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I just paid for 12 months worth of Skype subscription which I have used for just 2 calls back in January. I want ALL my subscriptions to go through Apple Pay a

I just paid for 12 months worth of Skype subscription which I have used for just 2 calls back in January. I want ALL my subscriptions to go through Apple Pay and App store. Once I subscribed to New York times. The newspaper that was advertised to me for years in all Hollywood movies as a place where honesty and freedom are of highest priority. I had to spend an hour on a phone with their representatives to cancel it refusing to accept discount or a free subscription. I don't trust many other companies. Especially if all my interactions with them are virtual and they are not specialized in information technology. At least big tech is quite rich to afford to think about users. Each bank got their app and added some obvious features there: pay for utilities, for your phone etc. I want more progress here. I want to be able to see all my fees upfront in a clear format. I want to know my credit score. I want to be able to take this credit score to different organizations. etc. etc. Big hope that fin tech will blow it up, but unfortunately start ups didn't deliver. There are some successful ones, but I think finance is too regulated for them to have a shot at a serious scale. Apple and Google have a shot at that and they will create a road for smaller companies. The situation in Belarus is bad. And believe me I know. I was concerned as well about my device security. But to be honest at the end of the day it can't be Apple's problem. Belarussian government must be replaced by Belarussian people and Apple has nothing to do with that. And on top of that - what choice do I have. Android devices in Russia are preinstalled with Russian software while Apple's aren't. That's more important sign for me.

