[HN Gopher] Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract
___________________________________________________________________
Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract
Author : zdw
Score : 1137 points
Date : 2022-02-05 15:45 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| ziml77 wrote:
| Is it really a trick when it says right in the subscription term
| selection that it's an annual subscription?
|
| I hate Adobe's insane subscription prices and the fact that they
| don't give any reminders that your subscription is going to renew
| is evil, but nothing seems wrong about the 1 year subscription.
|
| If anything, it's a courtesy[1] that they're letting you cancel
| in the middle of the subscription term at all. Imagine if you
| paid a lump sum for an annual subscription. Do you really expect
| to get any portion of your money back if you cancel? The annual-
| paid-monthly option is still an annual term, you just opted to
| spread the payments out. It's similar to if you bought something
| from a store using the store credit card to get 0% interest on
| the purchase for 12 months.
|
| [1] A courtesy while they're fucking you over, but a courtesy
| nonetheless.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| >Do you really expect to get any portion of your money back if
| you cancel?
|
| Yes I do. I stop using their app and service so I expect to
| stop paying for their app and service. I have cancelled several
| annual subscriptions from other vendors and they all refunded
| the prorated balance. Sometimes there was a small cancellation
| fee, but in all cases I received the vast majority of the
| balance.
|
| Your analogy is flawed. In your example, I still have the thing
| so of course I have to fully pay for it. In the software case,
| the company can turn off the license and I no longer have it
| available to me. Refusing to turn it off is just bad customer
| relations policy. When you do rude crap like that you get
| (deservedly) written up on HN and other sites. Plus, you
| eliminate the possibility of a future customer relationship. It
| is just ugly and stupid on their part.
| gouggoug wrote:
| My trick to avoid this has been to use single-use credit card
| numbers that I generate via privacy.com.
|
| You can create credit card numbers and assign a spending limit to
| them. Some service can detect that and will refuse the card, but
| many don't.
|
| Once you're done signing-up, simply delete your generated credit
| card.
| drorco wrote:
| It's one of the reasons for why I intentionally avoid Adobe,
| despite often contemplating using their products. I wonder if
| these kind of tactics are really worth their while, leaving stung
| customers from ever coming back.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| It's such a shame Adobe acts like this; they used to be a
| reputable technology leader. These days most of their products
| seem like scammy upsells.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| They've done this for close to ten years (or however long
| Creative Cloud has been around) and you have to be careful to
| cancel before they renew you into another yearly contract.
|
| I swore I would never have a personal subscription again (and
| just use the one I have at work for personal projects, which is
| against TOS but prove it), but then they had a 50% off special
| and I caved. I also set a calendar entry to remind me to cancel
| before I get renewed for a second year.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| While I am sure this is not really a "dark" pattern, Adobe's
| subscription terms definitely discouraged me from subscription
| software generally. As soon as Affinity Photo was stable in
| beta (March/April 2015 time) I cancelled my Photoshop Plan
| subscription at the first opportunity.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| Graphic designer here: I got hired at an agency recently, signed
| up using my company's account so I could save $50/m doing away
| with my subscription and ran into this issue. Very fun.
|
| Anyways, the future isn't going to be kind to Adobe. Figma has
| replaced a lot of my Adobe workflow, it's just infinitely a more
| pleasant experience. Canva has replaced things that require 3
| different Adobe products to do. For serious video editing I'm
| using DaVinci Resolve. InDesign kind of remains a necessity but I
| can see Figma filling that gap too. That really just leaves
| Lightroom and Photoshop that get a lot of use, and the things
| they're necessary for are decreasing by the day.
| bambax wrote:
| Affinity products are really great. Not yet on par with Adobe's
| but almost there for most tasks, and more than enough for
| casual users.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| It is an interesting mix of things, actually.
|
| Some things are missing -- a JavaScript or AppleScript
| interface for example. And small stuff like you can't reseed
| the perlin noise generator in Photo.
|
| But some things are surprisingly better.
|
| Affinity Photo has live filter layers that work much better
| than smart objects, it has a frequency separation tool that
| is genuinely easier to use, it has proper blend curves that
| are enormously powerful (sharpening just the highlights?
| noise reduction just in the shadows?), and you can do things
| like use Lab curves on an RGB image.
|
| Affinity Designer I know less well, but the symbol and
| artboard support is astounding (bordering on what Sketch can
| do), and small things like the rounded corners support is
| amazing. Its one omission -- it doesn't have an autotrace.
|
| I am sure there are several things InDesign does that
| Publisher can't, but Publisher's integration with Photo and
| Designer is absolutely remarkable.
|
| This mix of missing features and improvements is exactly what
| you should hope for in a competing app; they don't have quite
| the same objectives in mind and they have started afresh
| rather than chasing a feature set.
| bambax wrote:
| > _it doesn 't have an autotrace_
|
| Yes, that's a problem. For that I still use CorelDraw.
| schleck8 wrote:
| I actually prefer Affinity over Adobe in many regards. The UI
| is nicer with colored icons and everything i've ever needed
| is there and very polished.
|
| Frequent updates for a single charge of 50 usd is just
| amazing.
| tasha0663 wrote:
| I lack familiarity with Adobe, though sometimes I'll follow a
| guide for Illustrator and translate it to Designer.
|
| Designer doesn't have:
|
| - Autotracing
|
| - Blob brush
|
| - The color theme picker switcher thing.
|
| Which I could see as being potentially important features for
| someone in a rush. Other than that, what's really missing? Is
| it just "you can do it but it takes more setup" kinds of
| things?
| [deleted]
| teekert wrote:
| They did something like this to me, 3 persons on the phone (all
| English speaking) later some manager finally caved after me
| repeatedly stating they were breaking Dutch law with 1 year
| renewals (after one year it's always monthly if there is no new
| approval, it was my 3rd year).
|
| I reported this to the relevant instances here, heard nothing
| from it.
| thewebcount wrote:
| I just hit something like this with Amazon Prime. I haven't used
| Amazon in a while and forgot that they push it very hard during
| checkout. Well, they got me. I accidentally clicked on the wrong
| button. I immediately realized my mistake and hit the back button
| before the next page loaded. Too late. A second later an email
| arrived letting me know my Prime account had been activated.
|
| I immediately went looking for the cancel link. It's not as
| terrible as some. (You don't have to call them or anything.) But
| it's still pretty bad. I didn't need to confirm even once that I
| wanted the Prime subscription, but had to confirm 3 or 4 times I
| want to cancel with a bunch of confusing options to only pause my
| subscription, etc. I did eventually cancel, but I don't see how
| this can be legal. If you accidentally press the wrong thing,
| you're suddenly obligated to pay for something you didn't want,
| but if you try to cancel, it's a bunch, "Are you sure? Are you
| really sure?" nonsense. I don't think I was charged as it was
| still during the 30 day "free" trial.
| irrational wrote:
| I cancelled an adobe subscription years ago. I still get constant
| emails about renewing. I hate subscriptions so much. The only one
| we have right now is Disney+ for the kids.
| rectang wrote:
| I want to watch _Get Back_, but the only way to see it is to
| sign up for Disney+. It's not worth the agony of navigating a
| subscription.
|
| The US legal environment and lack of consumer protections makes
| it too difficult to spend money and get what you want in
| return. It's incredibly hard to avoid getting ripped off by
| technically-legal-but-predatory schemes.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _I want to watch _Get Back_, but the only way to see it is
| to sign up for Disney+. It 's not worth the agony of
| navigating a subscription._
|
| This is where the Apple ecosystem absolutely earns it's vig
| with a consumer-friendly, self-service, no-hassle experience.
| Subscribe for a month for 8 bucks and watch everything you
| can, then unsubscribe.
| rectang wrote:
| Returning to the original topic, would this technique also
| work for subscriptions to Adobe products purchased through
| the App Store?
|
| I've considered getting Illustrator for my iPad Pro, but
| have held off because of reticence about subscription
| terms.
|
| (For what it's worth I used to work in graphic design and
| prepress a while back and learned Illustrator, so it has a
| familiarity advantage for me over worthy competitors like
| Affinity Designer.)
| jhawk28 wrote:
| I ran into this the first time I tried out the new Lightroom
| plan. The customer support rep waived the fee for me. I then used
| LR6 until I upgraded to an M1 Mac Mini where I was forced to
| upgrade. I don't think these subscription models provide good
| incentives for software companies. I don't see LRCC has much
| better than LR6. It has a few more features (that I've never
| used), more camera support (haven't upgraded), and a recompile to
| ARM64.
| vero2 wrote:
| I wonder what the dark patters programmers/coders' of hn-
| community think about this? I really like to get their point of
| view.
| Ghostt8117 wrote:
| I fell for this using Adobe stock photos. I did not see anywhere
| that I signed up for a monthly plan as I was only getting free
| credits to use. Well, a few months later and I noticed the
| charges on my credit card bill. It took me a few hours but I was
| able to get back all of my money. Not until after, though, the
| representative on the phone cursed at me and told me I was an
| idiot for not realizing what I signed up for. This was a few
| years back and I no longer use any Adobe product and never will
| again.
| diamondage wrote:
| Surely with the right data, we can quantify the exact effect of a
| dark pattern. Once quantified. We can we bring a class action
| suit against this kind of practice!? Once established as a
| precedent, the existence of this kind of lawsuit would
| universally improve web experience
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Adobe licensing practices are pure evil. I've been in IT for over
| 30 years. I was a fan of Adobe products for a very long time but
| no longer. Even the supposedly stand-alone products require a
| continuous connection to Adobe's cloud, which is not only a way
| to verify licensing but to track users.
|
| There is a consistent pattern with companies that do advertising,
| they go pure evil in the name of profit. See Roku and others.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| This is fraud, not a dark pattern. You are intentionally making
| designs with the intent to deceive, knowing that if people
| understood the terms they would not agree. Free trial? Actually
| it's a minimum $150 obligation. I don't understand how companies
| that do this aren't being fined or having people put in jail.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| No, it's a free trial, because you can cancel it. And if you
| look in the screenshots in the very tweets this item is about,
| you can see that they tell you this up front, on the third
| screenshot, including the date by which you can cancel to get a
| full refund.
|
| It's not "fraud". Could it benefit from clearer language --
| there are some small tweaks they could do.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Would you say the goal of the setup is to deceive the user
| into paying for a much longer term than they would agree to
| if they knew?
|
| To me, two things stand out. 1) The fact that they have a
| "monthly price billed anually" could only be used for
| deception. Either you bill monthly or annually. Telling me
| how much per month is not helpful, it's deceptive. That's the
| billing scheme in my head. I am thinking of monthly billing.
| 2) The fact that they will charge you 50% of the full term no
| matter how soon after you cancel. The subscription is
| automatic and has near 0 marginal cost to Adobe. Clearly, the
| goal is to suck money from the pockets of people who either
| didn't find the software useful after all or didn't even
| intend to buy a full year.
|
| Together, I see a clear intent to deceive with the goal of
| financial gain. Fraud. The fact that you _can_ know what you
| are signing up for is immaterial. They could and would make
| it clearer if the goal wasn 't to deceive, and they wouldn't
| charge you 50% on cancellation if the goal wasn't to profit
| off of people who mistakenly paid for more than they need.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| It's an annual price, billed monthly.
|
| Quite a lot of things are like this -- for example, the TV
| licence in the UK is a product that you buy for a year but
| pay monthly. Our council tax is, too.
|
| I don't believe the subscription has near marginal cost --
| Adobe have a huge number of employees making hugely complex
| products, and this is how they choose to amortise it,
| instead of relying on people upgrading every three
| versions.
|
| It's not fraud; that's just not the right word to use.
|
| Is subscription pricing consumer-hostile? I don't know. But
| I do know that per-seat licensing of the prior Creative
| Suite was a non-trivial expense for a lot of design firms.
|
| My main objection to Creative Cloud is that it's a one-or-
| everything pricing model; that's the only thing I think
| risks being anti-competitive given their market share.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| No, not at all. They may not be communicating well enough
| with the word "annual", which people clearly don't seem to
| grasp, and perhaps they should use "Yearly".
|
| The one thing I found frustrating when I cancelled after a
| year is the relatively short window of time you have to
| actually cancel; well, that and the slightly tiresome
| retention process I was dropped into -- would you like a
| free month instead? two months? (I half expected to be
| offered a kitten).
|
| But generally Adobe think you want this software for the
| longer term, not for a month, and economically they would
| be hosed if people could just use, say, InDesign for a
| couple of months, since a lot of InDesign tasks are annual
| tasks (brochures, reports, catalogues).
| josefrichter wrote:
| Adobe is the dirtiest company in the industry. And some bugs in
| their software remains unfixed for years. I refuse to touch
| anything they produce.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I switched to Gimp and Inkscape a few years ago for exactly this
| reason.
| gregdoesit wrote:
| I'm someone who tends to double check terms before I sign up for
| any recurring billing... and somehow Adobe still got me with this
| exact dark pattern. I thought I was paying for a monthly
| subscription, only to be told I need to pay 50% of the remaining
| annual charge AND lose access immediately if I cancel.
|
| I was convinced I signed up for what was a monthly plan... and
| somehow Adobe hid the fact that this was an annual plan, paid
| monthly (WTF??)
|
| This level of a dark pattern made me move away from all Adobe
| products. Congrats on the additional revenue per user: it's also
| a sure way to have churned users like me not return.
| phgn wrote:
| PS49.84/mo is way too expensive already, even without the
| contract lock-in...
| yoyopa wrote:
| as a subscriber to CC, i was thinking of canceling after reading
| this... but it seems it isn't a dark pattern at all? they
| advertise two rates: one if you pay month-by-month, and one if
| you pay for a 12-month term, billed monthly. An early termination
| fee is common if a contract is ended early, no?
| [deleted]
| aceazzameen wrote:
| I remember being extremely frustrated when I cancelled my long
| term subscription a few years ago. I knew to cancel right before
| the yearly billing date. But they had so many hoops to go through
| on the website! Multiple times they were showing me free offers
| to continuing using the software for a month or whatever. Of
| course they were trying to trick me into a new subscription! The
| buttons to actually complete the unsubscribe process were well
| hidden next to the bold offers. I was pissed that they almost got
| me. Never again Adobe.
| jonplackett wrote:
| The fact that this is legal is the real problem here.
|
| Also, anyone whining about Apple's AppStore lockdown on
| subscriptions by in-app payment only (I know I have complained
| about this myself) there is no better argument for why letting a
| 3rd party manage subscriptions is a good thing.
| pcurve wrote:
| https://www.adobe.com/downloads.html
|
| Click the Start Free Trial and experience the flow for yourself.
|
| You're presented with 3 options, but it defaults to the 2nd
| option.
|
| Instead of using more straightforward "Annual Subscription -
| Billed monthly", it uses rather unusual "Yearly - Billed Monthly"
| phrasing.
|
| The default selection makes it less likely that you're going to
| read the fine print.
|
| You also don't get the Total Cost comparison between the 3
| options.
|
| 7 day free trial, but 14 day to cancel creates another
| unnecessary disconnect intended to confuse.
|
| It's clear they 'optimized' the funnel towards maximum conversion
| at the user's cost.
|
| Really scammy. They are riding on the coattail of their former
| glory products that are slowly becoming irrelevant.
| morsch wrote:
| I think the language is pretty clear. The fact that there is a
| much more expensive monthly option makes it even more obvious
| that the "yearly" option is a year long commitment. Not sure
| why you'd need to read the fine print. It also says "Fee
| applies if you cancel after Feb 26" -- as long as that implies
| that you can cancel without paying a fee until then, I think
| that's pretty clear? Though seeing how many people feel tricked
| by it, I may be missing something.
| pcurve wrote:
| I think it's partly because you're looking at this through HN
| posting and you are aware of the dark pattern issue. Even if
| it poses no problem for 95% if people, if it does for 5%,
| it's a big number.
|
| the problem is, they're deviating from the norm by doing
| things:
|
| > Offering annual pricing, but with monthly pay option. >
| Imposing rather stiff penalty.
|
| Stuff like this... is not that common in ordinary e-commerce.
| You either pay 1 full year price and enjoy substantial
| savings or go monthly.
|
| They could've made this info much more clear so that the
| comprehension wouldn't be a problem for 99% of the people.
| But they didn't.
| nunez wrote:
| Right, and this is why I use Privacy one-time-use burner cards
| (or Blur burner credit cards) for almost everything online these
| days.
| qwertox wrote:
| I don't understand this. It's a free 7-day trial. If I cancel
| during the 7-day trial, the following cancellation terms apply:
| If you cancel within 14 days of your initial order, you'll be
| fully refunded.
|
| 7 < 14.
|
| Also, it's not even clear if the 7 days do even count towards the
| 14 days, since in that case they could just as well state "first
| 14 days are free". But they are not free, since they belong to
| the first subscription month. They'd be 14 consumed days of the
| first month if no cancellation is made.
|
| This should mean that the 7 days are not a part of the initial
| order. The initial order would get placed automatically after 7
| days, you are just expressing your intent to automatically order
| after the 7 days of trial.
|
| If this is not true, then they are definitely scamming their
| users, but I doubt that they would risk going to court for this.
|
| But what I definitely think is a big scam is the 50% cancellation
| fee of the initial order, _with the condition_ that you only get
| to use the remaining days of the month.
|
| For example, if you cancel in the third week, you still have to
| pay around USD 300 (the tweets indicated a USD 600 per year
| cost), but you only get one week for that, instead of being able
| to use the full 6 months (50% of a year) you are actually paying
| for.
|
| ---
|
| If I go to that page, there is the following text (it's also in
| his Tweet):
|
| Cancel before --> 26 Feb [today is 5 Feb] <-- to get a full
| refund and avoid a fee. You can cancel your subscription anytime
| via your Adobe Account page or by contacting Customer Support.
