Well actually newspaper and magazine subscriptions pre-date cell and software subscriptions by decades. When you called to cancel, it's cancelled that day, and

Well actually newspaper and magazine subscriptions pre-date cell and software subscriptions by decades. When you called to cancel, it's cancelled that day, and you get a pro-rated refund for the remaining balance, if any. The idea that it actually costs the company money to compute a pro-rata, and give your money back for unused/unwanted service or software is bunk. It's only because they've decided that's how they want it to work, and wrote it into the contract that way and their customers passively agree to that contract. So it's legal, it conforms to the written contract, buyer beware and all that, but it's simply incorrect to say that auto-renew is part of the definition of subscribe. No, that's how it works in some contracts.