qz2 6y ago
Spot on. Managing subscriptions is a shit show generally. Doing it in one place is the right thing for the end user.
- pmontra 6y ago
  I agree but I don't want that place to be tightly tied with the maker of my phone. I want to be able to change phone and not loose anything. Phones are commodities to me. Who makes them is as important as the brand of gas I put in my car. Browser, mail client, WhatsApp, camera, maps, banking apps are about all I need. The subscription management service should be a third party.
  - bilbo0s 6y ago
    But you can have a third party if you want. (Though my personal preference would be NO party. I want total control over it myself with zero privacy leaks. But that likely won't happen.) In any case, the point is that you could buy something other than an Apple phone if that's important to you. I mean why buy a horridly overpriced phone that can't do what you want it to do? I wouldn't buy a Ferrari to haul farming implements around the back roads of Wisconsin.
  - oblio 6y ago
    It should actually be a banking service and it should be portable between banks. There should be a banking standard for this.
    - qz2 6y ago
      This is an excellent point and perhaps the right answer. Most of these problems exist because the one place we trust to manage our resources never pivoted on these things. In fact most banks are barely crawling out of the dark ages.
    - pmontra 6y ago
      Some of them are portable between banks, at least where I live (Italy). Anything I authorize to be paid for automatically (usually periodically) from my bank account can be ported to another bank (utilities, etc.). I give the authorization to the new bank and they do the work because it's in their best interest. I expect this to work in most of the EU and/or the SEPA area because the regulations and the tools are the same. Handling periodical billings on my credit cards is probably a pain, I'd have to go through all those services and update them. It would be nice if VISA or MasterCard would do that for me. Luckily all those services send me mail when my credit card expires and I get the new one.
  - theshrike79 6y ago
    Paypal can be used as a third party, but they're not a bank so it comes with risks. The other option is to use a different virtual credit card for each subscription and just cancel the number when needed.
- tommilukkarinen 6y ago
  Right, this is the network effect behind it. There is never before experienced convenience as you buy your apps, movies, books and songs from one place, which is in your pocket. Then there's the other store for all tangible things (Amazon). The list goes on, MS for business apps, Facebook for social media. Google for information?
Hokusai 6y ago
> I want ALL my subscriptions to go through Apple Pay and App store What about defining a standard subscription protocol that allows any company to offer subscription management, and allow consumers to change their subscription manager if they are not happy? Putting all your eggs in one nest because you currently like it is a very risky gamble. Banking has worked with standards for decades that allow interoperability and competition. > But to be honest at the end of the day it can't be Apple's problem. That's why the trust in one company should be very limited. As a non USA consumer, I will prefer some one else managing my data.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Gravityloss 6y ago
  I understand similar fragmentation exists in payments for electric car charging. You need lots of cards, accounts, qr codes, sms and calls. This makes all the technological progress with billions poured into it not very useful, if you can't trust that you can charge on a road trip. Someone could make a single app that would handle all that for you.
  - zamalek 6y ago
    It's called Plugshare and it works with most networks, and probably only works on Android (due to Apple's payment restrictions).
    - theshrike79 6y ago
      YMMV. I can't pay on any of the charging points I use, not on iOS or Android. Even if I could, it'd most likely use the roaming price of $FUCKTON, so no thanks.
      - zamalek 6y ago
        Yeah, I typically use Electrify America (range anxiety has been replaced by "is the charger broken anxiety" and EA is hella reliable), and they don't support Plugshare. Apparently they are working on account identification through the charging cable, if that catches on this mess could really be a thing of the past. I'm going off-topic, though.
pfranz 6y ago
A similar thing happened to me years ago. I was a monthly contributor to This American Life. I switched credit cards and wanted to update my payment, but they had changed their website or something and there was, as far as I could tell, no way to change or cancel or any "account" page or "login" system. I couldn't even find support or a phone number. I think I sent email to a generic account and waited a week. After not hearing back I canceled the credit card. I tried to stick to PayPal to manage subscriptions for a few years since it was centralized and I could change payments or cancel. Patreon seems to have taken over a lot of this--but it's even more niche. > Big hope that fin tech will blow it up, but unfortunately start ups didn't deliver. I just can't imagine the ROI needed to satisfy VC funding...especially without it becoming shady or predatory itself. Or, like you said, the regulations involved for a self-funded startup. I think the other aspect is that big companies aren't motivated to play ball. Yodlee is probably the biggest player and has had spottier integration as companies have added 2fa and other security measures. Very few have gone as far as adding tokens to support 3rd parties like Yodlee. > Each bank got their app and added some obvious features there I suspect if something does happen (I'm not particularly confident) it will be a spinoff from a bank like how Allstate and Discover Card were spinoffs of Sears or Kingsford Charcoal from Ford Motor. Do companies do this anymore?
Razengan 6y ago
> I want ALL my subscriptions to go through Apple Pay and App store. This. I just got screwed out of money by Couchsurfing when they started throwing a full-screen extortion prompt that prevents you from using the app or website at all so you can’t even delete your account until you cough up the dough. They are using their own payment processing system. If they used the standard In-App Purchases, Apple could have given me a refund on the spot and hopefully booted them off the store for this bait and switch tactic. Apple has always refunded me without question and I am willing to bet that most complaints about the App Store are from those entities that Apple protects users from.
webmobdev 6y ago
> I want ALL my subscriptions to go through Apple Pay and App store. You do so only because you believe have no choice as you know that your democracy is so crippled that you don't expect them to protect your rights as a consumer any more! Where as many Europeans and Asians, who also enjoy democratic rights, will tell you openly that we would prefer that our democratically elected government protect our consumer rights through regulations that bind all corporates to behave themselves.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  Well, okay, it may be the case that our democracy is so crippled that it can’t protect basic consumer rights. But even so, what are we supposed to do? Quit our jobs, abandon our livelihoods, and take to the streets until our government decides we’re too much trouble and hands over power to a more consumer-friendly replacement government? Or just continue to want to use subscriptions through Apple where possible?
