[HN Gopher] Subscriptions are out, refills are in
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Subscriptions are out, refills are in
Author : bluepnume
Score : 51 points
Date : 2022-08-25 18:32 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bluepnume.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bluepnume.medium.com)
| belthesar wrote:
| I'm very into this. A while back, I was working on a product that
| unfortunately folded in the live streaming content creation
| space, and we wanted to treat our subscriptions like refills, but
| we really didn't have the language around it like this. Giving
| users agency on the renewal process rather than hostile
| subscription practices is a breath of fresh air, and a surefire
| way I personally would feel more comfortable using a product.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > Some of them will make you literally call them up to cancel.
|
| This should be illegal. If you can easily sign up online, it
| should be possible to cancel online just as easily.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It is, if you're in California. It's the law.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Well, good. Should be illegal basically everywhere, though.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| But consumer protections are for "liberal nanny states"
| that "no one wants to live in".
| immibis wrote:
| It won't happen, because it would extract less profit for
| shareholders.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Well, there's a mechanism for that. I believe other states'
| residents don't care as much about these things, though.
| For instance, the amount of work required to make this law
| in North Dakota is pretty low, but I don't think it's going
| to happen.
| __derek__ wrote:
| I fix this by using a one-time card number for any subscription
| or recurring purchase. Citi and Capital One offer them for free
| (the latter has a much better UI), or a lot of people use
| Privacy.com. Even a Visa/MC gift card works well if you happen to
| get one for a rebate or something. It would be great if merchants
| all abided by #2 and gave notice of impending charges, but
| ultimately I prefer to shut off the taps on my timeline rather
| than theirs.
| kube-system wrote:
| Gyms figured this out long ago and now many require EFT.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| EFT?
| __derek__ wrote:
| Interesting. My climbing gym accepts credit cards. It also
| allows me to cancel or freeze my membership online, though.
|
| If I were in that situation, I suppose I would open a new
| account just for that purpose, turn off overdraft, and
| transfer money into the account as needed.
| jkqwzsoo wrote:
| I used this tactic to break up with WSJ. However, I think they
| technically reserve the right to try to collect fees if you
| don't cancel through their system.
|
| Another time, I had a service continue to try to bill me
| monthly for 2 years. I just let it keep saying "your order is
| about to ship" and "there was a problem with your card".
| Eventually, they found a way to charge me (I'm really not sure
| how) and had an order go through, after which I cancelled
| through an option buried in their website.
| bluepnume wrote:
| This is great. We're actually considering building a product
| like this at OneText.
|
| 1. You get a virtual card number to use for subscriptions
|
| 2. We detect recurring charges
|
| 3. We send you a text 24h before any refills
|
| 4. If you reply 'skip' we block the next charge, if you reply
| 'cancel' we cancel the card entirely
| theturtletalks wrote:
| I've heard that even if the charge doesn't go through, some
| companies don't cancel your plan. They keep the plan active
| with an outstanding balance that keeps growing.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Yup. I've heard of gyms trying to send people through hoops
| to cancel, so they just call their bank and tell them to
| block charges in the future from the gym.
|
| So the gym just lets them collect a balance and then
| threatens to send the bill to collections if it's unpaid.
| derbOac wrote:
| The Blink Fitness example is telling in so many ways. It's not
| just that it's evil in the sense of mischievous, it reveals a
| sense of entitlement. I think this sense of entitlement to
| customer money underlies many problems in contemporary commerce.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Gyms are notorious for this. I won't sign up for a gym
| membership unless they accept checks or cash. Most accept
| checks, I've found. Could also try a virtual credit card I
| suppose. Citi offers those with their Visa card.
| xeromal wrote:
| A good local, powerlifting gym almost always is cash or
| credit card without a recurring subscription. The less flash,
| the better.
|
| The equipment will be old and the clientele mostly giant men,
| but they'll spot you and what is lifting weights but some
| metal? Does it need to be new?
| true_religion wrote:
| What if I want to go got gym but not lift weights?
|
| For example running , swimming , climbing, and general
| indoor sports are all activities that some gyms offer.
| xeromal wrote:
| Guess you're getting a year contract. Haha.
