I've never thought the cliffhanger was a good idea, especially in books. A year from now, I probably won't even care that I didn't get to read see a well-rounded ending. Especially in a book that isn't all that great.
It seems to be very on trend for indie authors to offer a book for free on Kindle but make it more of a lure and not make it a complete story to entice you to buy the next book. I'm way more likely to buy a book from a new author if I enjoyed the previous, cliffhangers are not enjoyable.
The cliffhanger thing reminds me of this book I read a few years back that had seemed seriously interesting at the time about a nun assassin in training. The book itself wasn't all that promising and was actually really contrived. Then I got to the cliffhanger and was actually quite upset, because then you're thinking that after all that, you DO want to know what happens next... but you don't really want to read another book in that series or written by that author.
I started paying closer attention to reviews after that to make sure I wasn't stumbling into another book with an abrupt cliffhanger, that would require me to buy the second book, for an exorbitant price, and still get no story out of it.
Yes! There have been a couple books like that for me! Ugh, I'm drawing a blank right now, but there's one that I was really torn because it wasn't that great but the need to KNOW about killed me, lol.
I started paying closer attention to reviews after that to make sure I wasn't stumbling into another book with an abrupt cliffhanger, that would require me to buy the second book, for an exorbitant price, and still get no story out of it.