  - danieldk 6y ago
    I don't know, perhaps vote for politicians that do have your rights and not corporation's rights at heart? Convince people that protecting their rights and livelihoods is not socialism or unamerican? I know that this is difficult in the US, both because there is so little choice in elections and it is difficult to convince other people to vote differently. But you can be sure that if everyone puts all their eggs in Apple's (or more generally FAANG's) basket, their only interest is and will be their corporate profit, not your or content creators' rights.
    - ummonk 6y ago
      Dude you're responding to someone in Belarus. Americans voting for nonsocialist candidates is not the issue there.
      - danieldk 6y ago
        Wait what? Googling the user name that I am replying to leads to: https://github.com/baddox https://github.com/baddox San Francisco, CA
kochthesecond 6y ago
> At least big tech is quite rich to afford to think about users. Sadly, this is reality. It is very hard to prioritize in most places living on thin margins.
gigatexal 6y ago
Same. Apple makes killing a subscription super easy.
ignoramous 6y ago
> Each bank got their app and added some obvious features there: pay for utilities, for your phone etc. I want more progress here. I want to be able to see all my fees upfront in a clear format. I want to know my credit score. I want to be able to take this credit score to different organizations. etc. etc. Brace for impact: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronshevlin/2020/11/30/google-plex-the-mobile-banking-app-every-bank-wants/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronshevlin/2020/11/30/google-pl...
- Closi 6y ago
  Most of this we have had in the UK for years (e.g. Monzo).
__jf__ 6y ago
The NYT experience is indeed the fastest way for a company to lose trust. It took me 3 tries to cancel. First rep said: yep cancelled all done. Except it wasnt: renewed at a discount. The 2nd rep: said sorry sorry and produced a chat transcript where I supposedly said thanks for the new discount, k thx bye (I didn’t). Said it was cancelled now. Surprise: it wasnt. Third rep got it done. For real this time. Still disappointed at how this played out.
simonh 6y ago
Indeed, I'm fed up with people criticising Apple because it refuses to instruct it's employees to criminalise themselves. Nobody expects any other companies to do this. It's bizzare to me how distorted a moral framework can be that people blame a company for obeying bad laws, as if breaking laws and criminalising employees was an acceptable and moral way to run a business. Sure a company can fight governments in court, if that option is available, but if it isn't or if that approach runs out, that's the end of the line. At the end of the day it's the governments and laws that need to change.
- vetinari 6y ago
  > people criticising Apple because it refuses to instruct it's employees to criminalise themselves. That's not what they criticize. They criticize Apple because Apple positioned itself to be the sole actor capable of enforcing such a bad laws. That they do it, surprised nobody. In this case, if they were not capable of destroying Telegram on iOS platform, their request would have no teeth and even the governments would not ask Apple to do it in the first place.
  - simonh 6y ago
    This really hasn't got anything to do with App Store exclusivity. They have a business model that's widely used and has been perfectly legal and established for many decades before they adopted it. This happens to make them vulnerable to certain forms of regulatory control. That's a government and regulatory issue, not a business issue.
  - brink 6y ago
    This. After Belarus, I thought Apple would have learned it's lesson and might loosen it's so-called "security" a bit and allow 3rd party apps/app stores on their phones, but nope; they went full steam ahead into their M1 chips with forced code signing in ARM, demonstrating that they learned nothing. Apple positioning itself as the sole proprietor of what can and cannot run on their machines will only get worse as censorship becomes normalized.
yoz-y 6y ago
Isn't there some sort of hack with subscriptions in the US where you can change your address to California and they have to offer you an electronic solution for cancelling?
m-p-3 6y ago
Personally I don't want all my subscriptions to go through Apple Pay, I want a system that all banks supports where I can manage my recurring payments/subscriptions, in which I can generate virtual, revocable credit cards to which I can set custom limits and track my expenses. I can do it for my emails, why not for my payment systems?
- mrweasel 6y ago
  Not exactly what you're looking for, but I talked to a developer of a solution that integrates with online banking and recognizes subscriptions and allow you to cancel them directly from your online banking thingy. Only downside is that it's the banks that has to do the integration. I can't really figure out how they deal with the actual unsubscribing bit. The subscriptions people are most likely to want to cancel has to be those who with the worst unsubscribe process.
scrozart 6y ago
Not sure how long ago you cancelled your NYT sub, but it took me 5 minutes yesterday.
sjs382 6y ago
> Once I subscribed to New York times. The newspaper that was advertised to me for years in all Hollywood movies as a place where honesty and freedom are of highest priority. I had to spend an hour on a phone with their representatives to cancel it refusing to accept discount or a free subscription. SAME. Somewhere deep in my comment history here, I tell the story of trying to cancel NYT, and needing to do it three times, because I kept getting charged. Ughhhhh.
- lern_too_spel 6y ago
  I had the same problem and contacted my state representative and my congressperson. This has since been fixed by regulation in California, and by having to follow California's laws, most companies' subscription services have been fixed for everybody.
  - sjs382 6y ago
    How has it been fixed? Are you able to easily cancel online, now?
    - lern_too_spel 6y ago
      Yes.
totalZero 6y ago
> I want to know my credit score. Several banks and credit cards offer FICO score information. The information is likely there for you, but you may have to accept some data sharing terms and conditions in order to access it. https://www.chase.com/personal/credit-cards/chase-credit-journey https://www.chase.com/personal/credit-cards/chase-credit-jou... https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/features-benefits/free-credit-score/ https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/features-ben... https://www.wellsfargo.com/goals-credit/smarter-credit/credit-101/fico/ https://www.wellsfargo.com/goals-credit/smarter-credit/credi... https://www.bankofamerica.com/credit-cards/free-fico-credit-score/ https://www.bankofamerica.com/credit-cards/free-fico-credit-...