| Learn more.
|
| This means that they are actually giving you a cancellation right
| of 7+14 days, just as mentioned in the "subscription and
| cancellation terms" plus the 7 days.
|
| According to Wolfram Alpha "today + (14 + 7) days" = Feb 26, 2022
|
| So no, you are not getting scammed with this free trial.
| ElemenoPicuares wrote:
| No, that's correct. If you cancel within 7 days you pay
| nothing. If you cancel after 14 days you have to pay for half
| the year. I'm not sure what happens between those two points--
| I'd guess it's a grace period but I'm not sure-- but personally
| I'd be surprised to have any reduction in cost if I went beyond
| a clearly stated free trial I agreed to.
|
| Folks have legitimate bones to pick with Adobe-- including the
| cost alone-- and I think that's why folks want to pig-pile on
| them for something like this. That said, I don't think this is
| a dark pattern. I don't even really think it's critique-- more
| like conspiracy theory.
|
| _Dark pattern:_ Buttons confirming difficult-to-undo actions
| not in a user 's best interest hiding in buttons styled and
| positioned like cancel buttons.
|
| _Dark pattern:_ Ad modals with undersized X closing symbols in
| low-contrast colors with transparent backgrounds over complex
| graphics making it hard to find and harder to not click on the
| ad.
|
| _Dark pattern:_ Cookie consent boxes w /an "accept all" option
| but only line-item rejection of dozens of entries requiring 2
| or 3 clicks each.
|
| _Dark pattern:_ Cookie consent boxes with "reject all" options
| which don't reject cookies selected in other tabs /cards not
| visible unless you click on them.
|
| _Dark pattern:_ Inconspicuous opt-out adware in Windows
| installers that rarely require user interaction beyond clicking
| next.
|
| _Dark pattern:_ One-click sign-up requiring in-person,
| written, or phone cancellation via a 'retention specialist.'
|
| _... this pattern:_ Bait link that doesn't tell the whole
| story leads to a screen with a prominent order form. It has
| only one line item near the top that's labelled _commitment_
| which says _" annual plan, paid monthly PS49.94/mo"_ with the
| monthly price. It clearly states the length of the free trial,
| twice, including the explicit date you need to cancel by to not
| get charged. The terms modal, which could be more clearly
| styled, explicitly states the penalties for not cancelling
| before twice the length of your free trial passes.
|
| So if a user signs up for an annual subscription and doesn't
| cancel until more than double the time their free trial passes
| then they get charged a penalty. Ok.
|
| Adobe has room to improve here, but sorry-- this is just not a
| _dark pattern_ by any good faith measure.
|
| The first page is obviously a bait link, It should prominently
| state a 12 month commitment and save non-interested users the
| click. While it's overly salesy, it's a standard advertising
| tactic and incredibly mild compared to what you see at your
| average car dealership. Newer SAAS companies (e.g. Slack) do a
| much better job, here, and Adobe should follow suit. I would
| absolutely levy a dark pattern accusation if users only saw
| that before committing more than a click, but it's not.
|
| I don't understand how anyone viewing an order form occupying ~
| 1/3 of the screen with a prominent box labelled "commitment"
| saying "annual plan, paid monthly PS49.94/mo" would not
| understand that you're making an annual commitment to pay
| PS49.94/mo, and that the total cost will be PS49.94/mo * 12.
| Never has any phone plan or car lease or gym membership or
| anything else I paid for monthly with some multi-month
| commitment prominently displayed the explicit total price. The
| free trial end dates are prominently mentioned twice.
|
| The cancellation terms box styling should more clearly convey
| the document structure, but even someone _quickly skimming_ the
| first 8 paragraphs would see the content didn 't end with the
| headline "Cancellation Terms:". Hanlon's Razor shreds the
| assertion of deliberate malfeasance over a site-wide design
| system flubbing _form follows function._
|
| Normally love a pig pile on Adobe's pricing practices, but this
| looks a lot more like histrionics intended to drive twitter
| traffic than a useful analysis of Adobe's sign-up process.
| Karunamon wrote:
| I tend to agree on principle, but this whole concept of
| 'annual, monthly' is really scummy.
|
| Even YC startups are doing it now, showing you a per-month
| price while de-emphasizing the fact that you're paying for a
| year up front. Adobe is the first one I'm familiar with that
| does normal monthly billing but forces you to stay a year.
|
| >Hanlon's Razor shreds the assertion of deliberate
| malfeasance over a site-wide design system flubbing form
| follows function.
|
| Hanlon's Razor is a heuristic, not a law, and ceases to apply
| in the face of bad-faith actors. If Adobe wanted to be clear,
| they'd say "$X/month for 12 months", and not hide the
| commitment terms in WCAG-violating grey-on-white text. I
| offer instead the heuristic of "follow the money".
| ElemenoPicuares wrote:
| > Adobe is the first one I'm familiar with that does normal
| monthly billing but forces you to stay a year.
|
| Really? The Commitment Subscription payment model is super
| common and old as time.
|
| Oracle. Microsoft for some services. Lots of random SaaS
| companies. Unity Pro. Gyms. Internet service. Webex since
| forever. POTS service. Mobile service until Verizon got
| greedy and they started letting phone subsidies do the same
| thing. Leases. Service contracts for everything from
| software support to pest control. Consulting contracts.
| Columbia's Record of the Month Club.
|
| I am firmly against blaming people who've been ripped off
| because they didn't' prevent it, but this is _not new._ It
| is a standard business practice across many industries. It
| 's not even new to software.
|
| Beyond that, even with Adobe, you don't even have to use
| it-- it's just the only one Adobe lets you sign up for a
| free trial with. If you go to Adobe's sub page:
| https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html
|
| And click on the 52 whatever a month plan, the three
| options for subscriptions-- Month-to-Month, Monthly with a
| 12 month commitment, and annual paid upfront, are listed
| clear-as-day on the right.
|
| I think the Hanlon's Razor play on words is clear. When the
| two possibilities at large seem to be "Adobe, the world
| standard in creative software, maliciously styled their
| cancellation terms to trick the sliver of people suspicious
| enough to read the terms but not suspicious enough to
| realize the text was cut off" and "Adobe fell behind on
| user testing for infrequently viewed text-only fine print
| pages," Hanlon's razor is the heuristic people should use,
| and the results are self-evident.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I got caught up in one recently but was able to talk the
| operator out of it. I thought I was signing up for a 1
| month trial not for a year. Evidently they didn't push the
| people on the other side of the phone to refuse just make
| you have to at least call and talk to a human. I could find
| no way on the website to do it. Some people would just have
| let it go for a few months after not being frustrated
| enough to call customer service, as it wasn't a lot of
| money $8/month if I recall correctly.
| msavio wrote:
| Fell for that trick once. Avoiding Adobe products since. Found
| Capture One instead of Lightroom, the Affinity Suite instead of
| Photoshop/InDesign/Illustrator.
|
| I am upgrading Capture One every year, so I probably pay the same
| as what I would pay for Lightroom.
|
| But it just feels like a fair contract. And I love the product
| (probably because I know it well by now).
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| I fell for this a few years ago when I was in college.
|
| I intended to sign up for a month, and see if I liked graphic
| design. After a few weeks my school ended up offering any student
| a "free" (paid for by my tuition really) Adobe CC subscription if
| you fill out a Google Form and tell them what you want to do with
| it. So I tried to cancel and learned I would be hit with a
| massive early cancellation fee (I think it ammounted to something
| around $240).
|
| I called Adobe support and in my experience their customer
| service politely cancelled my subscription and waived all fees.
| Thankfully they did not give me a hard time about it whatsoever.
|
| But when I signed up I had absolutely no idea that it was a
| yearly plan paid monthly, since Adobe was the first and last time
| I have personally seen such a model for SaaS.
| cprogrammer1994 wrote:
| Is it legal to be forced to pay a fee that was never on the
| screen?
| threshold wrote:
| Disgusting. What you should do is call your bank and reverse the
| charges for fraud. Unless you bank at Mercury in which case
| customer service will just laugh at you because they're a shit
| bank (that I'm ditching today)
| dkersten wrote:
| And this is why I avoid Adobe products like the plague and why I
| paid the small once off payment for Affinity Photo for my photo
| editing needs instead. Fuck Adobe.
|
| But really, this is why I avoid subscription software as much as
| possible. I will pay for streaming media (because I'm paying for
| the media not the software). If I buy software, I expect a once
| off payment to be able to use it forever (I'm ok with having to
| pay for a new version sometime down the line as long as my old
| version continues to run). I do sometimes use SaaS web products,
| but I do try to avoid it when I can.
|
| Since most things are subscription these days, I don't buy much
| software and tend to stick to open source stuff where I can.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| The most important (not to mention blindingly obvious) rules of
| running a subscription based business are "make sure the customer
| knows exactly what they're signing up for and on what terms" and
| "make it memorably pleasant and easy to cancel", so it's pretty
| funny to see big names like Adobe and the NYT be too scared and
| insecure to live by these rules
| basisword wrote:
| "But what does 'annual plan, paid monthly' mean?" - is it just me
| or is this completely self-explanatory? I think it's a bit shitty
| of them to require a yearly contract but it's very clear.
| ninkendo wrote:
| What am I missing here? It's a 7-day free trial, but if you go
| _14 days_ into the trial, you have to pay 50% of the remaining
| contract.
|
| I mean, that sucks that you can't cancel without having to pay
| the remaining money, but the "7 day free trial" part still seems
| honest enough, right? As in, if I cancel before the 7-day period
| I don't get charged anything?
|
| I was expecting "tricks users into a 12 month contract" would
| imply the "free trial" part was a lie, but it isn't. It's what
| happens after the trial that is sketchy.
| aldebran wrote:
| As a serious hobby photographer (I do birthday parties,
| portraits, etc for friends and family), any alternative to
| Lightroom that works on windows and Mac?
|
| I tried a few but either performance was poor or features were
| missing along with .CR3 support.
| tartoran wrote:
| Why don't more people use burner one use cards and cancel them
| after entering them in trials? That way you don't need to worry
| you forget to end the trial and enter the contract
| gryzzly wrote:
| Yes, totally, my wife wanted one month of InDesign and got a
| yearly subscription, spent hours on the support without success.
| I wonder if there was a way to fight the dark patterns like this.
| They managed to show her some small print in a screenshot.
| Disgusting. I am extremely careful these days touching anything
| with "Adobe" on it. Extremely frustrating.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Someone pointed out that you could switch accounts types and
| cancel immediately
| hatware wrote:
| Yet they wonder why folks would rather pirate old versions.
| henriks wrote:
| I encountered this when canceling my Lightroom CC subscription.
| Changed me from "potential future customer" to "never buying
| anything from Adobe again" pretty quickly.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Just out of curiosity: what happens when you cancel the paypal
| subscription or chargeback the credit card transaction? Will
| banks be sympathetic to fraud like this?
| xp00ky wrote:
| Cool!
| jijji wrote:
| Negative Option billing practices, as this is referred to, has
| been a violation of Visa rules since at least 2010 and MasterCard
| rules since 2021 [0] and also an FTC illegal practice [1].
|
| [0]
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/ne...
|
| [1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-16/part-425
| glassprongs wrote:
| I experienced Adobe's toxic business practices years ago when I
| tried to reduce our DC license count by 1. It made me no longer
| want to work with them.
| cebert wrote:
| This is almost as bad as the dark patterns employed by Intuit's
| TurboTax.
| octavqq wrote:
| graphenus wrote:
| If you are looking at Adobe for Lightroom, get Capture One
| instead. No trickery and it's a much superior product.
|
| I switched to it in fact after getting burned with the Adobe
| cancellation thing. Never looked back.
|
| I also tried darktable. But Capture One does magic. The photos
| turn out always much better than what I could do with any ohter
| product.
| taneq wrote:
| Adobe got a permaban from all of my devices the moment they
| slipped a bundled Norton Antivirus installer past me by hiding
| the checkbox to include it on the Acrobat Reader installer
| download page rather than in the installer itself. Adobe can fuck
| right off and die as far as I'm concerned.
| 7373737373 wrote:
| This is something businesses should be fined millions for
| [deleted]
| tomrod wrote:
| I am so sick of companies doing this.
|
| Google bait and switches your unlimited-forever suite into
| limited workspaces, fails to support products, and generally
| makes it so you can't trust they will be there in two weeks
| unless you're an ad buyer.
|
| Facebook tracks you everywhere, even VR glasses.
|
| Adobe nickels and dimes, takes away permanent software with
| kludgy, awful SaaS billing and UX.
|
| Why are we okay with these practices?
| stickfigure wrote:
| These are not the same things. I'm annoyed by the workspaces
| thing too but at least I got a decade of free service.
|
| Adobe is using sleight of hand to get you locked into a long-
| term contract. That's closer to fraud.
| bmarquez wrote:
| Google was also using deceptive language (pay or lose access)
| to hold previous G Suite purchases hostage. Only after
| backlash did they add info to their FAQ and say that there
| would be some sort of purchase migration available.
| fblp wrote:
| I could recreate this deceptive workload on the Adobe UK site but
| not the Australian or US sites. It looks like they're playing
| fast and loose in the UK. In Australia this would be prevented by
| Australian consumer laws which has broad protections for behavior
| likely to mislead consumers (fine print, unclear total contract
| price etc).
| langitbiru wrote:
| You can replace Adobe Photoshop with Affinity Photo or Gimp. You
| can replace Adobe Illustrator with Affinity Design or Inkscape.
| But what do you replace Adobe After Effects with?
| commoner wrote:
| Natron is a free and open source node-based conpositor for
| visual effects and motion graphics, similar in functionality to
| Adobe After Effects. It's available for Linux, macOS, Windows,
| and FreeBSD:
|
| - Website: https://natrongithub.github.io
|
| - Flathub: https://flathub.org/apps/details/fr.natron.Natron
|
| - Source: https://github.com/NatronGitHub/Natron
| douglee650 wrote:
| Never sign up for anything Adobe ... except for CC of course,
| totally worth it. The photo stock, they keep renewing it yearly,
| even after you cancel
| viktorcode wrote:
| Is it legal in the EU?
| holletron wrote:
| I guess not, just tried that and there's an additional step at
| the beginning - where you have to explicitly choose if you want
| monthly billing ($79,49/mo), yearly but billed monthly
| ($52,99/mo), or yearly paid upfront ($599,88)
| fitnessrunner wrote:
| This isn't just Adobe. Unity3d does this too. While I like the
| Unity product, I was trialing others too (Unreal) and didn't
| realize I was being locked into an annual contract. They don't
| even have an early cancellation fee; you are on the hook for the
| entire year, no way around it. Be careful.
| scottbelsky wrote:
| i am told origin of this was customers who subscribe for 1+ yrs
| wanting a big discount (without needing to pay upfront). but
| clearly the experience must improve, and there are many good
| suggestions for UX and copy in thread below that I'll share w/
| that team. frustrating to see, especially because the team we
| have today building our future products and services are here for
| the right reason. we can do better.
