14 ms·

Apple's approach isn't as bad as this title makes it sound. Mostly because they're aggressive communicators about subscription billing -- they send emails well

• itsdrewmiller 6y ago
  I don't think this passes the sniff test - if their trial doesn't require providing a payment method, how is Apple possibly protecting anyone?
  • bluesign 6y ago
    Cause the consumer thinks app is free or one time purchase, they may even not say anything about payment, till your trial is over. And you invested your time on a training, later surprised by the cost, but as you were invested timewise, you are more likely to pay.
    • Frost1x 6y ago
      I wonder which you're more likely to pay for: a subscription you intend to cancel or having something free shift to an expense? From my experience, even with due diligence and setting up calendar event notifications, I've missed a few subscription cancelations I intended. On the other hand, whenever I use something free, I always proceed under the assumption it can shift to a pay for service/product at some point in the future of unknown cost and assess risk accordingly. I don't think I've ever been surprised by a fee or lost time investment because of this. As far as one time purchases vs subscription charges, I think there's a better argument for this case. It should be made very clear up front during the purchase that there's a time subscription model and what services are or aren't included in that service. The model used in Google Play makes it pretty difficult to confuse what services are or aren't subscription based from my experience which seems reasonable (can't say I've looked into the details, just know I haven't been surprised by what is or isn't a monthly subscription).
      • prophesi 6y ago
        Yeah, it sounds like the anti-pattern here is not being up-front about whether it's free, a one-time fee, or a subscription. Forcing all subscriptions to auto-renew doesn't fix this. I've seen plenty of apps/services where the selling point is the fact that they _don't_ require a card for their free trial. And people renew their subscription because they've found the product to be worthwhile; not because they used it for 30 minutes then forgot to cancel.
        • Frost1x 6y ago
          If the consumer likes your service, rest assured at the end of free trial, they may be slightly annoyed but will quickly renew their service to make sure they can continue to have access if they have to. A card associated with my Netflix account expired and I didn't realize, it was renewed within 10 minutes of me wanting to watch a show. If you're forced to go through a process to renew something, you're more likely to question why you're going through the process and if the service the process exists for still maintains value to you worth continuing payment for. Businesses are aware of this and attempt to avoid those situations. Minimize friction of revenue, limit any barriers for money flowing in. It's very intentional and I've yet to see a good argument for trial-to-subscription auto opt-in that is not a strategic money grab based on a probability of unintended customers. Many decades ago, magazine subscriptions were notorious for this exact same predatory subscription lock-in model, even making it difficult to cancel (while incredibly easy to enter).
      • baddox 6y ago
        I don't think Apple is intending to cover the "subscription you intend to cancel" case. When you start a free trial for a paid subscription in an iPhone app, you have to do a normal payment authorization which looks almost exactly the same as an instant payment authorization. If you have no intention of paying for a subscription and you don't think you can remember to cancel the subscription before the free trial ends, I think it's pretty reasonable to just not make the upfront payment authorization and thus not use the free trial.
        • 6y ago
  • Crontab 6y ago
    So it can't grab a person's iTunes Gift card balance?
• gizmo 6y ago
  Hold up, the point of the trial is so people can try the app for free. Then, after having tried the app, users can choose to pay. Or not. There is no issue about misleading customers here, because many apps promise features that don't work well or have other problems and the only ways for the user to figure out if an app is worth it is by (a) reading reviews and (b) trying it, and that will result in an informed decision. What's the difference between misleading users about functionality and misleading them about price? In both cases you're wasting your users' time and in both cases they'll ultimately choose not to buy. What Apple is doing here is moving the purchase decision forward, to the point where the user knows practically nothing about the product. How can you make an informed decision if all you've seen are a couple of screenshots and some vague list of features on the App store page?
  • m3kw9 6y ago
    Because Apple forbids an app to be disabled or not function, if the customer chooses no, what happens? It’s disabled.