qz2 6y ago

Spot on. Managing subscriptions is a shit show generally. Doing it in one place is the right thing for the end user.

pmontra 6y ago
I agree but I don't want that place to be tightly tied with the maker of my phone. I want to be able to change phone and not loose anything. Phones are commodities to me. Who makes them is as important as the brand of gas I put in my car. Browser, mail client, WhatsApp, camera, maps, banking apps are about all I need. The subscription management service should be a third party.
- bilbo0s 6y ago
  But you can have a third party if you want. (Though my personal preference would be NO party. I want total control over it myself with zero privacy leaks. But that likely won't happen.) In any case, the point is that you could buy something other than an Apple phone if that's important to you. I mean why buy a horridly overpriced phone that can't do what you want it to do? I wouldn't buy a Ferrari to haul farming implements around the back roads of Wisconsin.
- oblio 6y ago
  It should actually be a banking service and it should be portable between banks. There should be a banking standard for this.
  - qz2 6y ago
    This is an excellent point and perhaps the right answer. Most of these problems exist because the one place we trust to manage our resources never pivoted on these things. In fact most banks are barely crawling out of the dark ages.
  - pmontra 6y ago
    Some of them are portable between banks, at least where I live (Italy). Anything I authorize to be paid for automatically (usually periodically) from my bank account can be ported to another bank (utilities, etc.). I give the authorization to the new bank and they do the work because it's in their best interest. I expect this to work in most of the EU and/or the SEPA area because the regulations and the tools are the same. Handling periodical billings on my credit cards is probably a pain, I'd have to go through all those services and update them. It would be nice if VISA or MasterCard would do that for me. Luckily all those services send me mail when my credit card expires and I get the new one.
- theshrike79 6y ago
  Paypal can be used as a third party, but they're not a bank so it comes with risks. The other option is to use a different virtual credit card for each subscription and just cancel the number when needed.
tommilukkarinen 6y ago
Right, this is the network effect behind it. There is never before experienced convenience as you buy your apps, movies, books and songs from one place, which is in your pocket. Then there's the other store for all tangible things (Amazon). The list goes on, MS for business apps, Facebook for social media. Google for information?

Hokusai 6y ago

> I want ALL my subscriptions to go through Apple Pay and App store What about defining a standard subscription protocol that allows any company to offer subscription management, and allow consumers to change their subscription manager if they are not happy? Putting all your eggs in one nest because you currently like it is a very risky gamble. Banking has worked with standards for decades that allow interoperability and competition. > But to be honest at the end of the day it can't be Apple's problem. That's why the trust in one company should be very limited. As a non USA consumer, I will prefer some one else managing my data.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Gravityloss 6y ago
I understand similar fragmentation exists in payments for electric car charging. You need lots of cards, accounts, qr codes, sms and calls. This makes all the technological progress with billions poured into it not very useful, if you can't trust that you can charge on a road trip. Someone could make a single app that would handle all that for you.
- zamalek 6y ago
  It's called Plugshare and it works with most networks, and probably only works on Android (due to Apple's payment restrictions).
  - theshrike79 6y ago
    YMMV. I can't pay on any of the charging points I use, not on iOS or Android. Even if I could, it'd most likely use the roaming price of $FUCKTON, so no thanks.
    - zamalek 6y ago
      Yeah, I typically use Electrify America (range anxiety has been replaced by "is the charger broken anxiety" and EA is hella reliable), and they don't support Plugshare. Apparently they are working on account identification through the charging cable, if that catches on this mess could really be a thing of the past. I'm going off-topic, though.