|
| But in all seriousness, the Y is probably where I'd go if
| I needed that. They usually have favorable terms.
| true_religion wrote:
| That true. I'm just playing devils advocate. I use
| community services when I want to do anything gym like .
| The only reason for a gym membership is if your community
| provides nothing or the hours just don't work for you
| (e.g. you like early morning or very late at night)
| bombcar wrote:
| And even if you don't have a Y nearby, check out
| community centers and other such things. The main thing
| is finding something that's not part of a massive chain,
| and they'll usually be pretty reasonable.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Unfortunately, the Y is probably the only option for an
| indoor pool in most places, but I wouldn't recommend them
| in general if you're worried about scummy practices. They
| wanted me to come in-person to sign a form in order to
| unsubscribe, _after I 'd moved_. I finally got them to
| relent, but still had to send a digitally-signed pdf to
| the manager. Of course, signing up was a simple web form.
|
| Climbing gyms kind of run the gamut. I was actually
| pretty delighted to find that the one I had been a member
| of, when I moved during Covid, actually never reactivated
| by subscription when they reopened, so when I nervously
| called to cancel, expecting them to have some ridiculous
| requirement, I didn't even have to cancel at all. They
| hadn't been billing me in the first place.
|
| If you want to run, go outside. Even in fairly unpleasant
| weather, I think that's generally a better experience
| than a treadmill. And if you want strict measurements and
| not to worry about being hit by cars, go find a local
| high school or college and they almost certainly have a
| track that is sitting unused often enough for community
| members to run at. That's how I used to do it when I
| still ran.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I would never sign up for anything that's a recurring charge
| (including utilities and such) without using a virtual credit
| card. It makes any shenanigans the company might pull
| impossible.
| googlryas wrote:
| Just an FYI, but you're still legally liable for charges on
| your virtual credit card, regardless of whether or not the
| charges go through.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| You are only legally liable if you sign a contract that
| says you are. They can send a collections agency after
| you, but if you have proof that you notified them before
| the X days required in the contract that you're ending
| it, you're not legally liable.
| googlryas wrote:
| Sure, of course. My point was you can't necessarily just
| turn off/delete a virtual card to "cancel" anything. It
| may end up working out that way, or as you say it may end
| up going to a collections agency.
| m463 wrote:
| I belonged to a gym that couldn't be cancelled by phone.
|
| You had to send a certified letter to headquarters.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| Go to Privacy.com. Register and give your _real_ credit card. Don
| 't get the $10/month subscription for "real" privacy, unless you
| really don't want a record of your purchases.
|
| Now when you "subscribe" to WhizBang online, go to Privacy and
| create a special credit card just for WhizBang. Give WhizBang a
| fake name and address as well, and don't use your "regular"
| email. Create some spares on ProtonMail or some other low-
| friction service.
|
| When WhizBang goes to verify your credit card, your fake name &
| address are _not_ checked. You can give them whatever you want.
|
| Your purchase will appear on your regular credit card records. If
| you want Privacy to use a fake seller, you have to pay for that.
|
| When you want to cancel WhizBang, you just close their credit
| card. They will get a Decline when they go to charge it, and
| they'll eventually cancel you. You can go through their official
| cancellation process, if you want to.
|
| This works. It's what I do.
| notimetorelax wrote:
| I've done something similar in Germany, ended up getting a bill
| after 6 months of missed payments and a nice letter from a
| lawyer.
| michaelmcdonald wrote:
| How did they get your contact information?
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| Echoing the other responder: if you use a VPN, and don't give
| your real name & address, how are they going to find you?
| infogulch wrote:
| If privacy.com gets a subpoena from a court, do you think
| they would just ignore it, or would they dutifully hand
| over any details of whoever owned that credit card?
| brnt wrote:
| That is illegal and depending on the type of service not
| possible. A delivered and received email constitutes due
| notice in many European countries (perhaps not all, not
| sure), which is likely to reach you. But if it is possible,
| I guess they couldn't, unless they are very determined and
| manage to force your VPN or CC issuer to disclose.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| Proton VPN is based in Switzerland, so good luck with
| that.
