12 ms·

Many of the reviews of the Android app are quite critical of the trial and payment model, for example: > CAUTION: After the free trial period (7 days), they wi

Many of the reviews of the Android app are quite critical of the trial and payment model, for example: > CAUTION: After the free trial period (7 days), they will charge for an annual subscription ($102.95 US). This is OPT OUT, not opt in. In other reviews they say they will offer a refund (I will update when/if I get one) but for an app for people with executive function issues, an opt out format seems shady. Either way, I won't be purchasing this for my loved one with the opt out format for payment. > They exploit the same vulnerability of the patients, they aim to cure! They take you in confidence and then charge you after the trial ends. ADHD folks forget things all the time and it's a challenge for them. An email reminder is not going to cut it. We have thousands of emails in our inbox. This is profiteering from the mental disability of others. Stay away. A pro-rata charge is a fairer policy for ADHD folks. Any ADHD book will be more useful for what is presented in this app anyway. > Requires payment to be set up to use free trial... Seems a bit predatory on a mental health app for ADHD brains... We tend to forget things like canceling memberships. And of course they only tell you once you have wasted time making an account. SMH > Why do you need a credit card to do a 7 day free trial? Why don't you take my card number if I want to continue after the 7 days? What if I forget to cancel, and forget to request refund? I see what you did there Sounds like they're all making some very relevant points about the app payment model potentially exploiting the ADHD deficit in executive functioning, and the tendency of people with ADHD to unintentionally forget things like subscriptions and bill payments. How do you respond to these critiques?

mStreamTeam 5y ago
As someone with ADHD, I can confirm this model is super predatory. I cancel all my credit cards every year just to get rid of all opt-in charges on regular basis
- throwanem 5y ago
  Billing an entire annual subscription up front, as opposed to monthly, seems especially questionable. What if the therapy doesn't work? What if it's so badly implemented that it can't work? You're still out a hundred bucks just the same, and that's just in the first year. edit: There is also a monthly subscription option, in the Apple app store at least. It's $22 a month - so over twice as much as the annual. This does not give me to think the product here is less sketchy. And the Psy.D founder, Sachs, is a pretty blatant self-promoter of the sort endemic to the ADD/ADHD "coaching" space, if unusually well qualified by that standard: https://sachscenter.com/adult-child-psychiatrist-psychologist/ https://sachscenter.com/adult-child-psychiatrist-psychologis... Perhaps it's less of a surprise than I initially found it that the account posting this Launch HN has thus far had nothing further to say. also edit: Sachs is a Psy.D, not an MD. Granted, this does entitle him to "Dr." as a term of address, just as would a doctorate in physics, ancient history, or underwater basket-weaving. But, just as with any of those, it doesn't qualify him as a doctor in the generally understood sense. Again, this gives one reasonably to question, and the questions thus raised are ones for which well-prepared founders may reasonably be expected to provide compelling answers.
  - skeletron 5y ago
    I just downloaded the Android app to check, and it's a similar ratio as you describe for the Apple app store: £19.99 per month if paid monthly, but £7.17 per month (as £85.99 per year) if paid annually. And on my phone at least, the monthly payment option is also hidden behind a scroll down action: https://i.imgur.com/rV0bMTH.jpg https://i.imgur.com/rV0bMTH.jpg, with the yearly subscription already selected by default. It would seem they're pushing quite strongly this annual payment option.
    - throwanem 5y ago
      It's really remarkable. I'm not too proud to admit that I spent a long time not really taking ADD/ADHD all that seriously. That was before I fell in love with someone who has ADD. Seeing on a daily basis the effect it has on him, and the extent to which, even with effective treatment, it remains a serious obstacle in terms of executive function and followthrough even for things he plainly cares a lot about - to say nothing of subscription fees, which even people without these disorders find easy enough to forget that tools for managing them constitute an entire genre in their own right... Well, I'm really looking forward to seeing what the founders have to say for themselves here, if anything, and wondering what reasons they could give me not to warn my boyfriend off their product in the strongest of terms.