pfranz 6y ago

A similar thing happened to me years ago. I was a monthly contributor to This American Life. I switched credit cards and wanted to update my payment, but they had changed their website or something and there was, as far as I could tell, no way to change or cancel or any "account" page or "login" system. I couldn't even find support or a phone number. I think I sent email to a generic account and waited a week. After not hearing back I canceled the credit card. I tried to stick to PayPal to manage subscriptions for a few years since it was centralized and I could change payments or cancel. Patreon seems to have taken over a lot of this--but it's even more niche. > Big hope that fin tech will blow it up, but unfortunately start ups didn't deliver. I just can't imagine the ROI needed to satisfy VC funding...especially without it becoming shady or predatory itself. Or, like you said, the regulations involved for a self-funded startup. I think the other aspect is that big companies aren't motivated to play ball. Yodlee is probably the biggest player and has had spottier integration as companies have added 2fa and other security measures. Very few have gone as far as adding tokens to support 3rd parties like Yodlee. > Each bank got their app and added some obvious features there I suspect if something does happen (I'm not particularly confident) it will be a spinoff from a bank like how Allstate and Discover Card were spinoffs of Sears or Kingsford Charcoal from Ford Motor. Do companies do this anymore?

Razengan 6y ago

> I want ALL my subscriptions to go through Apple Pay and App store. This. I just got screwed out of money by Couchsurfing when they started throwing a full-screen extortion prompt that prevents you from using the app or website at all so you can’t even delete your account until you cough up the dough. They are using their own payment processing system. If they used the standard In-App Purchases, Apple could have given me a refund on the spot and hopefully booted them off the store for this bait and switch tactic. Apple has always refunded me without question and I am willing to bet that most complaints about the App Store are from those entities that Apple protects users from.

webmobdev 6y ago

> I want ALL my subscriptions to go through Apple Pay and App store. You do so only because you believe have no choice as you know that your democracy is so crippled that you don't expect them to protect your rights as a consumer any more! Where as many Europeans and Asians, who also enjoy democratic rights, will tell you openly that we would prefer that our democratically elected government protect our consumer rights through regulations that bind all corporates to behave themselves.

tshaddox 6y ago
Well, okay, it may be the case that our democracy is so crippled that it can’t protect basic consumer rights. But even so, what are we supposed to do? Quit our jobs, abandon our livelihoods, and take to the streets until our government decides we’re too much trouble and hands over power to a more consumer-friendly replacement government? Or just continue to want to use subscriptions through Apple where possible?
- danieldk 6y ago
  I don't know, perhaps vote for politicians that do have your rights and not corporation's rights at heart? Convince people that protecting their rights and livelihoods is not socialism or unamerican? I know that this is difficult in the US, both because there is so little choice in elections and it is difficult to convince other people to vote differently. But you can be sure that if everyone puts all their eggs in Apple's (or more generally FAANG's) basket, their only interest is and will be their corporate profit, not your or content creators' rights.
  - ummonk 6y ago
    Dude you're responding to someone in Belarus. Americans voting for nonsocialist candidates is not the issue there.
    - danieldk 6y ago
      Wait what? Googling the user name that I am replying to leads to: https://github.com/baddox https://github.com/baddox San Francisco, CA

kochthesecond 6y ago

> At least big tech is quite rich to afford to think about users. Sadly, this is reality. It is very hard to prioritize in most places living on thin margins.

gigatexal 6y ago

Same. Apple makes killing a subscription super easy.

ignoramous 6y ago

> Each bank got their app and added some obvious features there: pay for utilities, for your phone etc. I want more progress here. I want to be able to see all my fees upfront in a clear format. I want to know my credit score. I want to be able to take this credit score to different organizations. etc. etc. Brace for impact: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronshevlin/2020/11/30/google-plex-the-mobile-banking-app-every-bank-wants/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronshevlin/2020/11/30/google-pl...

Closi 6y ago
Most of this we have had in the UK for years (e.g. Monzo).