    • gizmo 6y ago
      Okay, then what happens to the app when your subscription renewal fails when your CC expires?
      • etchalon 6y ago
        And what happens if you drop your phone, and it's being repaired so you haven't used the app for the full trial? And what if say, a Sasquatch, steals your phone, and your wallet, and he's using the app and delighted by it, by you've never used that app but you're still going to be charged? What happens if the universe ends? Apple must account for this scenarios!
        • ryguytilidie 6y ago
          The things you're describing are rare. A credit card expiring is not rare at all. What were you hoping to prove here?
• northerdome 6y ago
  I have forgotten to cancel subscriptions from iTunes a few times as I tend to watch my CC statement for forgotten subscriptions, not Apple Free Trial emails. The real issue is that they make it impossible to get a refund once you as a customer have been charged even when the app developer agrees to give you one. Being forced to delegate billing to a robotic corporation that treats your customers like robots is a terrible position to force developers in to.
  • josho 6y ago
    > they make it impossible to get a refund Is this your personal experience? I’ve previously received refunds for purchases and movie rentals. It required an email but also gave me confidence that if I ever bought an app that was junk that I’d get a refund.
    • cpuguy83 6y ago
      I've also gotten refunds for movie purchases and rentals. Even just a couple of days ago, my reason was "other" with an added comment "this movie was truly terrible" (R.I.P.D, don't bother... thought we'd buck the trend of bad reviews on it... but nope). Never a hassle... That said this is definitely a user hostile approach pretty much banking on the fact that people will forget or just not have time/energy to go cancel (and remember where/how).
      • TrueGeek 6y ago
        Same here, I’ve received refunds. And now you don’t even need to email them. You can just chat through iMessage.
    • the_svd_doctor 6y ago
      Same, I’m surprised people have issues getting refund from Apple.
    • supermatt 6y ago
      Ive never had a problem with app refunds, but for subscription refunds - hell yeah its terrible. I was double subscribed to a service. Same device, same account, literally within seconds of each other (double tap maybe?). I was billed twice a quarter for 2 quarters. When I raised this their response was (quoting from the email): "We've thoroughly reviewed your case with our Support Team, and I’m afraid to say that we are unable to proceed with the actions requested." I replied, restating the problem. They did not respond. I contacted them again 2 days later. No response. Again 5 days later. No response. Again a month later - no response. There is no way to communicate with them once they have decided they aren't going to deal with your enquiry, so I have had to swallow the loss as they are known for blocking accounts who perform CC chargebacks :/
• saurik 6y ago
  I guess that works if you actually check your email :/. (edit: People are downvoting this heavily, but this is 2020 so I would expect stuff like "your free trial is ending" to come in the form of organized push notifications from the App Store. I even like email, but have essentially been trained to not bother with it as no one else is using it either... we are even now exclusively on messaging apps at work ;P.)
  • klyrs 6y ago
    Not to mention, these emails might end up in your spam folder
• jfrunyon 6y ago
  Many people (do I dare say most?) don't read their personal emails in a timely manner. Heck, most people don't read their work emails in a timely matter, if my coworkers are anything to go by... ;)
  • seph-reed 6y ago
    Order of urgency / importance of message / signal to noise ratio: * Walk up and tell me (grandpa, tell us about the days before Covid..) * Phone call * Slack/Discord/Workplace IM * Git comment @me * Email * Social Media * Paper Mail
• gentleman11 6y ago
  Personally, I avoid signing up for things all the time that have auto billing after trials. I try out a ton of services and the overhead of tracking them all on a calendar is just not worth it. A simple pop up could make everybody happy if it was indeed user friendly: “would you like to begin your subscription automatically after the trial?” Also, in terms of consent and automated systems generally, explicit opt in is really the only way to go. Humans just can’t deal with the mental overhead of the hundreds of “contracts” their “services” require now
  • tikkabhuna 6y ago
    From my experience with iOS subscriptions you can cancel immediately in the App Store and your trial will continue until the original date.
