So, forcing me to supply payment information for a free trial, then forcing the developer to make my free trial an auto subscription unless I opt-out is supposed to be user friendly?
In what way is assuming you can take my money unless I say otherwise just because I used a free trial supposed to be user-friendly?
I'm so unbelievabley tired of these anti-consumer practices being labelled as 'user friendly' or 'working as intended'. They are not user friendly and sure they're working as intended, to extract money from you. At least tell it like it is, an accountant realized they made more money this way and told the marketers to sell that shit.
There is zero benefit to me as a user by making me opt out of paying a company money.
Try to cancel your newspaper subscription - you have to call in and jump through hoops.
Try to cancel your cable or internet, you didn't realize the rate you got was a "promo" rate that required a two year contract?
I guarantee that if apple used the approaches others use, subscription revenue would be a LOT higher.
They send you an email saying, here's what will be renewing soon, click here to cancel. I end up canceling about 80% of what would auto renew.
And I hate the developers who are not upfront with the subscription price. If there is a free trial, what does it cost after. Even NY Times did this ($1/month in big print - fine print said something like $54/month after 1 month or maybe it was just in a link burried etc).
Wouldn't it be even better if companies couldn't have those nefarious business practices because they don't have the ability to auto-renew your subscriptions in the first place?
It would be even more user friendly if it just popped up a message "You're free trial period has ended, would you like to subscribe?" People here seem to be claiming Apple will send you a message except it will be passive in that if you do nothing you're money will be taken. There are so many reasons I might miss that message, not the least of which is it being buried in all the other messages and notifications I get all day. Just make it opt-in instead of opt-out and suddenly it's super user friendly. In fact the companies can pause your subscription so if you don't get around to it the first time you interact after the free trial it's one click to subscribe and pick up where you left off.
Okay, so what I’m reading is that in defense of apple not allowing a company to be user-friendly, you list companies that are even worse and use that as justification for apple to force developer to be somewhat user-unfriendly instead of fully. I honestly don’t even know what to say to that.
It's pretty easy, so long as you're either using a Mac or are on Windows and able to install iTunes. The subscription-billing-reminder email includes a "review your subscription" link, which opens up Music / iTunes to the relevant buried section.
Really, I feel it should be available through icloud.com, but I couldn't find it anywhere. That'd avoid any of these issues where you need access to a non-phone device.
...vaguely possible that you could get to it through the Apple Music app on Android. I can't easily check that from where I am now, though.
I moved to another continent, closed all my US accounts or left them empty. Apple considered me "delinquent" on my subscriptions and refused to let me switch my app store's country.
It took being on the phone for over 8 hours before someone figured it out (I didn't know that was the issue) and they ended up writing off $12 to let me make the switch.
Try to cancel your newspaper subscription - you have to call in and jump through hoops.
I can do that online with a few clicks. (I do not subscribe to the NYT or WSJ). This is the same with most newspapers that are not the NYT or WSJ.
Try to cancel your cable or internet, you didn't realize the rate you got was a "promo" rate that required a two year contract?
I can do that with a simple call. My rate was not a promo that required a two year contract. I know this because they said so in big letters on the contract, which they're legally required to do in most states...
I guarantee that if apple used the approaches others use, subscription revenue would be a LOT higher.
TIL that if Apple didn't force trial periods to become auto-billed, revenue would somehow be higher. Instead of the more obvious result, which is that revenue is higher because people are being auto-billed after they forget to cancel. That is the business model of quite a few scams, and it's disappointing but not surprising that the Cooks-era Apple has embraced this business model.
I will (and have) pay more for an in-app Apple subscription just because of how easy it is to manage. I don’t think requiring a call is ever “simple”. Some people just prefer different things.
What? I am in love with Apple's way of handling subscriptions. I know that whenever I want, I can cancel it, no strings attached.
If the app does not deliver what it claims with the subscription, I can trust Apple to dispute it. For example, there are a couple of apps that offer subscription and amazing deals out of in-app purchases, but I simply refuse to subscribe that kind of applications, because there are a lot of shady companies want to take your money.