__jf__ 6y ago

The NYT experience is indeed the fastest way for a company to lose trust. It took me 3 tries to cancel. First rep said: yep cancelled all done. Except it wasnt: renewed at a discount. The 2nd rep: said sorry sorry and produced a chat transcript where I supposedly said thanks for the new discount, k thx bye (I didn’t). Said it was cancelled now. Surprise: it wasnt. Third rep got it done. For real this time. Still disappointed at how this played out.

simonh 6y ago

Indeed, I'm fed up with people criticising Apple because it refuses to instruct it's employees to criminalise themselves. Nobody expects any other companies to do this. It's bizzare to me how distorted a moral framework can be that people blame a company for obeying bad laws, as if breaking laws and criminalising employees was an acceptable and moral way to run a business. Sure a company can fight governments in court, if that option is available, but if it isn't or if that approach runs out, that's the end of the line. At the end of the day it's the governments and laws that need to change.

vetinari 6y ago
> people criticising Apple because it refuses to instruct it's employees to criminalise themselves. That's not what they criticize. They criticize Apple because Apple positioned itself to be the sole actor capable of enforcing such a bad laws. That they do it, surprised nobody. In this case, if they were not capable of destroying Telegram on iOS platform, their request would have no teeth and even the governments would not ask Apple to do it in the first place.
- simonh 6y ago
  This really hasn't got anything to do with App Store exclusivity. They have a business model that's widely used and has been perfectly legal and established for many decades before they adopted it. This happens to make them vulnerable to certain forms of regulatory control. That's a government and regulatory issue, not a business issue.
- brink 6y ago
  This. After Belarus, I thought Apple would have learned it's lesson and might loosen it's so-called "security" a bit and allow 3rd party apps/app stores on their phones, but nope; they went full steam ahead into their M1 chips with forced code signing in ARM, demonstrating that they learned nothing. Apple positioning itself as the sole proprietor of what can and cannot run on their machines will only get worse as censorship becomes normalized.

yoz-y 6y ago

Isn't there some sort of hack with subscriptions in the US where you can change your address to California and they have to offer you an electronic solution for cancelling?

m-p-3 6y ago

Personally I don't want all my subscriptions to go through Apple Pay, I want a system that all banks supports where I can manage my recurring payments/subscriptions, in which I can generate virtual, revocable credit cards to which I can set custom limits and track my expenses. I can do it for my emails, why not for my payment systems?

mrweasel 6y ago
Not exactly what you're looking for, but I talked to a developer of a solution that integrates with online banking and recognizes subscriptions and allow you to cancel them directly from your online banking thingy. Only downside is that it's the banks that has to do the integration. I can't really figure out how they deal with the actual unsubscribing bit. The subscriptions people are most likely to want to cancel has to be those who with the worst unsubscribe process.

scrozart 6y ago

Not sure how long ago you cancelled your NYT sub, but it took me 5 minutes yesterday.

sjs382 6y ago

> Once I subscribed to New York times. The newspaper that was advertised to me for years in all Hollywood movies as a place where honesty and freedom are of highest priority. I had to spend an hour on a phone with their representatives to cancel it refusing to accept discount or a free subscription. SAME. Somewhere deep in my comment history here, I tell the story of trying to cancel NYT, and needing to do it three times, because I kept getting charged. Ughhhhh.

lern_too_spel 6y ago
I had the same problem and contacted my state representative and my congressperson. This has since been fixed by regulation in California, and by having to follow California's laws, most companies' subscription services have been fixed for everybody.
- sjs382 6y ago
  How has it been fixed? Are you able to easily cancel online, now?
  - lern_too_spel 6y ago
    Yes.

totalZero 6y ago

> I want to know my credit score. Several banks and credit cards offer FICO score information. The information is likely there for you, but you may have to accept some data sharing terms and conditions in order to access it. https://www.chase.com/personal/credit-cards/chase-credit-journey https://www.chase.com/personal/credit-cards/chase-credit-jou... https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/features-benefits/free-credit-score/ https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/features-ben... https://www.wellsfargo.com/goals-credit/smarter-credit/credit-101/fico/ https://www.wellsfargo.com/goals-credit/smarter-credit/credi... https://www.bankofamerica.com/credit-cards/free-fico-credit-score/ https://www.bankofamerica.com/credit-cards/free-fico-credit-...