• Streaming video services are seeing more customers take a break, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• This means that people cancel their subscription, only to resubscribe shortly after.
• I admit that I’ve frequently left and rejoined Hulu — and the data shows I’m not alone.

I broke up and got back together Hulu so many times over the years that the cast of “Vanderpump Rules” would probably say we were in a toxic relationship.

About once a year, I look at all the different subscriptions I pay for and, being budget-conscious, decide I need to cancel something. Hulu seems to keep finding itself with the short stick — but a few months later, there’s a show I’m dying to watch, and I keep cringing.

It seems I’m not alone: The Wall Street Journal reported Monday at the increase of the subscription break. The Journal looked at subscription data from analytics firm Antenna to see the trend of people leaving Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Max, Amazon Prime Video and others.

Here’s what he found:

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

The habit of interrupting and resuming service means that the industry-wide rate of customer defections, which has increased over the past year, is less pronounced than it might seem. The average U.S. customer cancellation rate among premium video streaming services reached 5.2% in August, but after accounting for resubscriptions, the defection rate was lower than 3.5%.

Meanwhile, last month the The Federal Trade Commission finalized a “click to cancel” rule this is supposed to make it easier for customers to cancel subscriptions online. (The rule basically says that if you registered online, you can’t be forced to cancel by phone or mail – you must also be able to cancel online.)

In my experience, streamers are generally already complying with the FTC rule. For this reason, I doubt it will have much effect on whether or not someone is canceled. Instead, streamers may offer discounts, promotions, or bundles with other services to try to keep you around for the long term and reduce what they call “churn“.

As for me, I’m back as a happy Hulu subscriber after being drawn to the comedian. Crazy series of TikToks from Brian Jordan Alvarez. In them, he dances shirtless to an audio meme to promote his FX show, “English Teacher,” which airs on Hulu. Consider me without pause.