Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video subscribers are hitting ‘pause’ instead of canceling altogether

• Streaming video services are seeing more customers hitting “pause,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
• This means people cancel their subscriptions, only to re-subscribe soon after.
• I admit to frequently quitting and rejoining Hulu — and data shows I’m not alone.

I have broken up with and gotten back together with Hulu so many times over the years that it would probably make the cast members of “Vanderpump Rules” say we were in a toxic relationship.

Once a year or so, I look at all the various subscriptions I’m paying for and, in a fit of budget-consciousness, decide that I must cancel something. Hulu seems to keep ending up with the short stick — but then a few months later, there’s some show I’m dying to watch, and I keep crawling back.

It appears I’m not alone: The Wall Street Journal reported Monday on the rise of the subscription pauser. The Journal examined subscription data from analytics firm Antenna to see the pattern of people quitting Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Max, Amazon Prime Video, and others.

Here’s what it found:

The monthly median percentage of premium streaming video subscribers who rejoined the same service they had canceled within the prior year was 34.2% in the first nine months of 2024, up from 29.8% in 2022.

The habit of pausing and resuming service means that the industrywide rate of customer defections, which has risen over the past year, is less pronounced than it appears. The average rate of U.S. customer cancellations among premium streaming video services reached 5.2% in August, but after factoring in re-subscribers, the rate of defections was lower at 3.5%.

Meanwhile, last month, the Federal Trade Commission finalized a “click to cancel” rule that is supposed to make it easier for customers to cancel online subscriptions. (The rule essentially says if you signed up online, you can’t be required to cancel by phone or mail — you have to be able to cancel online, too.)

In my experience, streamers generally are already compliant with the FTC’s rule. Because of that, I doubt it’s going to have much effect on whether someone cancels. Instead, streamers might offer discounts, promotions, or bundling with other services to try to keep you for the long term and reduce what they call “churn.”

As for me, I’m back as a happy Hulu subscriber after I was lured by comedian Brian Jordan Alvarez’s demented series of TikToks. In them, he’s dancing shirtless to an audio meme to promote his FX show, “English Teacher,” which streams on Hulu. Consider me un-paused.