      - chrsig 5y ago
        Hey, as an adhd person that really gets frustrated when people don't take adhd seriously -- thanks for changing your stance. it generally only gets portrayed in the media based on how other people experience people with adhd -- never the actual experience of the person with adhd. i hope that changes in the future, so more people can have a similar exposure to it that you've had as a loved one.
    - sebisaacsinflow 5y ago
      Thanks for the feedback - this is due to screen size on Android and we're current working on fixing issues impacting smaller screen sizes at the moment.
- toqy 5y ago
  If you aren't doing so already, you should look into if your card has virtual cards. Capital One for example does. I think it would make your current process easier.
  - d4mi3n 5y ago
    I use Privacy[1] for this and would highly recommend the service to anybody using a bank that doesn't have an easy and convenient way to issue disposable card numbers (most US banks). 1. https://privacy.com/ https://privacy.com/
  - gnicholas 5y ago
    It looks like Capital One does this via a Chrome extension, which you have to install (and which can presumably look over your shoulder to see all of the shopping websites you visit). I might consider installing this, deactivating it by default, and then only enabling it when I want to make a purchase. But I was hoping there would be a simple number generator in the mobile app. I guess that would be too easy!
- ivank 5y ago
  Canceling a credit card does not cancel your obligation to pay a vendor unless you also terminate your plan with them. Some of them will try to collect, especially if you had a contract.
  - mStreamTeam 5y ago
    Sometimes I go through my bill and find opt-in services so I can call in charge backs against them before I cancel. They can pry that money out of my cold dead hands. And I've yet to have anything sent to collections
- zarkov99 5y ago
  Try Privacy.com that should help you manage your subscriptions a lot better.
- weisk 5y ago
  There are nowadays plenty of e-banking solutions which provide you with virtual cards, which you can create and destroy on the fly and at 0 cost. It is really wonderful for this kind of scenario. Vivid is the one I've been using, I couldnt be happier with it. Theres also N26 allowing this, and Im not sure but, Skrill, Transferwise, Revolut,...
- Justin_K 5y ago
  Also, as someone without ADHD, I can also say this model is predatory. Nobody should have to remember to put in a request to not be charged after a trial.
  - chrsig 5y ago
    You're not wrong - but it's maybe not great to distract from the predatory nature of targeting people that are at high risk of being exploited from this model. It's bad all around, but it's extra bad for people with adhd -- and considering it's an adhd app, it really puts it on a different level of predatory that's worth focusing on.
- anchpop 5y ago
  I tried this to get out of my gym membership and they sent the bill to collections. Luckily I called them and they didn't make me pay it. They did ban me from the gym however
what_is_orcas 5y ago
I mean, reading the description, it's hard not to get a little concerned: "a start up that's going to try to make money off of folks with ADHD" isn't a great starting place. I think this is sort of a broader start-up problem. Some things shouldn't be monetized (period, but for the sake of the audience, I'll add: at least not as aggressively as is required for a start-up).
- predatoryyc 5y ago
  It’s shameful for YC to invest in this and blast it onto the front page of HN. Unethical and gross. I wish this site was community driven and not used as an avenue for YC to promote their awful investments.
- rubylark 5y ago
  Here's a counter argument: "a company making money off of folks with ____" describes the entirety of the Biomed industry. Every medical device is sold with the intention of helping people with medical issues, but they can't be free. The cost of development and production has to be covered by somebody (be that by the government, medical insurance, or private party). If it wasn't, the company making the device wouldn't have developed it in the first place.
  - throwanem 5y ago
    That industry is also regulated and monitored to ensure that the interventions coming out of it are generally safe and effective. Is the same true here?
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    > Every medical device is sold with the intention of helping people with medical issues, but they can't be free. Close, but a slight correction here: Every medical device is sold with the intention of maximising profit, but they can't do nothing or people wouldn't buy them. That more accurately portrays the priority.