| brnt wrote:
| Yes. Apparently this works differently in the US, but in any
| European country the ability to deduct currency is not
| governing the existence of an obligation of payment. That is
| determined by the (implicit) contract you agree to when
| subscribing to the service/product.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _this works differently in the US_
|
| No, it's the same here. If you signed up with fake
| credentials with the intention of breaching the contract,
| it could be fraud.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| I'm waiting to see someone get prosecuted for this
| "fraud":
|
| Q: So, Mr. Defendant, when you signed up for this
| service, did you intend to pay?
|
| A: Yes
|
| Q: And did you pay?
|
| A: Yes
|
| Q: But eventually you cancelled the credit card?
|
| A: Yes
|
| Q: And why did you do that?
|
| A: I was tired of the service, and they made it almost
| impossible to cancel.
|
| At that point, the prosecution drops the case.
|
| But hey, if you want to keep paying for a shitty service
| you don't want anymore because you can't jump through all
| their hoops... well, you do you.
| brnt wrote:
| At least in Europe, these sorts of dark patterns are very
| much illegal and I've never seen them in the wild (from
| Europe based businesses).
| cedilla wrote:
| Why is the prosecution asking about irrelevant things
| like that? Why doesn't it continue like this:
|
| Q: But eventually you cancelled the credit card?
|
| A: Yes.
|
| Q: Despite your contractual obligation to pay?
|
| A: yes, but they made it impossible to can...
|
| Judge: You must only answer the question.
| jjulius wrote:
| If only those businesses weren't trying to start off a
| relationship by acting in bad faith (eg, making it
| incredibly difficult to cancel your subscription)...
| harrisonjackson wrote:
| The blink fitness example has to be the result of a bad business
| model.
|
| How long can gyms, cable companies, cell providers etc keep
| customers hostage with cancellation policies like this? I mean it
| has been forever but c'mon!
|
| If your business doesn't provide value to your customers then you
| should not milk them like this... you should start providing
| value or cut your losses and treat them well so they will still
| hopefully recommend you to a friend that actually needs whatever
| you are selling.
| reidjs wrote:
| I like how Rinse does this, a laundry service that charges
| roughly by weight of laundry. They text me if a driver is in my
| area and they subtract the weight from my account's total. If I
| don't use it, the excess weight carries over to the next month.
| It reminds me of how cell phone plans used to 'roll over' unused
| minutes to the next payment cycle.
| bluepnume wrote:
| I love this model. I have a movie ticket subscription that does
| this too if I don't use the ticket.
| pyrolistical wrote:
| This isn't perfect either. Now they have pre sold weight to
| you. Will they offer a full refund of unused weight? If so, why
| did they charge you for it ahead of time instead of a per
| usage?
|
| They are hoping you have some excess weight you never use and
| it's free profit for them
| tqi wrote:
| Unless they have an expiration, they cant recognize the
| revenue ie it is not profit for them.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| They offer that too.
|
| They have a Pay-As-You-Go ($2.25/lb + $12.95*/order, $30
| minimum) and the subscription offering ("Rinse Repeat"). They
| make it impossible to price compare these offerings, as the
| subscription offering is charged per "bag" not by pound
| weight, but they do give you a guesstimate figure: $1.39/lb
| based on their most expensive subscription tier (very YMMV,
| as the "bags" hold different weight based on the clothing
| materials).
|
| * The website misleadingly lists the Service Fee as $7.95,
| and then throws in the "Health & Safety Fee" into a list of
| other optional fees while making it non-optional in the small
| print. Essentially making the Service Fee $12.95 with
| deceptive dark patterns for good measure.
| exabrial wrote:
| "We saw you ran your car seat heater for 4 mins yesterday. You
| only have 2m remaining this week, do you want to load up 4 extra
| mins for $400?"
| IceMetalPunk wrote:
| I have an Amazon Prime subscription.
|
| I don't know why, or when I signed up for it.
|
| This is the second time it's happened, so I gave up and kept it.
| I _do_ order from Amazon enough that it matters, I guess. It 's
| scummy as hell, but effective. I'd much prefer a model like the
| one mentioned in this article.