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| Screw those guys.
|
| At least for amateur/hobby work, I've used the following for
| years and love them. I also try to regularly donate to them.
|
| Instead of Illustrator for drawing, use Inkscape
| https://inkscape.org/ and/or Krita https://krita.org/en/.
|
| Instead of Lightroom for developing digital photos, use Darktable
| https://www.darktable.org/
|
| Instead of Photoshop for touchups, use GIMP
| https://www.gimp.org/.
|
| Instead of Acrobat Reader, use MuPDF (mobile) or Atril
| https://wiki.mate-desktop.org/mate-desktop/applications/atri...
| (Linux)
| chansiky wrote:
| If you want something more professional you can look to the
| Affinity products which have a very reasonable _one_ time fee:
|
| https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/
|
| I personally like Affinity Designer and have designed quite a
| few things with it. They are behind illustrator on features, I
| can't deny that, but I've been able to find answers to
| everything I needed.
|
| Also they have solid developers working on the app. Check out
| this technical explanation of performance improvements to their
| rendering pipleline:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnfxzknVK_0
|
| For a photoshop replacement, however, I would say Krita hands
| down. Again, its not as polished as photoshop, but I prefer it
| _over_ Photoshop at this point even with all its rough edges. I
| really need to make a video or something about how to set it up
| and use it correctly but I think its got a lot more going for
| it.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Krita is closer to a Photoshop competitor than Illustrator.
| Inkscape is like Illustrator but honestly it is not very good,
| mostly due to seriously poor performance.
|
| I don't know if Atril is a good Acrobat Reader replacement
| either. Does it support PDF forms and annotation? That's what
| most PDF readers are missing.
|
| Apple's preview is pretty great from that point of view. I've
| also used Xournal++ for that in the past.
| apollo1213 wrote:
| For pdf reader and annotator, https://docmadeeasy.com is a good
| alternative.
| tasha0663 wrote:
| I've been using Inkscape since it was SodiPodi. It's gotten
| better, but the interface is still too jumbled. Affinity is
| much nicer to work with.
|
| I will say that if I really need the end result to be an SVG
| that I can modify in a text editor later, Inkscape is better
| for that.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Yep -- Inkscape might have some advantages in exporting SVG
| to FreeCAD, too -- I've seen some differences with Affinity
| Designer that I don't quite understand.
|
| Or more likely I just don't understand FreeCAD.
| tlogan wrote:
| So this is basically a complain that one can't use something
| marked as an annual plan for just one month.
|
| They do say " Annual plan, billed monthly" don't they?
| bennyp101 wrote:
| Use a virtual card if you can, delete that card once you start
| the 'free trial' then cancel after the trial, or within 1 month
| to not get charged.
|
| Thats some hoops to go through just to get a 'free trial' to see
| if the products actually work for you! At least back in the CD
| days you got 30 days to actually try it out, then either buy it,
| crack it, or stop using it!
| oliwarner wrote:
| That stops the money being automatically taken, but you'd still
| be legally responsible to pay the contract, no?
|
| Reneging seems like a great way to get yourself sued for the
| balance, possibly the costs of recovery and even having your
| credit score ruined in the fight.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| They are welcome to sue, but they'd have to justify their
| shenanigans to the court, which I'm sure would take a very
| dim view of intentionally tricking the user into signing up
| to something they didn't understand.
|
| The business model relies on most people not escalating it
| there and making noise about it. If they start getting hit by
| chargebacks or start clogging the legal system with these
| cases it will end pretty badly for them.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Why would they need to sue? Can't they just send invoices
| to your email, followed by debt collectors?
|
| The annual subscription is in plain sight. The cancellation
| terms are the result of bad web design for people using
| browsers whose browsers have made the idiotic choice to
| hide scroll bars by default (i.e. all mobile browsers and
| Safari) but that can be defended if the devs used Windows
| to make the website.
|
| Actually, on mobile the terms and conditions get cut off
| halfway through a sentence so if you'd actually read them
| you'd see that they continue below the fold. Maybe that's
| not the case on iOS, though?
|
| Their cancellation terms definitely suck but the terms and
| service and subscription term seem quite clear to me. "I
| didn't read what I was getting into" is hardly a defence.
| These details weren't hidden at all.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| You can trivially ignore the debt collectors. If they
| still want their money after that, they can sue. At that
| point it's ultimately down to the court to determine
| who's in the wrong and who owes what.
| jamespetercook wrote:
| I fell for this too. I wanted InDesign for 1 month to make a
| decent looking CV when switching jobs. I felt really stupid when
| I tried to cancel and realised I'd be charged the remaining
| balance. Adobe lost me as a returning customer.
| barbazoo wrote:
| At some point they switched from "free 7 day trial" to "if you
| cancel after 14 days" so I don't know what's really going on
| there.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| I assume this means days 1-7 are completely unpaid, days 8-14
| you've begun paying but without annual commitment, and after
| that you're both paying and annually committed.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Seems like it shouldn't be surprising then having to pay
| _something_ after the 7th day?
| tssva wrote:
| I just went through most of the process of subscribing. The
| Twitter feed seems to be missing a screen that I was presented
| with. The screen includes 3 cards to select from. One is monthly
| at a price of $79.49/mo and has a clear note that you can cancel
| anytime with no fee. One is annual billed monthly at $52.99/mo
| with a note that fees will apply if I cancel after Feb. 26th. The
| 3rd is annual billed upfront at $599.88/yr and a note that there
| are no refunds if I cancel after Feb. 26th. It seems pretty clear
| to me and I wonder the motivation was in not including this
| screen from the sign up process.
| kossTKR wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they do all kinds of AB testing essentially
| scamming people in various ways - i always read very carefully
| and was trapped for very expensive year.
|
| Then suddenly they will have a non-scummy front page. I'm from
| Europe though and it was in no way clear that you signed up for
| a year. I work in software, and know how to read legalese
| pretty well.
| [deleted]
| jlengrand wrote:
| They got me with this a year ago, and I can't wait to cancel my
| subscription at the end of this month and hopefully never have to
| be a customer again :)
| cute_boi wrote:
| Can't people contact their credit card provider to inform it as
| fraudulent charge?
| kingcharles wrote:
| They'll point you to the T+Cs which is something my bank did
| recently. Even though the company had changed identity to
| avoid their customers, the bank still went to the new web
| site for the new company and pasted the T+Cs from there.
| cbg0 wrote:
| It would not qualify as a fraudulent charge.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Disputes are not just for fraud. If you got tricked into
| paying for something or didn't receive the promised
| goods/services it's also a valid reason for a dispute.
| davidg109 wrote:
| Given how low they are already stopping, they likely have a
| dedicated team for chargebacks that will fight tooth and nail
| to challenge it.
|
| I am currently dealing with a chargeback team for another
| company, and the amount of time they've dedicated into
| challenging me likely exceeds the chargeback value itself.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > the amount of time they've dedicated into challenging me
|
| They likely haven't used much time at all. Big companies
| get thousands of chargebacks, and can gather evidence all
| automatically in a matter of seconds. It'll all be
| templated documents anyway.
| remus wrote:
| > I am currently dealing with a chargeback team for another
| company, and the amount of time they've dedicated into
| challenging me likely exceeds the chargeback value itself.
|
| For the company the value is in keeping their chargeback
| rate down, not in the money itself. If your chargeback rate
| gets too high it becomes increasingly difficult and
| expensive to find a card processor who will work with you.
| basicallybones wrote:
| They tricked me. Now I will bend over backwards to never buy
| anything from them again.
| francis-io wrote:
| I got caught out by Grammerly in a similar way into signing up
| for 12 months. Any good will I had towards the product is now in
| the gutter.
| martinskou wrote:
| By far the easiest way to quit : Close you credit card, and order
| a new...
| umrashrf wrote:
| For me my student membership fee went up without me noticing it.
| From somewhere between C$20 to C$44 or so,
| tgtweak wrote:
| Tons of dark design patters in the "Adobe Sign" platform also,
| formerly free for gsuite users it is now pay only. When you try
| to send a document out for e-sign it gives you an option to
| upgrade for as low as $2.99/month. Seems reasonable.
|
| After you upgrade (which is the YEARLY price... 2.99*12 = $36),
| you find that this plan doesn't have the e-signing... That one is
| $19.99/mo. But that's the yearly pricing... obviously.
|
| Who in their right mind is paying $240/yr for this? I cancelled
| 20 minutes after buying the yearly, and they took 10 days to
| return the funds. In 2022, a refund transaction using the new
| auth-method is SAME DAY, just like a purchase.
|
| Really terrible design patterns and 0 intention to fix.
| zerotolerance wrote:
| Change your card to a prepaid debit card with a few bucks on it.
| Don't update.
| readingnews wrote:
| I will get "downvoted" into oblivion, but dear god does no one
| want to write a small blog/page anymore? I read so many "this is
| super interesting useful information" blurbs about contracts,
| laws, etc, but they are in the smallest possible digestions given
| to us by twitter.
|
| Either "when did I get so bitter" or "when did the web go to
| hell" thoughts enter my mind.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| You reach a much wider audience with twitter, it's sad but it
| is what it
| arihant wrote:
| One way to cancel is to chat with them and say that you now have
| an enterprise subscription via your company. They cancel without
| fee in that case.
| djrogers wrote:
| Meh. It's not great, could definitely be clearer, but it's also
| bordering on intentionally obtuse to claim you have no idea what
| 'annual contract paid monthly' means.
|
| I mean, all of the words are _right there_. Any time I sign up
| for an annual contract I assume I'm in it for, well, about a
| year.
|
| If I didn't want an annual contract, or wanted to see if there
| were options, I'd simply hit that little drop down box there and
| voila - it's even clearer.
| zgiber wrote:
| I would be interested to hear an expert opinion about whether
| such arrangement falls under 'unfair contract terms' descibed by
| the Office of Fair Trading:
| https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
|
| Not sure if such regulation exists in the US, if so it would be
| worth to probe into it.
| johnwheeler wrote:
| Speaking of dark patterns, has anyone noticed the DoorDash app
| sets the tip for you automatically and places the "place order"
| button above the tip form, which you must scroll to to make
| visible? there is no way to adjust a tip without calling customer
| support.
|
| This is such an obviously blatant deception. Off screen form
| fields _below_ a submit button? It's insulting. I'm surprised I
| haven't heard more complaining about this.
| bryans wrote:
| I haven't experienced that on the website version -- they give
| you three suggestions or let you choose any amount -- but
| noticed my order yesterday was $4 more than it should have been
| after choosing a custom tip amount. I normally don't double
| check email receipts for that kind of thing, but maybe it's
| time to start.
|
| I'm still able to reproduce it on the website today. Trying to
| add a custom amount magically adds $4 to the order in a way
| that's not just superficially in the UI. It actually gets added
| to the order.
| kingcharles wrote:
| And the tips are their way of being able to limit the pay of
| their employees by offsetting their wages onto the end user.
| matsemann wrote:
| OT rant:
|
| > _Ooh, I can scroll. That was not obvious at all._
|
| It is if you use a proper browser+OS combo. Why some designers
| thought it was a good idea to hide the scroll bar in their OS
| (which some browsers adopt to) is beyond me.
|
| It's also an annoyance as a user with a browser that display
| scrollbars. The amount of random scrollbars appearing because the
| devs never tested anything but Mac+Chrome is staggering.
| azangru wrote:
| There's a setting on MacOS: System preferences > General > Show
| scroll bars > Always; but neither developers nor end users seem
| to enable it.
|
| Plus -- and this is a pet peeve of mine -- there's a growing
| number of developers who would use the Tailwind CSS library and
| apply its "w-screen" class to their elements. The w-screen
| class sets element width to 100vw, which does not take into
| account the width of the vertical scrollbar. So the moment the
| page content gets taller than viewport height and a vertical
| scrollbar appears, the 100vw width of an element exceeds the
| available width of the page, and causes a horizontal scrollbar
| to appear as well. Argh!
| lelandfe wrote:
| At my last company, we enabled this by default for new
| company macOS laptops. Helped a lot.
| lioeters wrote:
| Found a demonstration of 100vw with vertical scrollbar.
| Suggested solution is to use width:100%.
|
| https://sbx.webflow.io/100vw-scrollbars
| azangru wrote:
| > Suggested solution is to use width:100%.
|
| Which, for a block element inside a block container, is the
| default anyway.
| lelandfe wrote:
| > the devs never tested anything but Mac+Chrome
|
| Which Android browsers show scrollbars?
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Firefox does, briefly when you load a scrollable page. And
| then shows it again while scrolling, naturally.
| tomrod wrote:
| I suspect parent commenter is looking for more major
| browsers like Opera (4X market share [0]), Vivaldi, Brave,
| Chrome (leader), Safari, Samsung default, Android default,
| etc.
|
| Firefox isn't widely used anymore for mobile, especially
| with their recent user-hostile approaches of deprecating
| extension access, removing about:config, devs alledgedly
| flipping off users on twitter, and so forth.
|
| [0] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile-
| table...
| BMorearty wrote:
| > devs alledgedly flipping off users on twitter
|
| What's this a reference to?
| jeroenhd wrote:
| > Firefox isn't widely used anymore for mobile,
| especially with their recent user-hostile approaches of
| deprecating extension access, removing about:config, devs
| alledgedly flipping off users on twitter, and so forth.
|
| I don't get this sentiment. I understand that people are
| upset at Mozilla, so am I. But why would you then decide
| to switch to a browser that makes the exact same mistakes
| without any extensions whatsoever?
|
| That said, websites like Statcounter will always show a
| larger user base on Firefox because of anti tracking
| measures present and enabled by default in Firefox. It's
| definitely not what it used to be, but these statistics
| can't be relied upon ever since ad blocking first
| appeared on the internet.
| tomrod wrote:
| > why would you then decide to switch to a browser that
| makes the exact same mistakes without any extensions
| whatsoever
|
| Adblocking among the browsers that are more user-focused.
| I personally use Vivaldi, which is from the same devs
| that created Opera before the company was sold off.
| matsemann wrote:
| Difference is a mobile view is often designed with that in
| mind, so it works across the board.
|
| On desktop, I've had random horizontal scrollbars even on big
| sites like GitHub. Non-functional as the content had enough
| space, but still there, because no one bothered to test.
|
| I do think hiding it on mobile devices is bad as well,
| though. Leads to exactly the issue in the twitter thread,
| with more content not being noticed.
|
| Found an old discussion on it:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24293421
|
| Working link: http://web.archive.org/web/20210226184710/https
| ://svenkadak....
| azangru wrote:
| > Which Android browsers show scrollbars?
|
| How many people develop web sites on Android?
|
| Meanwhile, there are a lot of web developers who use Mac as
| their dev machine; and the majority of them would never check
| how the website looks on Windows or Linux.
| danpalmer wrote:
| I got hit by this at work while managing our subscriptions. Adobe
| customer service attempted to bribe me to not chase it further by
| offering me a free subscription on a personal account. I declined
| and pushed and they eventually agreed to let us out without
| payment.
| philip1209 wrote:
| Expensify does something similar.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| I am not quite sure why people don't grasp that it's an annual
| plan for really expensive software.
|
| "Annual plan, billed monthly" is about as easy as it's going to
| be in four words on a button or by a button.
|
| If you could rent it for just a month now and then, wouldn't you
| only rent it in the months you need it?
|
| They make it so you can't.
|
| There's a solution: DON'T USE IT.
|
| Ask yourself seriously: what is it you want to do that the
| Affinity Suite (which costs about, what, PS150 and then PS20 each
| for the two iPad apps) cannot do for you. It's not toy software;
| it's enormously capable (and improves on Adobe's approach in
| several places). It has surprisingly complete PSD and Illustrator
| import, it runs Photoshop plugins, it's cross-platform and it
| runs well on old hardware (at least on the Mac).
|
| Failing that, you have Krita, Inkscape, Scribus, Darktable,
| Rawtherapee, GIMP if you must, and they are all pretty
| surprisingly good. Plus there are video options that are cost-
| effective or free (Resolve, for example, runs on Linux). There
| are all sorts of viable competitor apps on other platforms.
|
| Adobe aren't really evil -- they are a giant, slow-witted,
| largely benevolent monopoly, weighed down by a lot of cruft.
| (They are also fairly reasonable on the phone and support
| portals). But you don't need to use their stuff; you can create a
| sane workflow that routes around them with decent tools.
|
| Complaining about a "dark" pattern that up front tells you that
| you're getting into an annual commitment for something incredibly
| expensive strikes me as missing the point; the point is
| _subscriptions are tricky and you shouldn 't expect to be able to
| game them_.
|
| Vote with your feet.
| peferron wrote:
| > There are all sorts of viable competitor apps
|
| > monopoly
|
| You lost me there. Are you using a different definition of
| monopoly than the usual one?
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| I am using a different definition of monopoly than the USA
| one.
|
| They are a monopoly according to the EU definition (which
| used to be the UK definition; may still be). They control
| clearly more than 50% of the market; that is enough to
| attract regulatory scrutiny as a monopoly.
|
| The reality is that a monopoly need not have 100% control of
| the market. It is more that they have control over some
| barrier of entry to the market. That, combined with half the
| market share, is a powerful tool.
|
| In the case of Adobe, as well as market share, they also have
| de facto control over a set of file formats that the market
| depends on (the so-called 'industry standard'). And they have
| a level of product integration/tying in the Creative Suite
| that could be monopolistic. That limits the competing apps;
| they cannot together offer a truly competing suite.
|
| Affinity is I think close to rolling back some of Adobe's
| monopoly power, because the Affinity Suite is so capable, and
| it might well be in Adobe's interest to allow them to do
| that; it certainly must help them when they talk to EU
| regulators.
|
| The real question is whether they are an "abusive" monopoly.
| And I don't believe they are quite there yet.
|
| There are some hints that they may risk becoming technically
| abusive but this "dark pattern" ain't one. One such hint is
| that you can't buy just the two arbitrary apps you want in
| the suite -- it's either one app, the photography plan, or
| the lot.
|
| It is certainly the case that any further acquisitions by
| Adobe could attract monopoly regulation in the EU.
| civilized wrote:
| You're just defending the right of a giant corporation to
| communicate poorly in a way that enriches them at the expense
| of customers, who are often struggling artists.
|
| > "Annual plan, billed monthly" is about as easy as it's going
| to be in four words on a button or by a button.
|
| It's absolutely insane that you think Adobe has fulfilled their
| obligations to communicate to the customer what they're getting
| into by putting "annual plan paid monthly" in a drop-down next
| to a button.
|
| Adobe should warn the user of the early cancellation fees in
| big red letters. We all know why they don't: because they
| benefit from some users taking a deal that they don't realize
| is very bad for them.
|
| That's what you're defending.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| > You're just defending the right of a giant corporation to
| communicate poorly in a way that enriches them.
|
| Thanks for the downvote (I guess) but no, I'm doing no such
| thing. I'm explaining that the giant monopoly is going to do
| what the giant monopoly does.
|
| Really almost all subscriptions are like this -- they depend
| on you forgetting to cancel. And this one is a bit more up-
| front than most.
|
| > It's absolutely insane that you think Adobe has fulfilled
| their obligations to communicate to the customer what they're
| getting into by putting "annual plan paid monthly" in a drop-
| down next to a button.
|
| Sorry, this is a straw man. I didn't at all say that I
| thought those four words _fulfilled their obligations_.
|
| What I said is, they have a maximally clear four word way of
| summarising the plan right at the beginning of the payment
| flow.
|
| I'm quite sure they need to do a bit more to explain what the
| early cancellation options are at some point in the payment
| flow. But right before you even try to buy, they do explain
| you're buying an annual plan, don't they?
|
| FWIW, if you do not grasp that "annual plan" means an annual
| plan and then think about what your early cancellation
| options might be, perhaps you shouldn't be using the company
| credit card.
|
| Complaining loudly that you can't use something clearly
| marked as an _annual plan_ for just _one month_ is a bit of a
| stretch.
| civilized wrote:
| What a staggering battery of distortions. Company credit
| card? You're just assuming that everyone doing this is
| spending someone else's money?
|
| Everything you've written functions to blame the victim and
| leave Adobe harmless here.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| > What a staggering battery of distortions.
|
| I don't know who you're really angry at but it doesn't
| seem to be down to me. Maybe dial it back a bit.
