Stereophile Scamming Subscribers?

This is not an unusual practice in magazine subscriptions, and it also occurs with things like credit cards. A company will send out different offers ($X for Y years for a subscription, or $W annual fee with Z% interest rate for a credit card) -- with different values for W, X, Y, Z to different potential new or renewing customers. They are trying to figure out an offer that maximizes their revenue, even taking into account the few subscribers that will leave. Different demographic groups can even get different offers.  Welcome to the statistics of marketing. If you are an outlier, your can passively quit (and thus contribute to their experiment), find a different channel to purchase, or call them up and negotiate.

I just got a renewal notice that is attached to the current issue.  The offer is 12 issues for $18 or 24 issues for $30.  

I guess I am a bit too honest. If I ran this magazine, it would be one price. I might consider a discount for longer term subscriptions. Personally, I would subscribe for 10 years and pay upfront if I was incentivized. 

This is a very common lowball initial offer technique where companies give a better deal to complete strangers than to loyal customers. 

Sirius XM is another classic example. Complete strangers get it for $5 per month for a year. Loyal customers pay $18 per month.

Cancel and re-subscribe.  

@hennigan 

I call Sirius every year at renewal time and threaten to cancel, I get offered service for $6/month every time. I do the same thing for Direct TV and get loyalty discounts