| bluepnume wrote:
| Yeah, with Amazon, it's always a step during the checkout, with
| a very small opt-out button. And it often advertizes itself as
| being more about free shipping than setting up a prime
| subscription. Pretty easy to miss!
| IceMetalPunk wrote:
| You know, I've seen that, but I guess I didn't pay much
| attention and assumed it was opt-in. Silly me for thinking
| Amazon would have the tiniest shred of ethics in their
| functional design.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| Yeah it's scammy as hell.
|
| But it's also a really great deal 14.99/month for free
| faster shipping, books, movies, music, etc...
| IceMetalPunk wrote:
| I mean, if you use all that, sure. I don't do Prime
| books, the only media I watch on Prime is Legend of Vox
| Machina, I don't use Prime music, etc. So I'm really just
| paying $14.99/month for one TV show and faster shipping
| when I do order a package. I guess that's still not too
| bad, but it still feels gross that I was tricked into
| signing up for it, twice.
| bombcar wrote:
| Prime is up to $15 a month? Holy @#$@#$ I may have to
| cancel, the shipping isn't worth _that_ much ...
| kgermino wrote:
| It's not a great deal if you don't use it.
|
| I don't use Prime's content features and the handful of
| Amazon orders I make a year usually get free shipping
| anyway.
|
| I've definitely accidentally signed up for Prime and the
| confusing screen is always a reminder that I should try
| buying my [whatever] elsewhere. Sometimes it works and I
| find an alternative, sometimes I find the opt out button
| and finish my purchase. But their scummy tactics have
| probably pushed a few $k in annual purchases off Amazon
| for me.
| yeeyeeyee wrote:
| I'm happy to pay the $15/month just to have the capability to
| have stuff shipped to my door overnight for free. There are
| months where I don't order anything at all. Compared to rent or
| food it's a drop in the bucket.
| butwhywhyoh wrote:
| I guess because you're happy with the Amazon Prime service,
| it's OK for them to use scummy business practices to sign up
| the OP?
|
| I'm genuinely confused by your take here.
| jfghi wrote:
| Lately it seems as though overnight has shifted to 2-3 days
| later.
| m463 wrote:
| Amazon chooses shipping defaults to benefit themselves.
|
| With prime I have to manually select the shipping speed to
| get it the fastest.
|
| Without prime, it defaults to faster shipping that you pay
| for. You have to manually select slower shipping to get the
| advertised "free super-saver shipping"
| copperx wrote:
| For me, most products get delivered in 6 days with Prime.
| It has stopped making sense to pay for the Prime
| subscription. It's cheaper to pay for faster shipping,
| given that I only order 1-2 items monthly.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| I've had this happen too many times to count. Just delete all
| payment methods on file in your account settings. Youll get
| warnings out the wazoo that your benefits are expiring cause
| they dont have a way to charge you, so if you really want to
| renew later you can.
| IceMetalPunk wrote:
| But if I do that, I would have to enter my payment info every
| time I want to order anything. I order enough that it would
| be obnoxious.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| I just save the payment info to the chrome browser CC
| payment store.
| goldcd wrote:
| I do quite like their "subscribe and save" system though. Sign
| up for the costco-sized packs of stuff you get through, and
| guess how often you want to receive it. Then once a month it
| tells you to check - and you see what they're planning on
| shipping, and can skip stuff you've got and pull forward stuff
| you're running out of.
|
| Always thought it would be quite nifty if you could make a site
| like this for third-party services. I might see my 2 audible
| credits on there, and decide I've got enough, or need more. Or
| maybe apple could offer a free month - so I might pause my
| netflix. Could even combine stuff (free $10 Dominos credit
| added for each month of Netflix after month 12 etc).
|
| Whole current system of every service having their own UI, is
| just a pain. Worked out paying for stuff works better then you
| can just stick it all on the same card - so why not manage it
| all from one place as well?
| kurupt213 wrote:
| i've had it so long that it was definitely opt in when i
| joined. nothing should ever default to opt out.
| IceMetalPunk wrote:
| > nothing should ever default to opt out
|
| Agreed. Similarly, if DoorDash could stop automatically
| setting a high tip on all my orders, that'd be great, thanks.