|
| > Company credit card? You're just assuming that everyone
| doing this is spending someone else's money?
|
| The tweet talks about the the full Creative Cloud suite
| (something close to PS750/yr), and yes, the majority of
| these people are either spending the company's money or
| that of their own freelance business. It's an eye-
| wateringly expensive commitment otherwise.
|
| This kind of commitment encourages due diligence.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _You 're just assuming that everyone doing this is
| spending someone else's money?_
|
| To be fair, you're also assuming that starving artists
| are paying for Photoshop. A quick "Adobe" search on your
| BitTorrent tracker of choice may change your mind.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Yes, but also we're talking about the whole Creative
| Cloud suite, not Photoshop here. There's a Photoshop-only
| plan that costs about PS11 per month and there are Black
| Friday deals which are well understood by the budget
| photographer world to provide better value for money than
| this.
|
| (Even then it is poor value for money, IMO; other
| packages cover 95% of the functionality of Photoshop and
| cost less than a year of this, and I really think the
| market understands that now)
| civilized wrote:
| Plenty of low-income people do their best to follow the
| law out of conscientiousness. I know some of them
| personally.
|
| I object passionately to the idea that, when people
| misunderstand communication that's _designed to be
| maximally misleading_ , subject only to the constraint of
| legal defensibility, they are entirely to blame for
| falling into the trap.
|
| Adobe should be very clear and upfront about their early
| cancellation fees.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| "Annual plan, billed monthly" is demonstrably not
| maximally misleading.
|
| If it said "monthly subscription" without clearly
| identifying the annual commitment, that would be
| maximally misleading.
|
| I will grant you that it could say "Yearly plan", not
| "Annual plan", and be less misleading; they do appear to
| use this alternative phrasing in A/B tests.
|
| If anyone from Adobe is reading this thread: make that
| change.
|
| (And sort out your Photography plan: make a slimmer
| version of Photoshop that really does have just the
| features photographers need, and offer a plan for that.)
| civilized wrote:
| Monthly subscription would simply be a legally
| indefensible lie.
| defaultname wrote:
| For most users it isn't a bad deal at all. It's a 33% price
| savings over straight monthly, and I suspect many/most users
| have subscriptions much longer than a year.
|
| This all seems a bit overwrought. Like the root post, I
| cannot fathom who would go through a purchase process that
| included the phrase "Annual plan, billed monthly" and not
| clue in. Or that that drop down includes a separate straight
| monthly plan at a significant price premium (50% higher). To
| give even more of a hint, a separate "you have until this
| date to cancel without a _penalty_ " disclaimer gives another
| clue.
|
| On the scale of dark patterns, this one is pretty eh. It
| clearly could be clearer for people who seem to just click
| straight through stuff, but I suspect a lot of the people
| chose the cheaper per month annual plan thinking they were
| hacking the system, and then discovered that it wasn't all
| upside.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| > This all seems a bit overwrought. Like the root post, I
| cannot fathom who would go through a purchase process that
| included the phrase "Annual plan, billed monthly" and not
| clue in.
|
| FWIW (mine is the root post and) I am definitely coming
| around to the idea that it should at least say "Yearly",
| and maybe say "in monthly installments", because that
| language may be more familiar to buyers. But the rest of
| your point about the other plan you can choose is right.
|
| I don't yet believe Adobe is _evil_ , either. Banal,
| corporate, plodding, slow-witted, yeah. It is definitely an
| 800 pound gorilla.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _It 's absolutely insane that you think Adobe has fulfilled
| their obligations to communicate to the customer what they're
| getting into by putting "annual plan paid monthly" in a drop-
| down next to a button._
|
| "Annual plan, paid monthly" seems pretty clear to me too, so
| help me approach this with a new perspective.
|
| Is there a SaaS provider using the "annual plan, paid
| monthly" who does this "right"? Are you against this pricing
| model in general?
| civilized wrote:
| I reject the idea that everyone should know from these
| words that they will be subject to an enormous early
| cancellation fee if they forget to cancel before the 7 day
| trial period is over.
|
| Adobe has a moral obligation to explain that up-front, so
| that consumers who cannot easily pay the fee are adequately
| warned of the danger they are getting themselves into.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| What does 'annual plan' mean to you?
|
| How can you misinterpret those words?
| civilized wrote:
| I would probably understand it, but I don't think those
| two words would necessarily make it clear to every person
| of every background, and it's very easy for Adobe to
| briefly explain the early termination fee on the payment
| page where everyone can easily see it.
|
| They don't explain it because they want everyone to
| convert, even people who did not understand what they
| signed up for and would not have signed up if they had
| understood.
|
| Subscription fee companies have always behaved like this.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > They don't explain it because they want everyone to
| convert
|
| Being charitable, I would guess that they don't explain
| it because it seems like plain language and should be
| understandable.
| civilized wrote:
| That's only "charitable" to the giant company. It's not
| so charitable to the people who say they were confused in
| good faith and signed up for something they wouldn't have
| signed up for if they had understood it.
|
| These people exist and have made themselves known in the
| OP Twitter thread and other HN comments on this post.
|
| I can't help but wonder if all this "how can people not
| understand" is just thinly-veiled contempt for people who
| don't have the same background or way of thinking or
| interpreting words as you do.
|
| Who gives a shit about those people, am I right? Who
| cares if they're on the hook for hundreds they didn't
| expect to have to pay. Good on Adobe for imposing that
| stupidity tax on lesser minds than yours!
| chrisseaton wrote:
| If people can't understand 'annual plan' then I'm not
| sure what it's reasonable to do? How can you conduct
| business with a person who can't understand language like
| that?
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _I reject the idea that everyone should know from these
| words that they will be subject to an enormous early
| cancellation fee if they forget to cancel before the 7
| day trial period is over._
|
| I hear you, and I want to dig in on that a bit if you'll
| be kind enough to indulge me.
|
| I'm currently helping a SaaS vendor define their pricing
| plan, so I'd like to know what _you_ would like to see in
| order to feel comfortable with an annual, paid monthly
| plan. If you have any thoughts on the two questions I
| asked, I 'd really appreciate the feedback!
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| I think maybe the words:
|
| _" Yearly plan, billed in monthly instalments"_
|
| makes the point more clear that you're in for a year. You
| can then put accompanying print that says "early
| termination fees apply".
|
| But really, apart from people perhaps not understanding
| that "Annual" is doing the work of saying "yearly, not
| rolling", I don't get the logic here.
| civilized wrote:
| Haven't I been clear enough? If you're going to charge a
| giant early cancellation fee, that information should not
| be hidden behind a link and fine print. It should be
| explained on the payment page, briefly and in plain
| language.
| widerporst wrote:
| I don't really get why the cancellation fee should be the
| issue here. When I purchase a subscription for a year, I
| assume that I will have to pay for the entire year.
| That's why it is cheaper per month than a monthly
| subscription.
|
| The cancellation fee might be quite high, but it is
| absolutely expected that there is one. And if I'm not
| sure if I'll keep the subscription running for an entire
| year, then I'll look into the cancellation term
| beforehand or simply pick the monthly plan.
| civilized wrote:
| Because some people might not have the background to
| think exactly the way you do.
|
| People are reporting that they were surprised by the
| cancellation fee. Is it reasonable to assume that these
| people were fully aware of what would happen? And chose
| this path anyway, in order to... what, exactly? It makes
| no sense. It's more reasonable to take what they say at
| face value, that they were in fact surprised and didn't
| understand in good faith what they signed up for.
|
| Given that, what is so unreasonable about expecting
| companies to be upfront about the fee and explain it in
| the payment page? Why is this trivial disclosure and
| transparency to the consumer something to balk about?
|
| I think the reason is pretty obvious. Companies have
| always loved it when confused customers have to pay money
| they didn't expect to pay. So the companies design their
| payment flows to encourage this, to the maximum extent
| the law allows.
|
| It's sociopathic, and just because it's common and
| accepted doesn't mean I have to think it's okay.
| iam-TJ wrote:
| As another interested in this aspect, how about an 'info'
| tip alongside that states the minimum cost with an
| asterix?
|
| "Yearly plan, paid monthly, PS678" --> [ minimum cost
| PS456 [[ a href="terms-cancel.html" ]] if cancelled early
| ]
| ketzu wrote:
| > I reject the idea that everyone should know from these
| words that they will be subject to an enormous early
| cancellation fee if they forget to cancel before the 7
| day trial period is over.
|
| Reading the twitter thread it seems to me that you can
| cancel within 14 days of subscribing without a
| cancelation fee. See also: https://twitter.com/darkpatter
| ns/status/1489901691151519746
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| In the interests of reaching a point of agreement, I
| concur that they could put, in or next to that initial
| wording, something like "early cancellation fees may
| apply".
|
| But an annual plan really is that. They are telling you
| pretty clearly* what you're buying; the fact that there's
| a way to bail out half way for less is an advance on that
| position.
|
| * though as I said in the other reply, "yearly" would be
| better
| Closi wrote:
| > I concur that they could put, in or next to that
| initial wording, something like "early cancellation fees
| may apply".
|
| Again, this wording seems unnecessarily soft to me - the
| inclusion of 'may' adds ambiguity to make the user think
| that there might not be exit fees - it should really be
| _" early cancellation fees will apply"_.
|
| Better yet, you could give the cost:
|
| _" Early cancellation fees of 50% of the remainder of
| the year will apply"._
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Fair point, though at that stage, early cancellation only
| _may_ apply, because you can back out of the trial on
| /before seven days.
|
| Early cancellation fees _will_ apply after the trial, is
| the wording that is the clearest, I guess.
|
| This is a really interesting exploration of word choice
| though. I must say, I had not considered that the word
| "annual" could be perceived to be unwieldy in this
| situation, for example.
| civilized wrote:
| These four words are clear enough to be legally
| defensible, but they are the absolute minimum and they
| are designed to be the absolute minimum. They want to
| maximize conversion even if it traps people who didn't
| understand in good faith what they were buying.
|
| It isn't hard to provide a complete explanation of what
| happens if you go past the trial period and want to
| cancel. All they have to say is, "if you don't cancel
| after the trial period, you are obligated to pay X over
| the next 12 months. Early cancellation is possible for a
| fee of half the remaining balance. For example, if you
| cancel immediately after the trial period your early
| cancellation fee will be X/2."
|
| There's plenty of space to feature this explanation
| prominently. We all know why they don't. It's to trap
| people.
|
| Many subscription plans work this way but it's no excuse.
| It's scumbag behavior. The fact that it's so common is
| just one of the many reasons why I believe the world is
| run by sociopaths.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| > ... why I believe the world is run by sociopaths.
|
| Finally a point on which we agree. On average I suspect
| it is.
| Deivuh wrote:
| I still remember when they didn't even give me an option to
| cancel my subscription from the website (because of my location).
| Instead, I had to contact tech support and ask them to cancel my
| subscription. IIRC, the first time I tried, it was around 1AM, so
| no tech support, so I had to wait til the next day, but it was
| until a couple of days later that I actually did.
|
| This is when I started to dislike Adobe. At least a very good
| competitor surfaced recently, Affinity, and they have a pretty
| good Photoshop and Illustrator alternative. I just wish that they
| would make a Lightroom alternative, which is not on their
| roadmap.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| I was a victim once. That was when I removed every trace of Adobe
| from my life and ended my relationship with Adobe that spanned
| decades. On my way out, and to serve my nostalgic need, I bought
| the software from Serif's Affinity[1] - Publisher, Photo,
| Designer.
|
| I really wanted to build up a workflow with Lightroom but that
| was cut short. For now, I'm good with MacOS Photos and some
| plugins such as Skylum's[2] Photo Editing Software.
|
| 1. https://affinity.serif.com/
|
| 2. https://skylum.com
| cormullion wrote:
| The Adobe you started your relationship with decades ago was a
| great company. I wonder when it started to go wrong...
| friendlydog wrote:
| Adobe is now blocked from the networks I control. A page pops up
| with links to Inkscape, Gimp and other open source alternatives.
| teilo wrote:
| If Affinity Publisher had the needed tools for book publishing,
| I'd drop CC in a heartbeat. But I need footnotes and cross-
| references, and ideally, book collations of multiple Publisher
| documents with contiguous page numbering. InDesign is the only
| game in town for this, and it's frustrating. So I'm stuck feeding
| that beast.
| sibit wrote:
| For anyone stuck in this dark pattern here is a trick I've used
| in the past:
|
| Adobe won't let you cancel without paying the remainder of your
| subscription fee however you can switch to a different plan. As
| soon as you switch you'll have the ability to cancel your "new"
| plan within 14 days. If you cancel after 14 days they'll charge
| you the early termination fee.
| [deleted]
| tomrod wrote:
| In other words, they are hopelessly broken and you have to
| social engineer a loophole?
| toyg wrote:
| No, they are purposefully evil but not competent enough to
| close all loopholes (or leaving it open on purpose to have an
| escape hatch for the most litigious customers).
| [deleted]
| achow wrote:
| Agree. It is a constant wonderment why Adobe is not called
| out 'evil' more often like its other SV brethren.
|
| They are not even good at software engineering and UX.
| NetOpWibby wrote:
| They used to be but then competitors sprang up so Adobe
| got less attention.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Back in the early days they were really good, I remember
| phoning about some PostScript problems I was having and
| whoever I spoke to clearly knew it inside out. Now I
| can't even get a response about obvious bugs in their
| software.
|
| It's not just Adobe though, this is an industry wide
| problem.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Evil is thrown around way to much. If you are going to
| use it for dishonest business practices what's left for
| ISIS?
| Taywee wrote:
| It's an adjective. Adobe is bad. ISIS is bad. That
| doesn't equate the two (or imply that it's the same
| degree) any more than calling them evil is. Evil is just
| an adjective that means "deliberately very morally
| wrong".
|
| You could easily make the argument of ISIS being less
| evil than Adobe, given that many of them have conviction
| that they're doing the right thing, but Adobe couldn't
| possibly believe that this is anything but duplicitous,
| misleading, and scummy. Killing for religious beliefs is
| much more complex than simple "evil". Scamming your
| paying customers by intentionally misleading them with
| dark patterns is a very simple and obvious evil.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| "Evil is thrown around way to much. If you are going to
| use it for dishonest business practices what's left for
| ISIS?"
|
| I love captain crunch cereal. It is so good-- "NOW I HAVE
| NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE CHARITIES!"
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| whimsicalism wrote:
| If you're going to use evil for ISIS, what's left for the
| Nazis?
| Rexxar wrote:
| Inform yourself on what happen to Yazidis recently and
| you will not do this sort of humor anymore.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| What sort of humor? I'm showing the ridiculousness of the
| claim. The Nazis can be evil as well as ISIS.
| Rexxar wrote:
| Sorry if I misunderstand you but you could just say that
| it's ridiculous if you think it's ridiculous. I
| personally don't like there is comments with "isis" and
| "nazi" inside in a discussion about Adobe (and I don't
| specially like Adobe at all).
| suifbwish wrote:
| If you are going to use evil for the Nazis what's left
| for the Romans?
| torstenvl wrote:
| What have the Romans ever done for us?
| toyg wrote:
| A gradation of evil is still evil.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| I love living in a time moral absolutism and self
| righteousness. Nothing better than having conversations
| with people that have zero doubts about the correctness
| of every single one of their many, many ethical positions
| and that anyone who disagrees is evil.
|
| Good times. If only I could have witnessed the Spanish
| Inquisition.
| ironmagma wrote:
| Ironically, the point is that evil is relative and there
| are different scales of evil. That isn't absolutism.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| "moral absolutism"
|
| How dare people make judgement calls on actions they feel
| are morally wrong! Why, that's like burning people at the
| stake!
| rightbyte wrote:
| It is not a very ambiguous moral stand versus Adobe here.
| torstenvl wrote:
| ISIS' actions are far far worse, but most Daesh are
| motivated by the desperation of being a religious
| minority associated with a deposed dictator in a
| resource-constrained desert infected with religious
| fanaticism.
|
| Daesh's actions require a more drastic response, but I'm
| more confident that the average Adobe CSR, rather than
| the average drafted Sunni kid from Al Qaim, is going to
| hell.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > most Daesh are motivated by the desperation of being a
| religious minority associated with a deposed dictator in
| a resource-constrained desert infected with religious
| fanaticism.
|
| Eh, not really. They are pretty much all a religious
| majority in the regions they controlled and moreover
| Syria is pretty predominately Sunni.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Communications have context. To apply a word to Adobe (as
| a loose refernce to "Don't be evil.") and then say ISIS
| is evil, doesn't mean or even imply Adobe === ISIS.
|
| Context, it matters.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Let's do literally evil next. That adjective doesn't get
| nearly enough use.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Well, blame Google. Knowing about historic references to
| Axis of Evil and such they should have left the word out
| of SV / start up lexicon.
|
| As it is, they didn't. The best the rest of us can do is
| further develop our capacity for context.
|
| https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Axis_of_evil
| chrissnell wrote:
| Yes. It's all rooted in narcissism. Calling something
| "evil", makes you a hero when you fight it, whether that
| means going on patrols in the streets of Raqqa or calling
| out a shitty SaaS pricing scheme on an internet bulletin
| board.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Bad take. Calling something evil is a moral judgement and
| that's it. I do t need to fight it, be a part of it, or
| hell, I could be evil myself. It's a judgement call and
| nothing more.
|
| You may disagree with my moral standards, and that's
| cool.
| tux3 wrote:
| There's not a limited number of slots for who gets to be
| called evil.
|
| It's a threshold, not a competition. Sometimes the
| threshold changes, but crossing it is enough. No matter
| that other people might be even worse.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Indeed not. Contemporary society has infinite capacity
| for moral condemnation.
