I've found this more useful than harmful -- like, if I had to get a new Amex because of someone's data leak, I didn't have to go through and update literally EVERY SINGLE AUTOBILL bc Amex was smart enough to let (e.g.) my cell bill or my cable bill continue to process on the old number while blocking new charges on it.
But it still sucks that it's difficult to block charges like this from the consumer/credit-card side. I see references to OneFinancial in the thread here, and I'll definitely look into that.
Then make it optional or give fine-grained control over it. When you get a new card number, you should get a list of merchants that have recurring payments on the old one, and get to choose yes or no to transfer each of them.
Personally I having to update all of the recurring payments very useful; I was supprised by the amount of shit I had forgotten I was paying for every month. e.g. a VPS that I hadn't had anything running on for years, Apple music long after switching to Spotify.
This is one reason I enjoy the fact that I really only use one card. It's dead simple to review one bill every month.
99% of all my economic activity (excluding my mortgage) goes through my Amex. I have a MasterCard, as a backup, but I almost never use it for anything meaningful (it actually lives in my cycling wallet, so I have a card there Just In Case).
My actual bank account sees very, very, very few transactions by comparison: I get paid there, I transfer out to savings, I pay the mortgage, I pay any tiny charges on the MasterCard, and I pay the Amex bill, and that's about it.
This makes it VERY easy to keep track of recurring charges.
But it still sucks that it's difficult to block charges like this from the consumer/credit-card side. I see references to OneFinancial in the thread here, and I'll definitely look into that.