  • jordansmith 6y ago
    Don’t really need to track trials, I always just instantly cancel the subscription. You still get to use the site/software until your trial expires and then you’re not billed.
    • vorpalhex 6y ago
      It depends on the platform. That approach works well on Google Play and Apple, but custom subscription platforms can be all kinds of shady.
• adrr 6y ago
  Risk free trials are a terrible experience. If the customer just wants to demo the app, why should they have to remember to log into their Apple account and cancel the trial? With saas offerings, I won’t even sign up for a trial if it requires billing information from me.
  • Y_Y 6y ago
    Risk is a pretty crap game anyway.
• radley 6y ago
  Apple is forcing a yoga app to do opt-out billing instead of opt-in. That's anti-user-friendly.
  • hombre_fatal 6y ago
    After watching my mother confusedly agree to $7/week billing in an app she downloaded to play with her cat, I'm not convinced Apple is in the business of helping users make optimal billing decisions with clarity. The least the App Store could do is give notifications (not just email) for monthly billing and notifications for "You are now paying $7/week and will be charged <Date>" (Click to go to a screen that will let you cancel). Not to mention, the hostility of having to notice it's $7/week, not $7/month. I literally have never seen weekly billing like that, and I had to look three times to notice it said "week". Just gives scummy tools to scummy people that make rebillware on the App Store, like a game for cats you can make after any Swift tutorial charging $7/week. At least all apps go through Apple billing, so you get an itemized list of which apps are billing you. Really needs an on-device notification system to help people see that screen though. My mom isn't going to find it, yet she should see it every month she's ever getting billed.
    • radley 6y ago
      All of that is the result of opt-out. Imagine if Apple was enforcing opt-in (with a free trial). None of that would have happened.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • user5994461 6y ago
      Can you cancel the billing as soon as you notice? More importantly, can you get a refund? assuming your mother was tricked and didn't understand she was being charged and for what (this voids the contract in some jurisdictions).
  • baddox 6y ago
    Well, no, the billing is opt-in at the beginning of the trial period, and Apple (in my experience and opinion) is very clear about that. You even have to do a FaceID payment authorization at the beginning of the trial.
• grawprog 6y ago
  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.
  • pbreit 6y ago
    Correct. Apple is providing a consistent customer experience for enrolling, free trialing, auto-billing and canceling.
    • black_puppydog 6y ago
      * consistently user hostile
      • stjohnswarts 6y ago
        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.
      • thoraway1010 6y ago
        Except it is very user friendly. 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).
• voisin 6y ago
  > Mostly because they're aggressive communicators about subscription billing -- they send emails well in advance of any subscription renewal, telling you when you'll be billed, how much for, and giving you a link to cancel the subscription. I don’t think this is correct. I only ever get emails coincident with the renewal letting me know what my credit card was charged. Never in advance.
  • rgovostes 6y ago
    They do notify me 30 days before my iCloud storage plan renews, with clear instructions on canceling it. They also offer a grace period if I forget to cancel before. I wouldn't like renewal reminders every month for my services but I think it makes sense to do something similar to iCloud renewal notices in a few scenarios: for long-term (e.g., annual) subscriptions, for expensive subscriptions, and for the first few billings of a user's first subscription (so they get used to it). It's also easy to "report a problem" from the receipt e-mail for the renewal, and while there's no stated policy of doing so, I think they would refund an undesired renewal. They even have an option on the form, "I did not intend to renew subscription(s)."
  • baddox 6y ago
    Perhaps you only have subscriptions directly from Apple? Apple seems to treat its own subscriptions differently. For my iCloud subscription I just get monthly receipts after each billing. But for third-party subscriptions, I get an email with subject "Your Subscription is Expiring" a few days before each billing, then a receipt after each billing.
• pbreit 6y ago
  Right. I think Apple's intent is the opposite of what the developer is suggesting. Apple is conditioning customers to manage subscriptions, including easy cancelation, in app store.
