An analogy to a magazine subscription would be a for-pay email newsletter.  In that case, if the newsletter was sent, obviously the company is owed.<p>But in the case of a passive web site subscription, if the customer stops accessing the site and stops the method of payment, no services have been rendered, and no cost has been incurred by the company.  Web server logs could even prove this (although the company could also falsify them).<p>So a better analogy would probably be a gym membership.  Imagine a gym refuses to allow a customer to cancel in-person or on the phone, instead requiring  the customer to mail a letter.  So a customer, justifiably angry at this, calls his bank or credit card and stops future payments, and never sets foot in the gym again.  Now, no services have been rendered after that date, and no costs have been incurred by the gym.  They are owed nothing--if not legally in all jurisdictions, then ethically and morally, and therefore legally it <i>should</i> be the same.<p>I would like to see this tested in court, even a small claims court.  In the case of a company intentionally making it difficult and time-consuming to unsubscribe, and a customer cancelling the payment method due to that difficulty, I have a feeling that most judges would side with the former customer.  And as has been pointed out, in many places this is not legal, and I would not be surprised if that included several U.S. states.