> What? I am in love with Apple's way of handling subscriptions. I know that whenever I want, I can cancel it, no strings attached.
Sure, and that's great. But why can't subscriptions be opt-in after a free trial, instead of opt-out? They can still send an email with a "Subscribe" button instead of a "Cancel" button. I would argue that's much more user-friendly.
Opt-out is by definition not more user friendly than a default opt-in process. It is in fact quite user-hostile and is used by a number of scam companies.
Opt-out is only user hostile when it is used as a scam. Whether it is hostile depends on the implementation.
Apple’s implementation is a friendly one. Firstly there is an email confirmation with a link to cancel, and secondly there is a single screen with all of the subscriptions aggregated and cancellable.
If you are someone who generally purchases subscriptions to things you actually want, then opt-out is clearly more friendly.
If you are someone who likes to try a bunch of stuff but isn’t likely to want to keep much of it, then you would likely prefer opt-in.
Whether a given implementation of opt-out is a scam or not is orthogonal to whether it matches your personal style.
This comment breaks the site guidelines which asks Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
I would recommend just leaving out the first sentence. It's not clear that the comment loses anything by it. Alternatively, you could say "This issue is already addressed upthread, for example <link>". That would be the equivalent of "the article mentions that". Yes, that's not shorter, but the intention here is to make one's points without personal swipes. And linking to the other explanation also adds information.
By the way, once I read your explanation of what you meant, it seemed like a much lesser violation than it did when I read it without that. The trouble, though, is that other readers encounter such a comment without knowing what you meant either.
Ok, I’ll err on the side of not saying this kind of thing, however I note that simply ignoring the conversation so far and making an assertion that is clearly contradicted by an earlier commenter’s personal experience is at least as much of a violation of the spirit of decent conversational standards as expressing mild frustration at such behavior.
I’m also going to just say for the record: I think it is clear that I neither violated the spirit of the rule, nor the letter of it.
It’s also simply not reasonable to say I made a distinction without a difference.
We know that a lot of people engage with the comments on HN without fully reading the source material, and this is now expected behavior. This makes the guideline as written a good way to avoid a common and unproductive antipattern.
However there is a clear difference between not fully reading the source material and not reading the comments you are replying to.
If you want the rule to cover both cases, then you should update it to do so.
A rule like ‘don’t make inferences about other commenters knowledge or understanding of the post or the thread - but rather address this through commenting on the meaning of their statements’ would cover this and a host of other issues, but the one you have used simply does not.
Your suggestion - “This is addressed unthread” can be a dismissal (especially if inaccurate) that is significantly more offensive than “sounds like you aren’t reading along”.
“How can it be objectively user hostile, if someone such as csunbird loves it?”
Would fit this rubric.
In any case, something seems off about this particular moderator intervention.
Compare to the competition and historical dark patterns around subscriptions, this is very user friendly.
I’m sure you’re familiar with gym membership cancellation? That’s not limited to gyms. This may not be the absolute best, but it’s way, way better than the worst.
But it is consistent! I think some people have just drank too much koolaid sometimes. I completely agree with you that it is hostile and terribly anti consumer.
I consistently sign up for free trials with Apple and immediately cancel them. This is consistently a great user experience because on Apple’s platform I get to use the service until the trial runs out, it’s easy to cancel, and I know I’ve canceled it and don’t need to remember.
It would be consumer unfriendly not to be told up front that an app is a subscription service, you use it for three weeks, put your information in there and then be told you have to pay.
In what way is assuming you can take my money unless I say otherwise just because I used a free trial supposed to be user-friendly?
I'm so unbelievabley tired of these anti-consumer practices being labelled as 'user friendly' or 'working as intended'. They are not user friendly and sure they're working as intended, to extract money from you. At least tell it like it is, an accountant realized they made more money this way and told the marketers to sell that shit.
There is zero benefit to me as a user by making me opt out of paying a company money.