|
| Is black and white thinking considered a compliment now?
| RHSeeger wrote:
| It's not black and white thinking, it's a threshold, as
| stated.
|
| For an average income person
|
| - A Porsche is expensive - A Ferrari is expensive
|
| The fact that a Ferrari costs a lot more than a Porsche
| does not make a Porsche "not expensive", because there is
| a line (for the buyer) beyond which they consider a car
| expensive. There's problem a grey are below that line in
| which a car may cost more than they are comfortable
| spending, but have enough useful features that they will
| consider sacrificing for it. And there is a large area to
| the right of the expensive threshold where a lot of such
| cars lie.
|
| The fact that lots of cars are past the "expensive"
| threshold for someone doesn't mean they're thinking in
| black and white.
| renewiltord wrote:
| This is true. It's a threshold. So sometimes when I think
| to myself "Should I be spending time fighting to ensure
| people are not dying at the hands of a fundamentalist
| religious organization or should I be spending my time
| lowering prices for a high end graphics editor?" I always
| try to remember that these are equivalent tasks. It
| doesn't matter which I do. I am bringing the same amount
| of good to the world.
| Macha wrote:
| Were I to crack Photoshop and provide it to 10s to 100s
| of business in my local city, should Adobe stay quiet and
| not complain, because there are people doing the same and
| uploading it to pirate bay where it's available to
| millions?
|
| I think the answer is clearly not. There is no reason why
| it should be invalid to criticise any act, just because
| it is not the worst act.
| renewiltord wrote:
| You are evil for saying "doing to the same". In a
| categorical sense, you and Hitler are similar: eeevilll
| tux3 wrote:
| Pears are sweet. Yet Coca-Cola is sweeter. Both deserve
| the label, that doesn't mean some things can't be even
| sweeter than other.
|
| Similarly, there are shades of evil. Inventing some new
| greater evil does not invalidate the regular kind.
| renewiltord wrote:
| A fair point, and I must concede to it.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| They aren't evil, it's just when companies move to
| subscription they turn into mini insurance companies
| focused on the spreadsheets. They model out your lifetime
| value and know that every $1 they chisel out of you is
| worth $1.40 in 5 years.
|
| They are brutal in the enterprise space, looking for
| 10-15% price escalations. They also turn over sales
| leadership so if you are big enough you can pull stunts
| for concessions. Just do some recon and figure out what
| they get paid the most on. Last time, we hired a few
| interns specifically to do a public PoC of how we were
| getting rid a key product in the portfolio. Made sure
| they heard about it and got significant confessions.
| Basically 10x the intern and PoC investment. We ended up
| hiring the interns as well for an extra bonus.
|
| As a consumer, you need to be really aware of the
| motivations of your suppliers business model and model
| your business accordingly. Understand your costs and use
| OSS strategically, or understand where you just need to
| take what they offer (ie AWS). Things in the middle, like
| Adobe in my case, you need to be ready to walk away or
| play chicken and make a deal at the 11th hour.
| ummonk wrote:
| "it's just when companies move to subscription they turn
| into mini insurance companies focused on the
| spreadsheets. They model out your lifetime value and know
| that every $1 they chisel out of you is worth $1.40 in 5
| years."
|
| The term for that is "evil".
| marcosdumay wrote:
| "Evil" is normally used for people that do worse actions
| than overbill their customers. "Fraudster" applies better
| here.
| lostcolony wrote:
| Nah, evil is fine. It's a low grade evil, sure, but it's
| still evil. To cite a lovely paragraph from Carpe Jugulum
| that feels appropriate -
|
| "There's no greys, only white that's got grubby. I'm
| surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is
| when you treat people as things. Including yourself.
| That's what sin is.' 'It's a lot more complicated than
| that -' 'No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot
| more complicated than that, they means they're getting
| worried that they won't like the truth. People as things,
| that's where it starts."
|
| -- Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum
| gkedzierski wrote:
| > They model out your lifetime value and know that every
| $1 they chisel out of you is worth $1.40 in 5 years.
|
| Even more. Every $1 in MRR is worth around $216 in
| company market cap. (assuming their current multiple)
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| The CEO can also claim credit for the stock price
| increase and get his bonus. Fixing it would reverse the
| effect and put the bonus at risk. So not only will such
| 'small evils' become intrenched there is also a powerful
| insensitive to find even more of them.
| remus wrote:
| Or you can threaten to report them to the relevant consumer
| body in your country. I did this after arguing with one of
| their sales people about cancelling a subscription for half an
| hour and they immediately relented.
|
| Just speculating, but i suspect they know what they're doing is
| dodgy and want to avoid as much scrutiny as possible from any
| regulatory bodies so their support script says to cancel if the
| customer mentions reporting them.
| SomeBoolshit wrote:
| Of course, you then report them, anyway.
| bambax wrote:
| Or you can just block the recurring payments and wait for them
| to come at you?
|
| Anyway a "free" trial that asks for your cc number is obviously
| not free. Better to stay away of those to be on the safe side.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Anyway a "free" trial that asks for your cc number is
| obviously not free.
|
| There is a legitimate reason to do that: to keep people from
| making a bunch of accounts and getting free trials with them
| forever.
| rabuse wrote:
| I always just create a virtual number through my CC, set
| the maximum to $1, and have it expire within a couple
| months. Works like a charm.
| jsf01 wrote:
| How do you do that?
| JJMcJ wrote:
| If you don't have a card that allows that, you can also
| buy a prepaid card, though I believe such cards may have
| distinctive numbers and it's possible a vendor may
| disallow.
| victor106 wrote:
| I use https://privacy.com/ for this.
|
| One of the best discoveries I found on hn a few years ago
| [deleted]
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Thanks for the pointer!
| anu7df wrote:
| Thank you. Never knew about this service, was looking,
| obviously not hard enough, for exactly this. But really
| do think they should advertise better. This would help
| with managing expenses too.
| tallytarik wrote:
| Looks like it's US-only.
|
| I haven't been able to find a service like this that
| supports Australian users, so looking for suggestions!
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Anyone with a legitimate use isn't going to create large
| numbers of emails just to do this. It's a complete waste of
| time for any professional.
| ssss11 wrote:
| Couldn't you make the free trial useful enough to show off
| the product, yet _incomplete_ in such a way that
| continually making new accounts is not viable?
|
| An example.. a marketing mail app where the trial only
| allows you to mail 1 or 2 campaigns with a max of 5 email
| addresses (recipients) for each. In that scenario you'd see
| the full capability of the product but couldn't use it for
| a full email campaign. Creating more accounts wouldn't help
| you game the trial.
|
| I think not taking people's CC is important.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| It also means you're more serious about paying for the
| service
| arcticbull wrote:
| You may get sent to collections and thats a whole pile of
| misfortune.
| dheera wrote:
| Most online services just terminate your service after a
| couple warnings and don't bother with collections.
|
| In any case just set it as your policy that you don't talk
| to collectors, you only engage with businesses directly.
|
| Send Adobe a written notice of termination of the
| agreement, stop payments, and I believe that's all you need
| to do, but IANAL.
| kevincox wrote:
| IANAL but if you agreed to a fixed term contract you
| can't just inform the other party that you are leaving
| early. You need to use an exit clause within the contract
| or somehow invalidate it. (For example by saying that you
| didn't knowingly enter into a 1 year contract.)
| obmelvin wrote:
| > (For example by saying that you didn't knowingly enter
| into a 1 year contract.)
|
| I'm also not a lawyer, but I don't think its ever a
| reasonable defense to say that you didn't know the terms
| of the contract if you've signed it (or agreed to the
| terms online - which I'm sure is provable by Adobe)?
| kevincox wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it is. I believe the technical term is
| "Misrepresentation". I don't think it would be an easy
| fight but it seems that you could try to make an argument
| that they represented the contract as monthly. There are
| also examples of ToS being declared invalid because no
| reasonable person read them, this sounds similar where no
| one is actually reading the fine print.
|
| While this case may be hard I'm pretty sure it isn't
| "never". For example if you are buying a subscription to
| a software suite and they sneak into the contract "You
| also give us your house" that isn't going to fly, even if
| you signed it.
| gaius_baltar wrote:
| > IANAL but if you agreed to a fixed term contract you
| can't just inform the other party that you are leaving
| early.
|
| Also IANAL, but he whole point is that the user is still
| in the 14 days "free trial, just cancel", and Adobe is
| refusing to honor the "cancel" part, right? This approach
| can be handy, specially in countries where there is a way
| to send legally valid electronic notification letters.
| phgn wrote:
| No, during the first 14 days you can actually cancel for
| free. This is talking about months later when you
| discover the "annual commitment" part for the first time.
| It's a perfectly legal contract, just deceptive.
| 2ion wrote:
| Not a good idea if you, in the future, may actually need
| Adobe's services again.
| chongli wrote:
| At this point I intend to avoid Adobe's services for the
| rest of my life. If I ever feel like I need Photoshop or
| Illustrator I'll find an alternative. There are a lot
| alternatives to these, both open source and proprietary
| from small businesses.
| dheera wrote:
| I use Linux but I'm mostly content with Gimp and
| Inkscape.
|
| I know Photoshop have some "content aware fill" and
| things but that's just their re-branded name for neural
| networks that are already open source, it's just a matter
| of time before it's available in Gimp. I might even
| consider writing those plugins too but my time is
| limited.
| andi999 wrote:
| I thought the big problem is that gimp uses only rgb
| color encoding, which is fine for non-print, but if you
| want to print something professionally you need at least
| cmyk.
| dheera wrote:
| For desktop publishing, Scribus does CMYK.
|
| RGB color in Gimp is fine for me because I only use it
| for photo processing, and cameras shoot in RGB so you
| aren't losing any information by doing your photo
| processing in 16-bit or higher RGB.
|
| You can do color space conversions to CMYK after that
| stage.
|
| On an interesting side note, realistically though, I've
| found the vast majority of people I've had to work with
| don't understand the difference between RGB and CMYK and
| just want "PDFs" and don't necessarily let me choose or
| interact with the printing agency directly, or the
| printer is some friend's wife's father's friend's
| friends' friend's company on WeChat that is going to be
| doing the printing at 1/10 the cost of every other
| commercial printing agency out there and they've chosen
| to use that company and it would look silly of me to
| suggest to use a company that costs 10X more just so I
| can get proofs. In those cases, I've found that if I _don
| 't_ have access to proofs, these days, RGB PDFs often
| seem to get more consistently rendered than CMYK PDFs.
| chongli wrote:
| Yeah if you need to work in CMYK you're kind of stuck.
| Personally, if I needed to do a lot of print work then
| I'd pick up an old Mac and an old license for Photoshop
| CS6.
| awslattery wrote:
| They didn't "come at me" when I've done this a few times in
| the past, but thankfully I haven't been in a position to put
| their akin-to-malware on my system in a few years.
| AlfeG wrote:
| There are stories when Adobe charged for several missing
| years as soon as credit card were linked.
| dymk wrote:
| CC chargeback time
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Chargebacks aren't the magic spell people think they are.
|
| The credit card company may elect to side with the
| merchant, or the merchant may decline to do business with
| you again in the future (not ideal if your income relies
| on access to these tools in the future), or the merchant
| may take legal action against you, or the credit card
| company may decide to close your card account.
|
| You can't just do whatever you want and then claim
| 'chargeback!'
| beeboop wrote:
| I use privacy.com for throw-away cards and you can set
| spending limits and close them at any time.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > close them at any time
|
| Closing your card doesn't have _any_ impact on legal
| obligations you had, or a merchant thinks you had, or any
| impact on whether a merchant will choose to do business
| with you in the future.
| nunez wrote:
| kind of hard to have legal obligations when you use junk
| PII (which Privacy accepts; they allow any address and
| zip to be used)
| dymk wrote:
| No, that's just fraud, and it'll get you in way more
| trouble
| lostcolony wrote:
| In terms of legal obligations, sure - however, for SaaS,
| it's almost never worth it. If it's "we charge you at the
| start of the period", then you received no goods, they
| received no payment, there is no legal obligation. If
| it's "we provide the service and charge you at the end of
| the period", then there is a legal obligation, but the
| cost to them to collect is probably too large; they could
| always send it to a debt collector, but good luck proving
| that debt ("the issuer of the debt provided access to a
| service" "...that I was unaware of and never used? Sounds
| fraudulent").
|
| In terms of merchant choosing to do business with you in
| the future, they may or may not have a choice; depends
| what they use to identify you with. Certainly, if they
| don't make canceling easy, it's probably not the kind of
| business you want to deal with.
|
| All that said, this is why anything that auto-renews,
| that I don't know if I want to keep renewing (i.e., will
| I still be using it at the end of the trial period, end
| of the month, end of the year), I immediately cancel. If
| it's a trial and that terminates access, I will take that
| as a sign not to use them. If it's paid and that
| terminates access, I will also take that as a sign not to
| use them, but I'll also email them and basically say
| "hey; I paid for X period, wish to use it for X period,
| but am unable to use the service for X period. I either
| need you to reinstate my account, sans auto-renewal, or I
| expect a refund". That tends to get a response, since
| otherwise -they- are legally on the hook.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yeah, and a software provider hiding a non-cancel clause
| somewhere in a dozens of pages after the deal "contrat"
| doesn't impact on your legal obligations either.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I would guess that 'annual plan' is presumed to be clear
| enough, you didn't have to read the contract.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Hum... Annual plan is not stated on any of the large
| text. It is stated on the "review order before you buy"
| as part of the name of the product, what makes it nothing
| any similar to "clear". "Completely confusing" is more
| apt.
|
| Near it the price information carries the monthly price
| only, with no indication that you are signing up to 12
| times that amount.
|
| The only saving feature is that you don't need to read
| dozens of pages. If you open the contract, it is
| confusing from page 1. But it's also not clear at all
| what is going there.
| [deleted]
| claviska wrote:
| As a [small] SaaS owner, I immediately refund, cancel,
| and block the user from reactivating their account until
| they reach out to me. In more than 10 years, I've seen
| less than a dozen "accidental" chargebacks. Most are from
| users who are too lazy to login and hit the cancel
| button.
|
| I don't believe in using dark patterns as a retainment
| strategy, so I make it very easy to cancel from the same
| screen they signed up on. The domain is listed on their
| CC statement. I also send out reminders well before
| annual subscriptions renew with a link to update or
| cancel their plan.
|
| I used to dispute chargebacks when the user was very
| clearly using the service actively and provide
| screenshots, logs, and written evidence, but what usually
| happens is the bank takes 30+ days to complete each
| interaction and almost always sides with the cardholder
| anyways. In the meantime, users get frustrated because
| their money is locked up in limbo and I can't even refund
| them until their bank responds.
|
| The only chargeback I recall "winning" was one where the
| user accidentally canceled but still wanted the service.
| They called their bank directly and the bank canceled the
| chargeback.
|
| It's just not worth the hassle, so immediately offloading
| the responsibility of chargebacks to the user is well
| worth the $15 chargeback fee. They'll let you know if
| they want to come back.
|
| Big companies, I've heard, may put you on a block list
| and if you've submitted any identifiable info (address,
| phone number, etc.) they'll know when you create a new
| account.
| [deleted]
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I've never had Amex side with the merchant.
| _dain_ wrote:
| >Anyway a "free" trial that asks for your cc number is
| obviously not free. Better to stay away of those to be on the
| safe side.
|
| A few years ago I signed up for a "free" Audible trial and
| later forgot about it. They rolled it over into a paid
| subscription somehow and charged me money despite never
| giving them my card details in the signup process. I believe
| what happened is it got linked to my Amazon account and
| charged the card connected to that.
|
| They refunded me after I contacted them but I didn't get the
| entire amount back.
| jibbit wrote:
| this is very bad advice
| asdefghyk wrote:
| A person meeds to have a cc where transactions are disabled.
| ( My bank via its online customizer accounts - allows a
| person to turn this on / off for security )
| ferminaut wrote:
| I got a X1 credit card a little bit ago. You can have
| unlimited "virtual" credit cards, trial subscription cards,
| and one time use cards.
|
| I now use it for everything, with a different "virtual"
| card for every business. I wish more credit cards offered
| this.
|
| (not affiliated with x1)
| rabuse wrote:
| Citi also offers this, for those who didn't know.
| estro0182 wrote:
| CapitalOne offered this feature too, which I used
| heavily. Then they _got rid of it_. Blows my mind, it was
| incredibly nice.
| ed wrote:
| They're still offered through the Eno extension
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/eno%C2%AE-from-
| cap...
| witweb wrote:
| Thank you so much, I was able to successfully cancel my plan
| for free!
| sibit wrote:
| That's awesome! I'm glad it still works. I stumbled upon this
| work around 5 years ago when I was in college and Adobe
| quietly switched my subscription from the student version to
| the full CC suite. I contacted support because I genuinely
| couldn't afford to pay $60 a month and support was no help
| whatsoever.
| cudgy wrote:
| How did you get the above mentioned 14 days to pass in 40
| minutes?
| codazoda wrote:
| You need to cancel BEFORE the 14-day period, after that
| you're locked in again.
|
| There's money in confusion.
| mr_tristan wrote:
| Subscription models are great for professionals (and companies),
| but amateurs, a single year of the Adobe Photoshop + Lightroom
| bundle is over 2x what a perpetual Affinity Photo license costs.
| (I just wish Serif came out with a photo management product, but
| in the meantime, it's not too bad to use digiKam for some
| management and `aws s3 sync` to back photos up in an s3 bucket.)
|
| What's sad is that it was not easy to even see that there's still
| a Photoshop Elements product these days with a one time price,
| though I have no idea what the support is, and what upgrades
| cost. I had to search around to find it. It costs $99, though
| there's sales and bundles yada yada yada. The Adobe "comparison"
| page (which I still don't know how to navigate to) just seems
| like they want to funnel everyone into the subscription offering:
| https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/photoshop-vs...
