically, the ease with which I cancelled cemented my respect for the company, and I almost seemed more motivated to recommend it to my friends because of how easy it was. My happy experience made it easy to justify signing up several months later to catch up on The Sopranos.

Contrast that experience with my hellacious ride with Audible. Audible offers audio versions of all types of books for one-time purchase, or a monthly subscription of 2 books a month. Like Netflix, it is a great product. My wife and I happily used it for several months when it seemed we were always on the road to some family gathering. Nothing seems to shorten a trip like a good audio book. When I decided to cancel my account two months ago due to lack of use, I quickly became frustrated. Information on how to cancel service is nowhere on the site. The only information — a phone number — is embedded deep within their FAQ section. There is no automated cancellation service whatsoever! Since the entire service itself is software, forcing existing clients to call a number instead of creating a cancel account function is tantamount, in my opinion, to a crime. Several hours later, after multiple holds, redirects, and callbacks, I was finally successful in cancelling my account.

The ease with which a user can cancel or unsubscribe from a service says one thing above all about a company: how much they respect the value of their own product. If it is a good product, then revenues are never affected by the difficulty of the cancellation process. “Here! Go ahead! Cancel! We know you’ll be back soon. Our product is that good.” The tremendous irony here is that Audible’s product is great. But I will absolutely never sign up with them again.

As I write this, I have again cancelled my Netflix account because I simply don’t have time to watch DVD’s (with all the programming my Tivo provides me). Again: two clicks to cancel, and I was done.

Bye, bye Audible. And to Netflix I say this:

I’ll be back soon.