In this case, "ill-suited for automatic recurring payments" is arguably a feature and not a bug. The porn industry has a history of shady, abusive practices in this area (though to be fair, these days publications like the New York Times are apparently catching up).
Everybody is catching up. I just found out that my ISP actually subscribed me to an AntiVirus service for 6EUR/month, checked by default on the n-th page of the contract I signed. Even the monthly invoice didn't reveal that, I had to find out from a friend working for the company.
Cancelling is difficult and requires speaking with a human who will haggle you down to about half price. They are very pleasant and low pressure, but you must talk to them.
Hearst newspapers are more porn-like. They offer subscription periods with bizarre terms (3, 7, or 13 weeks) make it difficult to pay without a credit card, and forget to tell you that certain days count as multiple papers because of some special insert. If you make the mistake of giving them your credit card, you must cancel in a narrow window, and renewals are usually timed to skip credit card cycles so you don’t see a charge every month.
I am a weirdo who actually likes newspapers in paper form, but I gave up on my local paper because of bullshit like this.
Ha actually I have a funny story about trying to terminate a NYT delivery. A few months after we moved into our home, the previous owners started a NYT weekend subscription. The paper was delivered to our house every weekend, since apparently they just wanted the digital access and didn't care about the physical paper. We didn't want it either, since by the time it arrived in the morning, we had already read the news the night before (We're on PT, and often read news around midnight.)
I had to call the NYT a number of times to get them to cancel, and it was actually easier to just have it put on a months-long "vacation hold," during which time they didn't deliver. Every time the hold ended, I had to call up again and reinstate the hold. Although this was a hassle, it never occurred to me that it would be difficult to cancel if I were the actual subscriber! I thought it was just a pain because I was the recipient, but not the purchaser.