| It seems like Elements would be the "hobbyist" license, the
| subscription model would be the pro version, but it's very, very
| not clear.
|
| The product that gets subscriptions right is Autodesk Fusion 360.
| There's a Personal Use tier that's free, which provides pretty
| much all the features you need for most hobbyist style 3D design
| and CNC usage. You need the serious features, you pay the
| expensive license, but, you're probably making money at this
| point, so it's a necessary tool. Fusion 360 changed it's
| licensing in 2020 which confused a lot of people, but really,
| they used to have a "startup license" or "personal use" license
| that was really vague, and I think was being taken advantage of
| by actual businesses. It's just simpler now, and I think it's
| more obvious.
| vr46 wrote:
| Previously - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26786563
| w4rh4wk5 wrote:
| Seeing this thread, I just realized how easy the hidden
| scrollbars in macOS can screw you over. Would the terms and
| condition page by worded slightly different, the Cancellation
| Condition heading would not even be visible and you won't even
| notice that there is still content you are agreeing to.
|
| This feels bad, like really bad!
| DethNinja wrote:
| I think customers are a bit to blame for such shady companies. So
| many good alternatives to Adobe ecosystem exists but customers
| are mostly unwilling to switch to them and as result Adobe
| doesn't have to worry about keeping customers satisfied.
| ljoshua wrote:
| Eh, this one's a little tough. Both my wife and I extensively
| use Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign on a frequent basis,
| and we're not even designers, we just like to make stuff. I've
| tried alternatives like Gimp and Inkscape, but they really
| don't even come close. I've never found an alternative to
| InDesign at all. There are some applications (especially photo
| editing apps on Mac) that are nice, but still don't really give
| you everything the CS suite gives.
|
| Do I hate that I used to pay a (large) one time fee for a
| version and now I've given them thousands of dollars more than
| I'd have preferred? Yes. Do I think this 12-month contract dark
| pattern is scummy? Yes. But I also can't find suitable
| alternatives either, so in a sense they've earned their money
| in that regard.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| Have you tried the Affinity suite? They even have an Indesign
| alternative (Publisher) and at reasonable prices. Sometimes
| they even go sale. Free updates too. Of course if you need
| EVERY feature of CS nothing else will do but there's some
| good stuff out there that's significantly more affordable.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _They even have an Indesign alternative (Publisher) and
| at reasonable prices._
|
| Scribus also looks like an interesting open-source
| solution. (Anybody here have an "InDesign vs. Scribus"
| perspective?)
| commoner wrote:
| The most fully featured free and open source alternative to
| Adobe InDesign is Scribus. It's available for Linux, macOS,
| and Windows:
|
| - Website: https://www.scribus.net
|
| - Download ("Development Candidates" recommended):
| https://www.scribus.net/downloads/unstable-branch/
|
| - Flathub:
| https://flathub.org/apps/details/net.scribus.Scribus
|
| - Source:
| https://www.scribus.net/websvn/listing.php?repname=Scribus
| kossTKR wrote:
| I stopped using all Adobe products after they did this exact
| trick on me. When i actually tried cancelling normally their
| cancel page "didn't work" and i had to call and e-mail wasting
| hours and days.
|
| Absolute thrash company. With Adobe, always pirate, never
| recommend them, pay for competitors.
| Mandatum wrote:
| Similar thread last year:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26786563
|
| I made a complaint to ACCC in Australia last year regarding the
| way they advertised monthly pricing:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26786563#26787160
| kayhi wrote:
| How do these contracts hold up to charge backs through the credit
| card company?
| hedora wrote:
| Also, consumer protection laws. I smell a pile of fines and
| lawsuits in their immediate future.
|
| As I understand the charge back process, vendors are generally
| assumed guilty until proven innocent, and it's not going to be
| worth Adobe's time to fight these. On the other hand, it costs
| credit card companies a boat load of money to acquire
| customers, and failing to issue legitimate chargebacks is a
| great way to lose customer. On top of that, the bank makes more
| money from a chargeback than a legitimate charge.
|
| I've successfully issued charge backs against Experian, for
| example. You can't get much more in bed with the credit
| industry than they are. (Though the operator at the credit card
| company did say that Experian was responsible for about 50% of
| their caseload that year...)
| hashimotonomora wrote:
| So what's the chargeback reason?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| They don't. The business model relies on most people not
| challenging it or not being aware that chargebacks are a thing.
|
| Similarly, this may not fly in court either, but again the
| business model relies on most people not escalating all the way
| up (and in their case, they won't pursue it either, as they'd
| lose more in legal fees even if they ultimately win the case).
|
| Nasty business models like this won't survive if people stood
| their ground and knew their rights better.
| sersi wrote:
| I was able to cancel a while ago by threatening with a
| chargeback so at least the threat of it seems to help.
| onelastjob wrote:
| I have loathed Adobe for this for years. Even worse, Adobe was
| supposed to make all of their products available under this
| single subscription, but now they want to charge users a separate
| additional subscription to access Substance Painter/Designer
| which they recently acquired.
| refactor_master wrote:
| Wow, and I thought Ryanair was a masterclass in dark patterns.
|
| "By clicking here you agree that you would like to opt out of
| receiving newsletters".
|
| "By clicking here you agree to our terms".
| mrtksn wrote:
| Just yesterday, on a local streaming platform that has a series
| that I want to watch I was offered "7 days free". Great, I can
| watch the accumulated episodes and if I still feel like watching
| the new ones that come weekly I can keep the subscription, right?
|
| Nope, the "7 days free" wasn't a a trail but 7 extra days when
| you purchase a full year subscription. I was considering to get a
| monthly subscription to try it out but since they tried to trick
| me into a yearly one I simply decide to Torrent the crap out of
| their content. Sorry not sorry.
|
| That's one of the things that's great about Apple's iAP and Apple
| being the handler of transactions. There's no tricks, it's
| standart on every app: If there's a trail period you get the
| trail and if not you directly start paying. Also no tricks in the
| cancelation process, it's all in one place so you can review and
| cancel easily. You can also change plans right from the same
| screen. If somehow you manage to purchase something you don't
| want, get refunded easily.
|
| I really hope that if Apple is forced into allowing 3rd party
| payments, we end up getting a standardised interface like the one
| we have currently on Apple's platforms but with an option to
| choose the alternative payment method(in the same screen but a
| different card or account kind of thing, like choosing a card in
| Apple Pay).
| Lamad123 wrote:
| The main reason why I used Netflix (despite not having most of
| the content I want to watch) is how straightforward the
| cancelling is!!
| londons_explore wrote:
| > we en up getting a standardised interface like the one we
| have currently
|
| Of course you won't. Apple will do everything in their power to
| make third party payments as painful as possible for both the
| consumer and the merchant. They'll do things like preventing
| those apps from auto-filling credit card numbers, and denying
| them camera permission to scan cards. They'll insist credit
| card data is sent to an in-country server owned by the same
| company as the app (for privacy reasons obviously, but knowing
| that for a small app developer hosting certified credit card
| processing servers in every country their app sells in is very
| hard).
| mrtksn wrote:
| So, if that's Apple fault on Android it must be really good,
| right? How is the Android side of things going?
|
| BTW, there's this thing called MasterPass. It's MasterCard's
| payment system that applications can request you to authorise
| the use the cards in the MasterPass wallet.
|
| It's quite good experience, they are also very aggressive to
| collect all your cards in there so if you don't already have
| a MasterPass there's a option(on by default) in the CC
| entering screen to add the current card in the MasterPass
| wallet. There's no explicit account creation step or anything
| like that, if you tick that option the next time you
| encounter a payment you will have a MasterPass(At least
| that's how I remember). I think they must be using some kind
| of keychain magic to make it possible because it's almost as
| frictionless as Apple's. You only enter the SMS code if you
| choose to give access to an app.
|
| The only problem is, there's no easy way to manage your
| payments and cards in the MasterPass. The payments are
| credited to your cards so it's good as your bank UI. There's
| a website that claims to be an UI for MasterPass for managing
| your cards but it's not on the main mastercard.com domain,
| therefore I never tried to use it as I can't tell if it's a
| phishing attempt or a legit one. I guess if I call them they
| can tell me but I would have expected to see at least a link
| to that website from my bank website or mastercard website.
| nguyenkien wrote:
| He not talk about android. Why are you bring that up?
| mrtksn wrote:
| Because Android is the free alternative where we can
| observe how "If Apple allowed that" theories will pan
| out?
| imbnwa wrote:
| People really don't realize how much of a clusterfuck is
| prevented by Apple's platform lockdown, like, my god its
| another level of quality in my experience and I was an
| Android user for most of my life. Even those things that
| can be annoying to a Web Dev like Apple's control of
| full-screen video content is so much better than gambling
| on any ol' web video player's UI being non-ridiculous
| with hard to hit elements, etc.
| zibzab wrote:
| Not sure why you are bringing in android into this, but
| things are fairly okay in android-land thank you very much.
|
| Have been scammed twice, both times on App Store.
|
| (Funny enough, best support experience was on Microsoft
| store when I wanted to return something, but maybe that
| time was an outlier)
| mrtksn wrote:
| > Not sure why you are bringing in android into this
|
| Because Android has fewer restrictions and can act as a
| guinea pig.
| peeters wrote:
| There need to be laws that you cannot advertise anything as
| "free" or "introductory price" if it's amortized into a longer
| contract. A common tactic in Canada is to say "$4/mo for the
| first three months" but when you sign a contract for $12/mo
| over a year commitment. This should be treated as straight-up
| fraud. The price is clearly $10/mo and they're just deferring
| some payments.
| legalcorrection wrote:
| What if it's $4 for three months and then $12 in perpetuity,
| with no commitment.
| charrondev wrote:
| Quebec has separate civil law from the rest of Canada and our
| consumer protection act prohibits this kind of behaviour
| (with very clear case law and precedence siding against
| companies).
|
| As a result though there are a fair amount of companies that
| will have these trial offers everywhere except Quebec.
| Spotify is one that comes to mind.
| kevincox wrote:
| I don't mind too much if the continuing price is obvious. But
| most of the time the ongoing price is in the fine print or
| completely missing. I wouldn't mind a law that says the
| continuing prices needs to be at least as visible as the
| promotional price.
| [deleted]
| mthoms wrote:
| >That's one of the things that's great about Apple's iAP and
| Apple being the handler of transactions. There's no tricks
|
| If you don't cancel a three day trial before the end of the
| second day, you are automatically billed. That's not a three
| day trial, that's a two day trial. A full 33% less than what
| you are explicitly promised[0]:
|
| >If you signed up for a free or discounted trial subscription
| and you don't want to renew it, cancel it at least 24 hours
| before the trial ends.
|
| >If you cancel during a free trial period, you might lose
| access to the subscription immediately.
|
| (Note: Although it says you "might" lose access immediately, in
| my experience you _always_ loose access immediately)
|
| That means it's basically impossible to "trial" software for
| the period Apple advertises. No matter if the period is 3 days,
| 7 days or 3 months. It's a dark pattern, a dirty trick that is
| blatantly consumer hostile.
|
| [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202039
| mrtksn wrote:
| Yes it happens but you get the refund easily. You also get an
| e-mail before that happens.
| mthoms wrote:
| Well you don't get the refund _at all_ if you try to cancel
| less than 24 hours out. As technical users, you and I both
| know there is no technical reason for this. None. It 's
| designed to catch users off guard, plain and simple.
|
| There's also this (emphasis mine): "3 months free. Apple
| TV+ is _included_ for three months when you purchase an
| Apple device and redeem the offer within 90 days "[0].
|
| What does _included_ mean in this context to you? It means
| _included in the purchase of the device_. Right? As in, we
| are giving you a bonus incentive over and above what you
| would normally get.
|
| Sorry, no. If you cancel or decline autorenewal, nothing is
| in fact "included". It's a deception. It's _conditionally_
| included.
|
| Sure, it's all covered in the fine print, and everybody is
| doing it but come on. Apple is engaging in dirty trick
| after dirty trick.
|
| [0] https://www.apple.com/ca/apple-tv-plus/
|
| For the record, I use Apple devices exclusively and happily
| pay for many services (including AppleTV+) but this stuff
| still needs to be called out.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I got a refund and I know my friends who got their
| refunds when they forget to cancel subscriptions in time.
| It's also well known policy of Apple to refund you right
| away.
|
| I'm having hard time understanding why are you so bitter
| about. I got 3 months of Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade trial
| with my purchase and Apple keeps reminding me to active
| it because the offer is valid within the 90 days of the
| decice activation. So what? Where's the deception?
|
| The cancellation policy is not in the fine print at all,
| it's right there next to the cancel button. Where exactly
| it needs to be?
|
| Just return the device if this doesn't work for you.
| mthoms wrote:
| >I got a refund and I know my friends who got their
| refunds when they forget to cancel subscriptions in time.
| It's also well known policy of Apple to refund you right
| away.
|
| That doesn't excuse deceptive tricks used to prematurely
| start subscriptions. Many people don't bother chasing
| refunds. Anyways, you didn't address the issue: Apple
| says it's a three day trial, but the fine print says it's
| effectively a two day trial. Is that not an accurate
| assessment?
|
| >I'm having hard time understanding why are you so bitter
| about
|
| Sorry if I wasn't clear. The page I linked previously[0]
| says "3 months free. Apple TV+ is _included_ for three
| months when you purchase an Apple device "[1]
|
| Now, let me ask. When referring to purchasing products or
| services what does the word "included" mean to you? If
| english was your second language, what would you take
| "included" to mean in this context? Maybe you'd look the
| world up in the dictionary? Let's see -
|
| Google says 'comprise or contain as part of a whole' and
| gives the example _" the price includes dinner, bed, and
| breakfast"_. Merriam-Webster has a similar definition and
| gives this example: _" The price of dinner includes
| dessert."_ Cambridge gives this example _" The fee covers
| everything, babysitter included."_
|
| And so on. See the problem?
|
| >The cancellation policy is not in the fine print at all,
| it's right there next to the cancel button. Where exactly
| it needs to be?
|
| Again, refer to the page I linked with the ad copy
| regarding AppleTV+. I'm not sure what page you're
| referring to(?)
|
| >Just return the device if this doesn't work for you.
|
| That's not the point. The topic was (generally) about
| dark patterns and misleading wording. I'm just giving two
| examples which counter the notion that Apple isn't also
| guilty of it. I'm not "bitter", and as I mentioned I
| generally love Apple's products and services.
|
| [0] https://www.apple.com/ca/apple-tv-plus/ [1]
| https://imgur.com/a/jwAJANz
| mrtksn wrote:
| I don't know what to say really, go buy something else. I
| have no issue reading the offer details and IMHO the
| terms are clear and easy to understand but if that's not
| the case for you get a refund and buy from somewhere
| else.
|
| In my opinion, the wording is not intended for deception
| but for mood uplift. It answers the following question:
| Interesting device but what I'm going to watch on this?
| Answer: No worries it comes with this service so you can
| start using it right away, go to the bottom of the page
| for the details.
| cudgy wrote:
| Recently subscribed to a free seven day trial. Wrongly assumed
| that I could cancel up to the seventh day. Unfortunately, the
| Trial required cancellation to occur before the seventh day.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _a local streaming platform_
|
| You should name and shame, so that others don't fall into the
| same trap.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Maybe it was their marketing department screwing up with the
| wording.
|
| I also torrent their shows, so...
| Razengan wrote:
| > _That 's one of the things that's great about Apple's iAP and
| Apple being the handler of transactions. There's no tricks,
| it's standart on every app_
|
| And that is _exactly_ what user-hostile companies and devs want
| to undermine.
|
| Just look up Match.com (parent of Tinder and part of the
| "coalition" against Apple) and the shit they pull against
| people, as an example (like charging certain demographics
| differently for the same service and using artificial matches
| to bait new subscribers)
|
| If you get screwed by such a scummy actor via Apple's IAP,
| Apple will give you a refund without asking any questions,
| almost immediately. That's what they want to sidestep, it was
| never about the users.
| djfdat wrote:
| I agree with you on all points, I would just like to point out
| that Apple does not follow the same trial rules as they do for
| everyone else, unless something changed. When I first was
| trying out Apple Music with the trial period, there was a
| notice that access to Apple Music would end immediately. I
| don't think they do this same thing if you were outside the
| trial period.
|
| So while I applaud Apple for standardizing the subscription
| rules for most apps, I would love if they applied it to
| themselves and their apps the same way.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Yes, Apple Music or Arcade cuts access the moment you end the
| trial. Apple gives developers API to detect cancellations too
| but I'm not sure if the developers are allowed to cut access,
| haven't looked at it. I know some apps that do cut access
| though.
| rdtwo wrote:
| This is why I use privacy or eno burner cards for all
| subscriptions. Simply turn off the cards when you are done, they
| also accept fake names and addresses so they can't attempt to
| send you to collections.
| ushakov wrote:
| pretty sure this is illegal in EU/Germany
|
| gotta show the investors that revenue growth thou!
| oytis wrote:
| That is literally the first thing I've encountered as a new
| immigrant to Germany. This scheme is ubiquitous here that
| nobody even considers it especially dishonest, it's up to the
| customer to be careful.
| ushakov wrote:
| we have a 14 day "Widerrufrecht" Adobe must comply with and
| return 100% of the funds
|
| they can't just override the law with their own Terms and
| Conditions
|
| but yes, the scheme is very popular among telcos
| oytis wrote:
| Gyms and online services too. Widerrufsrecht is useful, but
| if you are not aware of this scheme you're likely to miss
| this term.
| lukevp wrote:
| This happened to my wife and I. We both have advanced degrees and
| write software for a living. The fact that it had these
| cancellation terms was not at all obvious to either of us, and
| only realized it when she went to cancel. It's one of the few
| trials that I absolutely remember and I'm so glad it was just the
| photography bundle and not the whole creative suite. It's
| absolutely designed to trick you and it works. Fuck them for
| doing this. At least it wasn't a lot of money to us, but what
| about struggling artists/photographers who sign up for creative
| suite trial but plan to only buy one or two apps, and are now on
| the hook for a year of everything? It's pretty dang close to a
| scam if you ask me.
| ummonk wrote:
| Did you try a chargeback? Or make a report with the bureau of
| consumer protection?
| [deleted]
| hirundo wrote:
| Apropos of nothing, GIMP is pretty darn good, no charge, no
| subscription. Ditto Darktable, Inkscape et. al.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| > GIMP is pretty darn good
|
| GIMP could be pretty darn good if they gave 20 UX designers
| another 10 years to redo their entire UX. As is, it's a
| usability nightmare. Whenever I'm forced to use it, it feels
| like I spend 70% of my time fighting with the horrible UI, 25%
| of the time Googling how to do trivial things because it's very
| much not obvious, and 5% doing what I actually want.
| civilized wrote:
| Most open source productivity apps are like this.
|
| Free office apps are a great achievement but you seem to get
| what you pay for.
| kingcharles wrote:
| I tried to use GIMP for a few months because I'm totally
| broke, but I have to agree with the comment here. I ended up
| getting the full Adobe cloud plan for $30 a month on Black
| Friday and it's not a bad deal considering I regularly use
| Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere.
| Kliment wrote:
| That's exactly what made Krita so good. Every once in a while
| they'd shut a bunch of the developers in a room with a bunch
| of artists/users, have the users complain about everything
| that pisses them off, and get all those things fixed. The
| resulting application is obviously driven by what artists
| enjoy, and it feels that way. Strongly recommended.
| hallarempt wrote:
| The stupid pandemic has made that impossible for us for
| quite some time, but our current workflow of having artists
| discuss stuff on krita-artists.org with developers
| listening, then making a plan and then working on works
| quite well for us.
|
| But I miss the sessions where each artist present would
| have two hours to demo making something with the express
| message: tell us what you hate, and we're not allowed to
| tell you "oh, but you could do this using that."
