Reoccuring payments are easier/more reliable with other payment protocols. Bitcoin is great for payments initiated on the buyer-side, but not so great for seller-side initiated payments which are fundamental to subscription services. We're making progress, but its not there yet.
Good point. They would almost need access to our wallet to process the transaction.
Subscriptions should not be a requirement for using a service, they are supposed to be convenient for the BUYER. If I don't pay my electric bill, they turn it off, Dropbox could do the same until I pay up.
It's tough to "turn off" data storage. How long should they keep the data before deleting it? What happens if I forget to manually pay the bill and lose something really important?
Having automatic payments setup for the services I subscribe to IS convenient for the buyer....no?
Recurring payments in general are convenient for the buyer but "pulling" the money is mostly convenient for the seller. Recurring payments for services no longer used accounts for a large portion of any subscription based services revenue. People forget to turn off the billing when they stop using a service.
Buyers can set up recurring payments through Bill Pay at their bank just as easily to "push" money to services they use. Perhaps there is, or should be, a similar Bitcoin service to send payments to an address periodically.
As far as how long they should keep your data, that should be laid out in the terms of service. If you don't pay and lose your data, that's on you. This could happen anyway if your credit card is declined for some reason.