  - drgeorgesachs 5y ago
    So true.
chrsig 5y ago
yeah, this really undermines the credibility of the app. I really hope that they address this.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
101008 5y ago
This is so shady and I "could" understand it coming from a random startup... but by a startup backed by YC? And that it gets it own Launch HN thread (while others startups had to do it in the batch posts?). This is no the first time in the last months that something like this happened, unfortunately.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  why do you think YCombinator isn't willing to exploit people? They're a VC accelerator, of course they are. Just because the profit motive doesn't always lead to immoral behaviour, doesn't mean that profit-motivated people aren't going to pursue immoral behaviour if it's profitable.
  - throwanem 5y ago
    It's a little surprising to see YC start to risk the brand this way, though, and as others have noted in this thread, not for the first time recently - Skip the Interview, in particular, being of note in this connection, after having shut down the same day it launched due to a complete, and frankly rather easily predictable, failure of product-market fit. Right now, and in the past, "YC-backed" has consistently been a very solid selling point, both for following rounds and in recruitment. Maybe it's just a transient bobble, and I strongly hope that proves true. Still, at this rate, I'm starting to wonder a little what "YC-backed" might come to mean a few years hence, and whether it'll still be worth the same.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      The low-hanging fruit have been picked over. The easy wins of SaaS and consumer web tech have been won already, but they still have an obligation to generate the same levels of profit (have you ever seen a company gracefully shrink with its industry, especially a financialised company?), so they will start to both go for niches, and go for exploitation. Growth is always most rapid at the introduction of a new industry, and if you're a hypercapitalist (as VCs tend to be) you're going to be under pressure to see continued profit levels long after the industry can sustain them healthily.
mrkurt 5y ago
It's fair to criticize this, but it's worth noting that this is how subscriptions work in Google / Apple app stores. You really can't do anything else.
- eh9 5y ago
  Why do you think you can’t do anything else? There’s different trial methods. Shorter subscription periods. OPT-in models.
  - mrkurt 5y ago
    There are no free trial subscriptions with opt-in "continue paying" as far as I know. I mean, why would Apple and Google build that? They make more money with trial + automatic billing.
    - Geeflow 5y ago
      I once built such a trial option myself. You could start a free trial (just within the app, no "native trial" involved) and then sign up for the paid plan with native in-app purchases once it ran out. It got rejected by Apple. They insisted I use the native app store trial which is opt-out.
    - lucasmullens 5y ago
      Of course they support an opt-in model, they can't really choose to not support it. The "free trial" can just be the app giving you all the features for a week, and then the app can prompt you to sign up (opt-in) for a subscription with Apple/Google when that ends. No CC number until after the trial ends. EDIT: I'm wrong, comment next to mine says Apple has rejected this. Maybe Google wouldn't though?
- jnovek 5y ago
  I have ADHD, so wearing my consumer hat for a moment, I guess I just don’t really care. It’s their problem to figure out how to present their product to me in a compelling way that I am willing to pay for. I don’t open my wallet just because I feel bad for starving founders.
colinplamondon 5y ago
This is totally wrong. The economics of monthly billing are awful, and completely unworkable for a new startup. You have to do annual. Cost of Install: $7.00, for something this specific Trial Start Rate: 20%, if paywalled like this app is Cost Per Trial: $35 Conversion to Trial: 40% Cost Per Subscriber: $87.50 If they charge you $10/month, they can't get into the black on a new customer for 9 months. They have to eat support costs that whole time. It just doesn't work, when you're starting out. You must charge annual. Medical licensing cartels charge $500-800 PER MONTH. These guys are trying to charge $100 PER YEAR. This is an order of magnitude more effective. Said another way: if someone is too poor for this, they're fucked. They're definitely too poor for any other treatment option. On the other hand, this will open up treatment to people who can't pay the medical cartels. That's amazing, iterative progress. Let's give props to these guys for making epic iterative progress, not shit on them because they're not working for free.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- d4mi3n 5y ago
  The problem isn’t the cost, it’s the way folks with ADHD are being charged. The whole point here is to help folks who are having trouble remembering to do things. Regardless of the economics, the optics here make this seem like exploitation. Making this opt-in avoids a dark pattern. Folks with ADHD are often impulsive and strike while the iron is hot—if this has value people will opt-in.