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Affinity on Mac is also pretty solid, reasonably, and most
| importantly not a subscription.
| viktorcode wrote:
| Sorry it is not. On my computer it looks like a poorly made
| artefact from the 90-s. And it's slow.
| ugjka wrote:
| Krita
| [deleted]
| diamondage wrote:
| Shutterstock do the same thing.
| winternett wrote:
| Me over here just happily running my super old but still viable
| copy of CS6... :|
| aurizon wrote:
| This must be desperation due to losses of paying subscribers due
| to the diversity of Microsoft ways to do this, as well as many
| others that make pdf's. Time for Adobe to fade into another
| company. Are they also losing share in their other photo products
| = a broad decline?
| gavinclarke0 wrote:
| I fell for this. When I called adobe to complain the service rep
| said, in a manner not much polite than this, that "I don't
| believe you that you didn't know you were signing up for a year".
|
| Looking back, I now see where I agreed, but the manner in which
| they attempt to deceive you is criminal.
| civilized wrote:
| Fucking scumbags.
| notyourwork wrote:
| CC chargeback.
| is_true wrote:
| Depending on your card it could be a pain and cost you some
| money. Mine requires a new card if I want to do a charge
| back.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Never heard that, I've only done it twice but would be
| surprised if I was asked to pay for it.
| albedoa wrote:
| "My hospital staffs fake doctors." Okay! That is not
| normal, and in no way does it change the general
| recommendation.
| seafoam wrote:
| You need a new credit card company.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I would definitely switch, it isn't hard and I've done it
| in the past just to get better terms or rewards several
| times.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| A chargeback should be (I would imagine is required to be,
| but haven't checked) free. If the company wants to roll the
| number too then fine, but that should be just inconvenient
| not a cost.
|
| If your credit card company is charging you, leave them.
| hedora wrote:
| For future reference, just tell the vendor "I did not authorize
| this charge. Please refund me". Don't engage them further.
|
| When that call fails (or, if they don't pick up the phone in a
| reasonable amount of time), call your credit card company and
| say "I want to issue a charge back". They'll ask if you tried
| to work with the vendor. Answer "yes", full stop.
|
| There should be a phone number associated with the charge on
| your credit card bill. Start (and end your interaction with the
| vendor) by calling that number.
|
| Edit: You can also say "this service wasn't rendered", or "I
| never received the product I ordered", as applicable. Those are
| specifically listed as valid reasons to issue a chargeback. The
| person at the credit card company has to enter a numeric reason
| code for the charge back, and by using those phrases (or
| similar), you're making their lives easier.
| damontal wrote:
| And what if they then send you to collections? Now you've got
| bill collectors after you and your credit affected.
| [deleted]
| laumars wrote:
| I can't see Adobe going to those lengths because they'd
| know there is a good change they would lose any class
| action lawsuit that would come about. Which would not just
| cost them in damages but also in bad publicity plus likely
| get them ordered to remove the dark patterns too (thus
| removing any future revenue this dark otters generates).
|
| I'm not as clued up on consumer laws as I once was but I'm
| pretty sure in Europe their sign up page is actually
| illegal. Not just immoral but literally classed as false
| advertising or something similar. And even if that's not
| the case, we do have protections against being tricked into
| signing an unclear contract and this would easily fall into
| that category.
| ihateolives wrote:
| > Which would not just cost them in damages but also in
| bad publicity
|
| Unfortunately I think Adobe is beyond the point where few
| months of bad publicity would harm their core business.
| Amateurs would vote with their feet but professionals
| have really nowhere to go. There just are no alternatives
| to some of their programs.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Which products do you feel truly have no alternatives,
| and which features define that for you?
|
| The only one I can think of is After Effects, which
| appears to do a broader set of things than any other
| single package (but I could be wrong).
|
| The rest, well I am not convinced, though there are some
| edge features in each package that undeniably would sell
| them to a few people, and that is, I guess, in the right
| way of things.
| _dain_ wrote:
| GIMP has no CMYK support; that isn't an edge feature,
| it's a core need for working with print.
| danaris wrote:
| > any future revenue this dark otters generates
|
| ...I'm sorry; I know this is a typo/autocucumber, but now
| I can't help picturing these nefarious Adobe otters
| coming up with ways to scam us. Adorable yet evil!
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-59592355
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I don't know, I opened their page and the drop down was
| clearly labeled as an annual subscription to me. It also
| told me the exact date by which I should cancel not to
| infer any costs. The drop down offered me to pay the full
| year upfront, or a monthly plan which is cancellable at
| any time.
|
| I don't think this stuff is illegal at all. What they
| effectively did here is put the email address and
| personal information form in front of the product details
| instead of below them, change the buttons that normally
| say "next" to "start your free trial, but the information
| was all in plain view. Complain to your browser vendor
| about the lack of scroll bars if that's what's gotten
| you.
|
| The big scam here is the fact this program requires a
| monthly fee at all. All subscription services I know
| either have a minimum duration with similar cancellation
| fees (or you'd be on the hook for the full remainder of
| the fees instead of half) or they're advertised
| explicitly as being cancellable at any time.
|
| I don't think anyone was getting tricked, but I do
| believe people were entering a subscription without
| looking at the details.
| vel0city wrote:
| The author of this tweet thread even acknowledges it
| states the terms in the workflow.
|
| > But what does "Annual plan, paid monthly" actually
| mean?
|
| I don't understand how "Annual plan, paid monthly" could
| be taken as something confusing or requires some
| additional context to make any sense out of it. How are
| other people reading "Annual plan, paid monthly" any
| other way than that it is an annual plan broken out into
| monthly installments?
| remus wrote:
| For me it is more that the overall presentation is not
| clear. That wording on it's own is clear, but at every
| other stage in the process the implication is that it's a
| month to month commitment and not a full year you're
| signing up for. The fact that if you cancel they take
| half the year of payments and then only provide you with
| service for the remainder of the month is another nice
| little "fuck you" too.
| tasha0663 wrote:
| Every single button said "Start Free Trial", not "Start
| Annual Plan" and the cancellation terms were hidden and
| hostile.
|
| I was actually considering trying out the Adobe line for
| my own work, but I'm going to be sticking with Affinity
| and Procreate now. Bad enough that they went to a
| subscription model, worse still that they run it like
| mobsters. I have too many kids, too little sleep, and not
| enough amphetamine salts to remember to cancel the
| membership in 7-14 days.
| [deleted]
| loeg wrote:
| I don't think their agreement with the CC network lets them
| come after users for chargebacks the bank has approved. In
| a chargeback situation, the bank has to agree that the
| charge was unreasonable.
| Msw242 wrote:
| I used a virtual card (and froze it) for adobe. They
| haven't gone to collections.
|
| I get emails from them making offers to get me back on
| creative cloud. Nothing about the unpaid cancelled account.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Virtual cards are a must with all these nasty
| subscriptions
| Marsymars wrote:
| > You can also say "this service wasn't rendered", or "I
| never received the product I ordered", as applicable. Those
| are specifically listed as valid reasons to issue a
| chargeback. The person at the credit card company has to
| enter a numeric reason code for the charge back, and by using
| those phrases (or similar), you're making their lives easier.
|
| This is, unfortunately, not a panacea. I paid for tickets
| pre-covid for a concert that was indefinitely postponed -
| Ticketmaster refused to refund, and PayPal and my bank also
| both refused to issue chargebacks. My view was that I paid
| for tickets for a concert on a specific date, and a
| postponement to an indefinite future date was a failure to
| render the service I paid for, but none of the payment
| processors I went through agreed.
|
| I did eventually get the refund from Ticketmaster, and the
| concert still hasn't happened. I didn't like Ticketmaster
| before, and I like them even less now.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Ticketmaster is definitely a great example of one company
| essentially owning the market, but they have a legal out
| against being a monopoly in that most places will also sell
| a few tickets through other channels like grocery stores or
| a hard to get to box office somewhere or "at the door"
| EPmoL wrote:
| I'm still out $506.70 for a ticket to Ultra Music Festival
| in Miami on 2020-03-20/21/22.
|
| They keep insisting that it's just "postponed" to 2021, and
| now 2022 ...
|
| It's ridiculous, I'm never going to ever go to an Ultra
| show again in my life.
|
| If they had just refunded me immediately I would probably
| have already bought tickets to & attended other Ultra shows
| (in the country I now live in).
| [deleted]
| stavros wrote:
| This isn't a solution and doesn't excuse Adobe's shitty behavior,
| but I use privacy.com which gives you single-purpose cards. That
| way, I can just pause the card and subsequent charges will fail.
| Then let them try to get their money.
|
| Pull-based payments are such a bad idea, implemented even worse.
| Privacy.com at least gives you per-merchant controls and limits,
| even though this really should have been a Visa default.
| av8avenger wrote:
| You're right here, they won't be able to charge you
| automatically via the credit card, but you're still legally
| obligated to pay for the subscription since you have agreed to
| the terms of service during sign up. Depending on the action
| that they would take, you could easily end up paying a higher
| amount than the original subscription price if they put
| additional charges on you...
| torstenvl wrote:
| > _you 're still legally obligated to pay for the
| subscription since you have agreed to the terms of service
| during sign up_
|
| Except they didn't agree to them, because they didn't know
| about them, and they might not be legally obligated to pay,
| depending on the jurisdiction.
|
| It's pretty clear that there wasn't a "meeting of the minds"
| in most of these situations.
|
| I don't use Adobe but if I got bit by this I'd definitely
| take them to small claims.
| Jare wrote:
| > because they didn't know about them
|
| I want to agree with this, but can't in strict terms.
| "Annual plan, paid monthly" item description next to the
| price is hard to defend as something unreadable. Maybe it's
| just me, but anytime I see "annual plan", I know I'm
| signing up for a year, and that commitment pretty much
| always comes with advantages (less total price) and
| disadvantages (cancellation fees) compared to shorter
| commitments.
|
| It's hard to deny the pileup of dark patterns in this and
| many other subscription services is disgusting and I wish
| the legal precedent was clear that customer clarity and
| control always trumps service clauses. Over a decade ago I
| established as a rule for myself that anything "free" that
| requires me to enter my credit card is in fact not free.
| Anytime I consider sidestepping the rule, I know I have to
| be REALLY sure and read everything. Yep, "limited trial
| with pre-accepted subscription but hey you can cancel
| anytime!" which is common in mobile, is always a no no from
| me.
| torstenvl wrote:
| I think this is a question of fact, but isn't consistent
| with OP. Either Adobe tricked them and they genuinely
| didn't know and it's a dark pattern.... or it _isn 't_ a
| trick/dark pattern and they _did_ know.
|
| But if the part of the agreement that talks about
| canceling is above the fold and the part that says there
| are liquidated damages of half the remaining annual
| payments is hidden behind invisible scroll bars, I know
| which way I would be likely to rule if I were the judge.
| empalms wrote:
| Technically but enforcement's another matter. Many
| subscription services are just going to cancel your plan and
| paywall you
| TobTobXX wrote:
| The problem is only that they can throw lawyers at you.
| Normally a contract is invalid if one side can show to have
| been deceived.
| vel0city wrote:
| How were they deceived? The workflow clearly states "Annual
| plan, billed monthly." This wasn't something hidden from
| the user.
| rdtwo wrote:
| They can sue joe fartnoggin all the want. I'm not sure they
| will get very far. Virtual cards only require a valid zip
| code nothing else has to match
| prirun wrote:
| Can they report you to a credit bureau and get your credit
| score lowered? I recently had my credit score lowered, I think
| because I canceled a Chase / Amazon credit card after only 1
| month. Apparently that is a credit faux paus. No balance owed,
| but I did hit the measly $500 limit once - another thing bad
| for credit scores.
|
| When my car + homeowner insurance renewed, it had a special
| section about how Lexus Nexus had lowered my _insurance_ score,
| which is partially based on my credit score. Cost me several
| hundred dollars extra in insurance premiums.
| borski wrote:
| No. The worst they can do is send you to collections, which
| they won't do, or charge you for back charges if you sign up
| again.
|
| Canceling a credit card as you did _may_ hurt your score
| though.
| judge2020 wrote:
| In general, they can and do send this sort of stuff to
| collections since you did sign up for the terms and it's a
| non-trivial amount of money owed. Gyms do it for far less, so
| I don't see why Adobe wouldn't.
| lukevp wrote:
| We had Time Warner send us to collections which then
| reported my wife to the bureaus, alleging that we had never
| returned our cable modem (this was just for $60, and it was
| 5+ years ago!!). First of all, I'm incredibly sure that we
| did. We had fiber after that, what would I want with an old
| DOCSIS modem anyway? And second of all, they were unable to
| offer any proof that we had not returned it. The company
| that was collecting tried to strongarm us, but after a few
| documented phone calls, it all went away. But why are
| companies allowed to report a fraudulent payment to
| collections, when they have no proof (if they had some
| proof surely they wouldn't have dropped it) and there is
| literally no follow-up or accountability required of them?
| I'm glad we have the financial literacy and confidence to
| tell them to stuff it, but how many people get scammed by
| stuff like this?
|
| We also spent a bunch of time on the phone with TWC
| directly, and they had no account in our name or any
| history of our account.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Not your fault but the easiest way to prevent this is to
| return equipment at a corporate store, you'll get a
| receipt for the return.
| daniel-thompson wrote:
| > We also spent a bunch of time on the phone with TWC
| directly, and they had no account in our name or any
| history of our account
|
| Best part of this story
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I had similar encounters with a shitty ISP where their
| salesperson signed me up on a yearly contract despite
| explaining very clearly that not only did I only want a
| 30-day rolling contract but that the reason I'm doing so
| is because of a _temporary_ issue with the new ISP. Even
| if they somehow misheard the "30-day rolling" part, a
| yearly contract just wouldn't make sense given my planned
| use-case. I can only assume that the idiot simply wanted
| some commission and I guess they don't give any for
| monthly rolling contracts.
|
| When it was time to cancel I learnt that I was actually
| on a yearly contract - this was a month later so past the
| cancellation period. The support advisor claimed that I
| not only received an email but actually opened it, at
| which point I knew they sent it to the wrong address or
| were outright lying as my email client never loads remote
| resources, making it impossible for them to see that I
| "opened" it. He also refused an IMO reasonable demand of
| reviewing the call recording (it was just a month ago so
| they should still have it) to determine who was in the
| right.
|
| In the end, I simply blocked further payments. When
| collections reached out, I explained the story above and
| they went away immediately. Collections ended up having
| significantly better user experience than the original
| company.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| They can send it to collections all they want, but
| ultimately if the debt isn't valid as per the law then
| you're all good. If the merchant is using bad-faith tactics
| to trick you into a contract (or outright lies as in my
| case) it is very unlikely to fly in court.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Until when you go apply for a mortgage and the
| underwriter makes you resolve all outstanding credit
| issues, which in many cases results in you paying the
| collection agency otherwise it could hold up your home
| purchase.
|
| Theses systems were built by the creditors not the
| consumers.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I'm surprised gyms don't do it... It is my understanding
| that credit reference agencies pay money for this kind of
| information, and pay even more if they get to guarantee
| that the same debts won't be reflected on competing credit
| reporting mechanisms.
| erklik wrote:
| > privacy.com
|
| Not for those of us who don't live in the US unfortunately.
