I get that $60/year isn’t a dealbreaker for everyone, especially for those who actively use Trakt daily. But for many of us, the frustration isn’t really about the cost itself—it’s about trust and principle. In your earlier post you said “I understand being angry about the reneging,” and that’s precisely it. Trakt explicitly promised users (1) grandfathered pricing, and (2) at least 30 days’ notice for pricing changes—both now broken. That’s not petty; that’s people reacting to a company disregarding its own terms and past public assurances.
You brought up Letterboxd, which is a fair comparison—but they’ve never retroactively revoked pricing tiers they explicitly grandfathered. Nor have they ever said, “We’ll honor your price as long as your auto-renew remains active,” and then walked it back.
This also isn’t just about some folks cancelling on impulse. It’s about clarity, consistency, and the value of keeping promises made to loyal users—especially after 10+ years. If Trakt had said last year that they planned to phase out grandfathered pricing in 2025, most would’ve understood. But they didn’t. They said “nothing changes,” then changed everything six months later.
So yeah, maybe it’s “just five bucks a month”—but for many, it’s also a reminder that user goodwill can be lost a lot faster than it’s earned.
Since when? So many different contradictory messages and announcements from Trakt since last August that no one really knows where they stand or what other knee jerk announcements will be made out of the blue from day to day.
With as little as 7 days notice of the changes taking effect?
And there we have “AI” doing summaries of comments, for those dumbasses/terminally lazy who can’t spend a whole minute actually reading and thinking for themselves. A feature worth a price hike? nope.
Well after 12 Years or 360$ later this is time to cancel.
Also you could have set the increase for old account to 50% of the delta, given that we paid for it to become what it is today.
Eg. mine would be 45$ a year, which would be fair in my eyes
I remember when the free user changes where happening and you were defending them while touting your own horn for being a “power user” and calling everyone affected “crazy”, and turning a blind eye when we warned you and others that if they did that to us, you were not really safe either.
Oh you really think you got me there. You didn’t. I still stand by what I said. Those people should’ve been paying for the thing they valued all along. They should’ve been paying for years. These are separate issues.
I remember. You were showing empathy for members like me that had recently joined and got caught on the wrong side of the ‘lock in’ price, whilst also (rightly) criticising those that had been members for years and could have gone for the cheaper VIP deal at any time but chose not to.
I also remember you saying that you would have paid the full $60 if you had to, and stand by that decision now. I can appreciate that no-one likes to be lied to so soon after the last upheaval.
I was annoyed with myself at the time for not jumping into VIP as soon as I joined, but was trying the service out first. Seems now that it wouldn’t have mattered either way.
It’s a shame that Trakt couldn’t have ripped the band aid last August and implemented all their changes in one go and got it out of the way at once. Were they scheming and decided to chip away bit by bit, or is it simply the case that they’re floundering around and not knowing what they are doing??
One thing I do know, that if they make any more detrimental changes in the near future, they’re likely to lose the support of anyone still hanging around after this latest fiasco. If I had a crystal ball, I still don’t think I would have seen all this coming.
Thank you for saying this! I really do not think I’m being a hypocrite as implied.
I completely agree with you. This is not a cute look for Trakt at all. They look incompetent af. My crystal ball wouldn’t have seen all of this coming either. All of this looks so shady. And I think it’s trash that @justin is silent. I honestly don’t know if they can come back from this tbh. I’m not going anywhere because Trakt still works for me. But whoever is in charge now needs to get their shit all the way together.
You don’t understand, you don’t know what grandfathering means, and you certainly don’t appear to deeply appreciate anything.
Grandfathering recognises the “long-standing support” of “(y)our most loyal community members”, the foundations on which a business was built. Your cheerleaders. Your passionate supporters. Your vocal champions. Your word-of-mouth marketing. Grandfathering is a marketing expense with conversion rates no ad campaign can hope to match. Passionate users sell products.
Burning these people isn’t as simple as losing that marketing, those once passionate supporters will be equally passionate and vocal critics.
The ill will this has generated will be costing you money long after the cancelled yearly renewals have faded.
Thanks for the heads-up about the TOC. I mistakenly had thought I had until my renewal in July to commit to the first year at $30. Turns out that offer is only good through tomorrow. I’m canceling my VIP membership instead.
Agreed. I cancelled Trakt and donated the money to charity, because it is not about the money. I do not do business with dishonest companies or individuals.
The decision to attempt to gaslight us about the meaning of “grandfathered” or pretend this is normal practice in the industry confirmed I made the correct decision.
Even if this were the case, how is grandfathering a price less than a year any sort of transition on a service that is paid annually?
What a sad end, after an unforced error on their part.
Not just Justin, it’s across the board, no input / replies anywhere, appears the self destruct button has been activated and all " employees" have abandoned ship, RIP trackt, ( I really did love you)
I’ve been evaluating this app with Simkl as its backend this week. There are a few pet features in the client I miss from TV Forecast, but otherwise I’m content with the experience and will be switching.
