The Challenge of Unsubscribing

Have you ever tried to cancel a Kindle subscription? I originally signed up for the AP U.S. News feed as a couple of other Kindle owners told me it's worth the $1.99 per month. (This was before the advent of Kindlefeeder, of course.) I used it for several weeks but because disappointed because much of the "news" it sent me wasn't exactly news.

I figured I'd drop that subscription and switch to the Latest News from The New York Times, also $1.99 per month. Switching to the Times feed was a breeze, of course, but how do you stop an existing feed? You'd think there would be a simple way to cancel a feed right from your Kindle. Nope. As with so many services these days, it's easy to sign up but the provider often makes it difficult to stop. It's not as bad as the old horror stories of canceling an AOL subscription or, more recently, XM Radio, but it's still more of a hassle than it should be.

Here's how it's done: Select the Manage Your Kindle option on Amazon's top nav bar. On the resulting screen scroll down to the heading "Your active Kindle subscriptions." You'll see a "Cancel Subscription" option for each of your active subscriptions. Just click on that link for any subscriptions you want to terminate.

Canceling a subscription is actually pretty simple...assuming you're doing it from your computer. And while it's conceivable to pull up the same screen on your Kindle, that's more of a hassle than it's worth. I think Amazon should just add a "cancel subscription" button inside the feed rather than force you to use a browser.