| phphphphp wrote:
| Where are you located? Privacy.com were first to bring this
| feature to the mainstream as a product but it exists as an
| add-on in various places. For example, in the UK it's offered
| by Monzo and offered by Revolut in the many countries they
| operate in. If you want to use virtual cards, it should be
| possible where you live.
| Marsymars wrote:
| While virtual cards are _technically_ a thing in Canada
| (e.g. you get a virtual cards if you add a card to Apple
| Pay), I'm not aware of any services that let you generate
| more than one at a time in a useful way.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Wise (formerly Transferwise) also offers virtual debit
| cards. I don't think you can limit the amount or merchant,
| but it still works if all you need is to be able to cancel
| a card on-demand.
| daniel-thompson wrote:
| Their "free" plan says you can
|
| > Create up to 12 cards per month
|
| Does that mean you can create 12 in January, 12 more in
| February, etc? Or is it capped at 12 total?
| stavros wrote:
| AFAIK it's 12 every month (I have hundreds by now) but I've
| never reached the limit. They're vendor-locked so you need
| one per vendor.
| achow wrote:
| This is why last year India's policy for auto debit rules for
| credit debit card makes very good sense.
|
| _Under the new norms, banks will be required to inform
| customers in advance about recurring payment due and
| transaction would be carried following nod from the customer
| (will need additional factor authentication from 1 April). This
| rule is likely to impact your monthly subscription charges for
| different streaming platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime,
| Disney+..._
|
| https://www.livemint.com/industry/banking/debit-card-credit-...
| 41b696ef1113 wrote:
| Love that. I wonder how much money is flowing from consumers
| on forgotten subscriptions. My bank should have a separate
| highlighted section for any recurring charge.
| DizzyDoo wrote:
| I've been working at detangling myself from the Adobe lineup of
| products. I really like (or liked) Adobe AfterEffects, it's been
| very helpful for me in compositing trailers for my computer game
| business, but it's totally been replaced by the free version of
| Davinci Resolve. Which I've also found is an excellent
| replacement for Adobe Audition, which I was using for editing the
| Voice Over and raw Sound Effects for, again, my video games.
|
| But I can't see myself escaping from Photoshop anytime in the
| next couple of years. I have a lot of special export scripts in
| 'Adobescript' (yuck) that carve up my high res art assets, slice
| them this way and that, crop, hide/display different groups and
| export in particular ways. Nothing unusual, it's just a lot of
| grunt work, but I have it set up so that clicking a button in
| Photoshop will just Do It All and have it work. It'll take some
| time to set that all up again in a Photoshop alternative.
|
| The nasty payments stuff detailed in the twitter thread is just
| the usual Adobe nastiness, some product manager somewhere is
| trying to juice the numbers.
|
| My own billing experience with Adobe recently was needing to
| change my account's country from UK to Canada, as I've moved, and
| the VAT number and sales tax stuff is of course all different.
| The poor support person I spoke to couldn't fix it for me, they
| had to have a backend engineer manually change alter a field in a
| database somewhere - it all sounds like a terrible mess.
| pcurve wrote:
| That's the problem. Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and After
| Effects have almost no competition and they know it.
|
| Even if there were, companies can't just jump to different
| tools because they would lose ability to open all their past
| work files. The migration will be slow.
| inversetelecine wrote:
| AutoDesk (CAD/BIM/etc) is also getting like this. Maybe not
| totally Adobe yet, but they too also basically have a lock on
| their industry. Just like with Adobe, some alternatives exist
| and a few might be good enough, but AutoDesk bought so many
| competitors and/or companies that most of the time they are
| the only game in town.
|
| Bentley (not cars) is another company I loathe, but I've
| already gotten off topic.
|
| The professional software industry is a cesspool across all
| industries.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Yes, AutoDesk is a very good comparison.
|
| The problem is these companies aren't evil but they are
| under considerably less pressure to be _good_. Perhaps the
| saddest thing about Adobe is that the subscription model
| has almost completely eliminated their support staff 's
| ability to allow things like discretionary late free
| upgrades (which I've benefited from in the past, before I
| made the jump to Affinity Photo in 2015, after a year of
| Photoshop CC).
| pcurve wrote:
| I agree there's no pressure on these companies as a
| whole. Ideally, they should be heavily investing in R&D
| while the moat is still wide.
|
| I manage a product design team. We've long moved away
| from from using Adobe products. It's not that we detest
| subscription model or Adobe as a company; their products
| were no longer meeting our needs.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Only After Effects doesn't have an all-in-one competitor,
| really.
|
| Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign, as a linked suite, has a
| very, very able competitor in Affinity
| Photo/Designer/Publisher. Given the complexity of these
| products, expecting more than _one_ fully-integrated
| competing suite might be too much.
|
| You might find this video useful, to see the extent to which
| it is a competitor:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVqJIaMlB6E
|
| Not a 100% drop-in replacement, mind you, but almost nothing
| ever is. Very close, though, and capable of some remarkable
| things.
|
| (I still don't have Publisher but I love Photo and Designer.)
| roywiggins wrote:
| Last I looked for a replacement for Lightroom I didn't
| really find anything that worked well for me. Maybe the
| open source tools have matured in the interim? I've been
| sticking with my old copy of Lightroom 5 and until I buy a
| new camera that it doesn't support processing raw files
| for.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| I don't really like Darktable for that job to be honest
| -- nothing against what it is capable of, because it is
| clearly capable, it just rubs me up the wrong way GUI-
| wise. Haven't tried RawTherapee in a long time but maybe?
|
| Because I don't really like working in "sessions" and
| prefer folders, what I do is use DxO PhotoLab (which now
| comes in an "Essentials" version when you get it with
| their Nik tools, which might appeal to you). It's fast
| enough to cull in, though for really fast culls I use
| Fileloupe on the Mac.
| ta78373764 wrote:
| The billing page does say "annual plan, paid monthly" but it is a
| bit non obvious at first glance. Oddly this seems to be only in
| the UK version, the US version has a much clearer pricing layout.
| lelandfe wrote:
| > But what does "Annual plan, paid monthly" actually mean?
| Let's fill in our email address and press continue. Maybe
| that's explained on the next page.
|
| This Twitter thread appears to be a person who indeed noticed
| that and had to delve into the fine print to figure out what it
| actually implies for the contract.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Seems pretty obvious to me, it's an annual contract you pay
| for monthly, I have many such contracts
| bennyp101 wrote:
| But thats a monthly plan? I would pay monthly... an annual
| plan I would pay once per year... or is that their cunning
| terms - 'contract' rather than 'plan' kind of thing
| iso1631 wrote:
| A monthly plan would be one that you can cancel with a
| month's notice
|
| An annual plan would be one you can cancel with a year's
| notice
|
| The payment terms might be all in one, or in daily,
| weekly, or monthly amounts
| howeyc wrote:
| No, the term of the plan can be separate from the terms
| of payment.
|
| Auto insurance is usually a 6-month plan you pay monthly.
| Some are easier to cancel/change mid-term than others.
|
| Mortgage is an X-year plan you pay monthly.
|
| Auto loan is an X-year plan you pay monthly.
|
| This is fairly standard stuff.
| lelandfe wrote:
| Sure, me too. Annual plans are great. The issues here are:
|
| 1. All of the marketing language shown in the tweets
| present this as a monthly cost, rather than an annual
| commitment. This is deceptive. The other, truly monthly
| plans are default hidden on the plan selection page.
|
| 2. The enormous contract cancellation fee is buried inside
| the fine print.
|
| Contrast this to the USA version:
| https://i.imgur.com/TDptfcI.png
| iso1631 wrote:
| Annual plan to me that you're agreeing to pay for the
| year. Disney did something similar, it was cheaper to
| sign up for a year. Typically you get 12 months for the
| price of 10.
|
| The screenshot says you can have a full refund if you
| cancel before Feb 26th, assuming that holds, that's
| plenty of time to work out what's going on.
|
| The US is clear, I've seen that setup several times. The
| UK one has several red flags
|
| 1) Free trial
|
| 2) "From" PSx a month
|
| 3) It's Adobe
| lelandfe wrote:
| If a user will be on the hook for $300 when cancelling a
| contract, that should be made quite clear. The only hint
| that that lays buried in the fine print is small gray
| text intoning "avoid a fee" that gets shown _after plan
| selection_.
|
| It's pretty clear Adobe has work to do on their sign up
| flow, here. That they've already done so on the US side
| makes it even more inexcusable, frankly.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Very first screenshot says "Starting At"
|
| The point where you enter your email states "Annual Plan
| Paid Monthly", and "Cancel before 26th Feb for a full
| refund"
|
| Maybe I'm just cynical, but I would expect if I were to
| sign up I would be on the hook for a full year unless I
| cancel before 26th Feb.
| lelandfe wrote:
| "I would expect" is not exactly a sterling commendation
| of how clear a sign up flow's terms are. The Creative
| Suite has a wide audience.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Maybe it's not entirely clear, but then you get several
| weeks to decide to cancel and pay nothing
|
| Of all the dark patterns online, this is fairly low down
| the list.
| toyg wrote:
| _> Oddly this seems to be only in the UK version_
|
| Considering this behavior is likely illegal in the UK (where
| consumer cooling-off periods are 14 days or 30 days), I'd find
| that peculiar.
| cpach wrote:
| If you're on macOS and just want a good and convenient image
| editor, I warmly recommend Acorn. The Muellers (owners of Flying
| Meat Software) have put a lot of effort to make it feel like a
| really solid Mac application. The price is good and from time to
| time they offer discounts. The whole experience reminds me of
| using good old Paintshop Pro back in the late 90s (^_^)
|
| Other options are Affinity Photo from Serif Ltd and Pixelmator.
| IMHO Acorn has much better GUI though. (FWIW, Affinity works fine
| on Windows too.)
|
| I realize that some people need the features from Photoshop and
| then I guess they have to pay the "Adobe tax". But if you're not
| a photo/graphics professional, you can come a long way with the
| above options.
|
| AFAIK there are also lots of good alternatives for Illustrator
| and InDesign.
| phgn wrote:
| Gimp also works somewhat on Mac.
| anon23anon wrote:
| I've bought both Acorn and Affinity over the years. W/ Affinity
| they're license is only good for the platform you purchased it
| on e.g. you can't use a windows license on your mac - you'd
| need to purchase 2 separate license. Considering I have a work
| mac and a work windows this was kind of annoying but whatever.
|
| The thing that I encountered w/ Acorn was their license was
| tied to a particular version. For example a new Mac OS version
| came out, the version of Acorn I purchased wouldn't work w/
| whatever version that was so continue using Acorn I need to
| purchase a new version. The part that irked me here was I only
| got like 1 years use out of the software. Feel like they should
| support n-2 or something to that effect. Not sure if things
| have changed.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Yes, either you pay for a subscription or you once pay for a
| specific version and have to pay again if you want to use a
| later version. You can't both, that is, you pay once and get
| upgrades indefinitely. Even developers have to eat.
| sascha_sl wrote:
| >W/ Affinity they're license is only good for the platform
| you purchased it on
|
| I threw my Affinity Designer macOS key into a Windows trial
| and it worked just fine, you just have to download the trial
| for the other platform.
| brtkdotse wrote:
| Another point of view I'd like to offer is that very few people
| actually _need_ Photoshop/Illustator. I thought I did, until I
| discovered Canva and PlaceIt. Sure, they're not super flexible
| but you can usually find some template that works and just use
| that and be done with it before Photoshop has even finished
| loading.
|
| (No affiliation, just a pleased user)
| cpach wrote:
| Indeed. In my life I haven't used Photoshop more than like
| two hours or so. In my youth I used Corel Photopaint and PSP.
| Then Gimp, and now Acorn.
| alok-g wrote:
| Corel PaintShop Pro is alive still and works great.
| danaris wrote:
| I can strongly second the recommendation for Acorn. I'm not a
| graphics professional, but it is _very_ often useful in my job
| to have access to an editor on par with Photoshop--which, aside
| from some of the more advanced stuff, Acorn definitely is. It
| 's extremely polished and well-put-together--and can also both
| read and write Photoshop PSD files.
| yokoprime wrote:
| Thank you! Acorn looks pretty solid, I've got Pixelmator on my
| iOS devices, so I was wondering if i should go for Pixelmator
| pro on macOS.
|
| For very lightweight stuff, I've often used
| https://www.photopea.com/, even when i had photoshop installed.
| Works pretty well for a browser image editor
|
| I've moved away from Adobe recently, both because of their
| scummy business practices (but when you know how it works, its
| predictable at least) but moreso because creative cloud is such
| a resource hog. Core sync often was listed as a process using
| significant energy, even though file sync was turned off and
| the finder extension disabled.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Pixelmator Photo on iOS is also the mutt's nuts; I have been
| cynical about Pixelmator on the Mac until recently but Photo
| really makes the point that they intend to compete.
|
| Stay away from the Skylum stuff, IMO; it's usually half-baked
| and instead of evolving the product they have a habit of
| abandoning it and launching some new product, which is
| maddening.
|
| Affinity Photo is very very good too (bit confusing on the
| iPad).
| markwillis82 wrote:
| I am curious if photoshop is better installed from the App
| Store instead of through creative cloud so all the extra apps
| aren't added. Core sync drives me mad.
| cpach wrote:
| My pleasure!
|
| I've tried both Pixelmator and Acorn on macOS and IMHO
| Acorn's GUI is cleaner and more Mac-like. YMMV.
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| Acorn looks really great! Thanks for the recommendation.
| eps wrote:
| > Paintshop Pro
|
| Now that's the name I haven't heard in a long time :)
|
| I still have PSP7 on one of my machines and even use it
| occassionally!
| sprkwd wrote:
| Affinity do their own illustrator, photoshop and InDesign
| without subscription. Excellent quality and fast.
| peebeebee wrote:
| Photopea is also a great 'alternative'. Free, online, and
| written by one guy. Quite amazing feat.
| https://www.photopea.com/
| prox wrote:
| I use Affinity Suite professionally, absolutely possible to
| switch. Have done for three years, it's really good.
| BikeRanger wrote:
| Same here, on about the same timeline. I miss a few things
| from Photoshop, but some things are much better in Affinity
| Photo. Especially love that Affinity isn't a subscription.
| fermentation wrote:
| As soon as Affinity releases a Lightroom replacement I will
| buy it. I've tried using the open source apps and it just
| doesn't feel as good on a mac.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Definitely a limitation, though I'd imagine we will see a
| Bridge/DAM type product before we see a specifically
| Lightroom-type product.
|
| Perhaps we'll see a Lightroom-type persona in Photo and
| integrations with some sort of DAM.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Convenience link: https://flyingmeat.com/acorn/
|
| I also loved this bit from their FAQ: Does
| Acorn use a subscription? Nope! We have a simple
| philosophy- you buy a thing, you get a thing.
|
| I have no affiliation with them (not even a user yet).
| goldenchrome wrote:
| This is why I sail the high seas.
| atlanta90210 wrote:
| I manage adobe subs for my company. When you log into the adobe
| user management portal you can see all of your users and the
| products we pay for but you can't pull up a "last used date".
| This way I would know who to cancel if not used in a long time.
|
| I have complied to adobe about this for years and they say it
| would violent the privacy of the users we are paying for - yet I
| have their email addresses.
|
| I try all the time to get users to try others products when they
| ask for an adobe product subscription.
| snehk wrote:
| I had this problem many years ago and that was when I decided to
| never, ever use or recommend Adobe products to anyone for that
| very reason. A bunch of people at work wanted me to green light
| purchases of Adobe subscriptions for Premiere but we decided to
| go with Apple instead. Never in my life will I install another
| Adobe Cloud software on any of my machines again.
|
| And that's in addition to the fact that once you decide to
| install their software they'll install about three hundred
| different things that are somehow needed and are pretty much
| impossible to easily remove. I really hate Adobe with a passion.
| sgustard wrote:
| I just tried this in USD and at least the initial screens were
| more clear about the options. To wit: after "start your free
| trial", there's a choice of "$79 monthly, no cancellation fee" or
| "$52 yearly billed monthly, fee if you cancel". It is pretty
| common to discount per month when a user agrees to an annual
| contract.
| binarymax wrote:
| I now obsess over cancellation policies before subscribing.
| Yesterday I signed up for Peacock premium so we could watch the
| Winter Olympics and beforehand made sure I'd be able to cancel
| anytime. $10 per month and I can cancel easily whenever I like -
| but they still go out of their way to extract every cent of worth
| by selling all your personal information, and had to go through a
| rats nest to opt out.
| boingy wrote:
| I found a loophole to get out of their contracts for free online
| and was amazed it worked. Tell them that your employer now pays
| for your Adobe subscription so you don't need it anymore. They
| must have a policy around this because these magic words seem to
| get them to cancel for you no questions asked. Also, the easiest
| way to contact them (good luck finding a live chat on their
| website) is via twitter DMs. Sounds bad but using this method I
| got my account cancelled with no fee in around 10 minutes and
| with just two messages.
| rgj wrote:
| Adobe, a company of the past, playing tricks because they never
| will understand - or be - SaaS.
| xyhopguy wrote:
| I recently dealt with this. Right before my free trial expired, I
| went to cancel. A support rep offered another 3 months free. The
| first red flag was not receiving a log of our conversation. Three
| months go buy and sure enough, when I went to cancel, they told
| me I had already committed to a year. Incredible. After some
| persistence and vague legal threats I managed to receive a full
| cancelation and refund.
| [deleted]
| ummonk wrote:
| What would happen if people performed chargebacks?
| BonoboIO wrote:
| Adobe ... they have good products, but i will never give Adobe
| money.
| babyshake wrote:
| The worst part of this stuff is you can bet the PMs and others
| working on this feature have some BS terminology that helps them
| feel like this is not actively hostile toward their customers.
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