I did pose the question/suggestion to Google Play Developer Support. They suggest, for the time being that I use the HTTP based API to do the cancellations. Roughly the programmatic equivalent to me searching through Google Wallet and cancelling all the pertinent renewals.
*For this functionality, Google Play offers an HTTP-based API that you can use to remotely query the validity of a specific subscription at any time or cancel a subscription. The API is designed to be used from your backend servers as a way of securely managing subscriptions, as well as extending and integrating subscriptions with other services.Currently, to completely deactivate a subscription you will need to cancel all subscription purchase tokens via the API. Please see the following help center article about the API for more information: http://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/v2/billing_subscriptions.html* Nathan On Wednesday, January 7, 2015 at 6:52:42 PM UTC-8, jtoolsdev wrote: > > Sounds like a design oversight. File it as an issue if it hasn't been > already. > > On Wednesday, January 7, 2015 12:55:31 PM UTC-8, Nathan wrote: >> >> Due to changes in business conditions and agreements with third parties, >> I need to phase out a yearly subscription. >> >> That is, no new people will be allowed to buy. No one will be allowed to >> renew. A year from now, zero people will own the subscription. >> >> I would think I could do this by going to the developer console and >> marking the subscription sku as Inactive, Deprecated, or something of that >> nature. >> >> But come to find out I can't modify a subscription item in any way. A >> year from now, therefore, these people will still autorenew. >> >> Therefore, no matter how strongly I get the word out, there will *never* >> be zero subscribers. Even if my app were no longer on Google Play, I think >> Google would still automatically charge people a year from now. And the >> terms for subscription require that I support them as long as there is at >> least one subscriber or my developer account will be suspended. >> >> If I have to, I will find all 300 subscribers and manually cancel their >> subscription so it won't renew. >> >> Beware, developers. Do not start any subscription that you cannot support >> for the rest of *eternity*. Be prepared, even if there is one person left >> and it will cost you $10,000 a year to maintain. Think twice about any >> subscription that has dependencies on a third party, however reputable or >> trustable. In fact, make sure that all subscriptions cost you nothing and >> are as meaningless as possible. >> >> Nathan >> >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