• Shalle135 6y ago
  Some consumers aren’t aware that it will be a subscription and some doesn’t even know how to manage their subscriptions. Sure, apple is usually pretty customer oriented if contacted. But this is nothing more than a greed.
• stjohnswarts 6y ago
  That might not be as low minded as lure in people hoping they'll forget but this things should be "Your trial is ending soon, so, ya know you should renew otherwise it ends" . That is the customer friendly way to do it. Any other way is duplicitous and ugly minded.
• stiray 6y ago
  My 5 cents. Regardless if this is Apple or any developer, subscription service etc., I consider giving my credit card number / paypal for testing any trial software as directly abusive. Maybe, it is just me but from my perspective this is a try to force buying from me by whatever means possible and doing me is like rejecting me as a potential customer: I will just never do it. I hate the need of thinking about some money will be taken from me, unless I perform some action - I consider it as a huge violation of my trust as a highly fishy tactic.
  • Maskawanian 6y ago
    The point is to filter out people who are unwilling to put up money. Why waste money on a trial for someone who is unlikely to convert. You sound like someone who is hard to sell to, so it is in the interests of most companies to discourage you from participating.
    • Maskawanian 6y ago
      I see that HN has devolved into Reddit where downvoting is used for disagreement instead of replying. It was a good run, but every site eventually jumps the shark.
      • detaro 6y ago
        "devolved into"? Unlike reddit, the official position on HN (although a good chunk of the community disagrees with it) has always been that downvoting for disagreement is ok, back from when pg did run the site.
        • Maskawanian 6y ago
          If that is true, HN is rotten to the core. Down voting to disagree simply causes an echo chamber.
    • thomaslord 6y ago
      Someone who's easy to sell to would just pay - free trials are there specifically to target people who are hard to sell to.
• nabakin 6y ago
  My first thought was they did it from a security/quality perspective. Less fake accounts in their ecosystem trying to hawk free trials when you have to verify by providing payment info.
• chrischen 6y ago
  I’ve personally found it extremely hidden and difficult when canceling Apple TV or iTunes subscriptions.
• ardy42 6y ago
  > In fact, I'd suspect this is intended as a user-friendly feature. It means you had to be presented with the cost up-front before you began the trial, avoiding letting shadier developers do a bait and switch when the trial expires and the user needs to sign up again. (Not saying there aren't other ways this could be done, but...) Doesn't Apple take a cut of app subscription revenue? So could requiring auto-renewal just be a way of increasing profits, while deflecting the negative PR for the subscription dark pattern onto individual app developers?
  • baddox 6y ago
    It could be, but that doesn't fit with the aggressive billing cycle notifications that Apple does which it certainly could choose to not do.
• tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  > trial expires and the user needs to sign up again How would that be a bait and switch?
• boudin 6y ago
  This is the contrary of user friendly. This is not a free trial, it's a subscription with a first month (or whatever period) offered disguised as a free trial.
• daemin 6y ago
  The emails can definitely be a good thing for reminding someone about billing, but they're not entirely effective. Most people would ignore emails such as these or they would read them and forget the information as something else is more important, or just rarely check their emails (like weekly, fortnightly, etc). So the default behaviour matters most in this situation, as evidenced by opt-in vs opt-out for things such as organ donation. When it takes action to opt in most people don't do it (even though it's a good thing), and when it's opt out then most people don't take the actions of removing themselves from being an organ donor. In this case with all the emails that Apple sends having the default behaviour be opt-in would actually still work. People that want to continue using the application should take the necessary steps to subscribe. If not then they either didn't want the subscription, don't use the application, or they didn't read the messages and are relieved that they're not spending money unnecessarily. Therefore having opt-out be the default for subscriptions means that Apple is doing it explicitly because it makes them more money than the reverse situation. It is actually user hostile but with the thin veneer (typical of T&C or Privacy Policy) that they "told you so".