| I always give a tip, but it's rarely as high as the app auto-
| suggests, unless I have a tiny order.
| roberthahn wrote:
| This makes a ton of sense for B2C contexts, but my gut reaction
| is that the conversational approach might be too high friction in
| B2B contexts. To be clear, the friction I'm thinking of is this
| constant cadence of stealing/borrowing attention.
|
| Perhaps this needs to be thought of as part of a larger
| communications strategy - who here is part of a SaaS that sends
| regular 'marketing' emails to existing customers? :)
|
| Maybe the defaults (boiled down, the provided examples appear to
| be "opt-in" if you're not in, and "opt-out" if you are in) are
| designed to streamline the process so conversations are ignorable
| so that's okay?
|
| Maybe I'm misunderstanding something! I definitely want to hear
| stories of this model working in the B2B space.
| kurupt213 wrote:
| Gym subscriptions are the worst
| xivzgrev wrote:
| Chewy does this really well, and follows this same advice.
|
| I get pet food on subscription. Chewy sends me a notice my order
| is about to ship. I can skip or cancel if I want.
|
| Shopify on the other hand is hostile. I have a small store there
| I've deprioritized. They have a $9 / mo inactive plan, where they
| keep your stuff but customers can't buy. If you want to stop
| paying, they delete all of your stuff & domain:
| https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/your-account/pause-deacti...
| bena wrote:
| Yeah. Chewy's autoship is pretty nice. We have two cats and
| we've got the quantities and timing to where just as they're
| going through the last of their current food, the next shipment
| arrives.
|
| That and we have a subscription box from Meowbox for them as
| well. We used to get treats, but they didn't like the majority
| of them so it's just toys now.
| awillen wrote:
| Why should Shopify store all your information if you stop
| paying them? You can export everything you need from your
| Shopify account. They never offer a free tier to anyone, so
| it's not like they trick with you a free service and then force
| you to keep paying to store stuff you created while it was
| free. The $9/month is a very small amount and a meaningful
| discount from their cheapest option at $29/month. How is that
| hostile?
| yunohn wrote:
| We're on HN - we both want free services, but also don't want
| them to ever become paid.
|
| It's a fine line.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| This is why I recommend Woocommerce over Shopify, I already
| have hosting, if I'm gonna try and make some money in
| ecommerce, might as well try it without having limits. I can
| have unlimited products/choices on WooCommerce. WP is a shit
| show, but so is Shopify's subscription model.
|
| Personally, I'd like to see them move to a model where it's
| completely free until you have 100 sales, then you have to
| upgrade or something. That would encourage more people to
| use/try it, plus give them a chance to actually see success and
| start their small business, rather than fail because they're
| running out of money for their business.
| Something1234 wrote:
| Yeah that would just encourage the scammers out there. Atomic
| Shrimp on youtube covers a lot of these scammers. I would say
| 100 views of the cart by distinct ip addresses to cover
| people just randomly opening shopify accounts.
| bombcar wrote:
| I suspect those "reminder emails" from Chewy/Amazon etc
| actually get them MORE sales than they lose by people
| delaying/cancelling the subscription.
|
| You get an email and you remember you wanted to add something,
| and you go ahead and buy it.
| yeeyeeyee wrote:
| It makes sense, it could look really bad for Chewy. Say your
| cat got eaten by a pit bull, and then a week later you're
| reminded what happened by a box of cat food they automatically
| shipped to your door.
| medion wrote:
| Actually they retain store data for years. I shut my store down
| and didn't pay for a year or two, as I had too much other work
| on. I later re-opened my account and voila my entire store and
| data appeared. I was rather grateful.
| yesUgotit wrote:
| Amazon subscribe and save is the same thing.
|
| I use it for toiletries and other routine consumables at home.
| Amazon trucks are going to be on the road anyway; may as well
| save my car trips for actually interesting trips.
| thaeli wrote:
| I don't trust Subscribe & Save because of Amazon's dynamic
| pricing. The discount doesn't matter if the base piece
| tripled because of Amazon pricing shenanigans.
| notimetorelax wrote:
| Yup, at first it seems wasteful to order delivery, but if you
| go shopping yourself you still end up driving.
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