  - colinplamondon 5y ago
    Why are we holding this new startup to a standard we don't hold anyone else? 6 months from now when they have their economics figured out, cool, they can run that test. Generally, giving users a toggle to get reminded when a trial is about to run out will INCREASE conversion rates. That depends on the business, and is part of a pretty standard set of experiments you run post-launch. With your comments you're part HN is descending into a circular firing squad of virtue signaling. These guys shipped something that could help a lot of people, over time they can improve their onboarding flow, lower cost. Is the most remarkable thing about a really cool CBT tool for ADHD really that they have a standard trial flow?
SyzygistSix 5y ago
"but for an app for people with executive function issues, an opt out format seems shady" is so dead on. What an enormous red flag. Might as well come right out and say that they understand ADHD and plan to use its drawbacks to make money from people. Considering how desperate a lot of people are for treatment, this sounds like a great monetary investment for people with no conscience. This may be a bit harsh. I'm a bit salty as navigating the process to get treatment for ADHD is a continual reminder that most services are tilted towards providing services to already well-functioning people. I probably will try it, after all you did just remind me to cancel my free Prime membership, even though it was right there in bold on my day planner a week ago.
- djbusby 5y ago
  Argg! I also have a thing I forgot to cancel last month! Did you get your Prime one done? I'm doing mine right now. Edit: done! Thanks.
  - SyzygistSix 5y ago
    I did it right away, half asleep. The post absolutely reminded me to. The app worked! lol Plus my dislike of Amazon is rather motivating.
deeblering4 5y ago
FWIW this is how several diet apps work as well. Short initial free trial, followed by auto-charge lump sum subscription of 6-12mo. Not my favorite model, but also probably not intentionally predatory towards a specific group of people. From a business point of view it makes some sense. It extracts maximum money from customers in a niche that is inherently flakey (dieting, self-help, etc.). People often start off strong for a few weeks/months and flake out. Forcing a longer up-front commitment helps their bottom line, and possibly helps some customers stick with it since they already spent the money. I'm not trying to defend it, but I do think it's a bit much to say it's intentionally predatory. From my view it's just app economy capitalism at work.
- krono 5y ago
  The massive difference that you are overlooking, however, is the fact that ADHD Brains are neurologically and/or biochemically incapable of defense against this. That inner voice telling you what to do or what not to do? ADHD brains have... well, let's just say "something else".. in its place.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > That inner voice telling you what to do or what not to do? ADHD brains have... well, let's just say "something else".. in its place. Pretty much every description I’ve heard from people diagnosed with ADHD features the same kind of internal voice as neurotypical people describe; the “something else” seems to be between that voice and action, not in place of it.
    - krono 5y ago
      I'm diagnosed with severe combined type ADHD (top tier, best of both worlds) which could have something to do with this, but I can't say I have ever thought of this voice and action/driver as separate things. My natural, pre-treatment, and unmedicated sub-/semi-conscious behaviour is not at all like that of a typical person.
- staticautomatic 5y ago
sebisaacsinflow 5y ago
Thanks for highlighting this - we're trying to figure out what the best model is for our community. A lot of other apps follow a similar model, we allow people to cancel anytime and have refunded everyone that has forgotten to cancel. Some people also like having the subscription because it is a pay per use model rather than putting everyone under the same one-off bundle. We're working on extending the free trial / moving to a freemium model. Would love any suggestions on how to improve this.
- mStreamTeam 5y ago
  The best model for your community is free and open source. Your current model of opt-in subscriptions makes it clear you're looking for the best model for your bank account
  - samhw 5y ago
    How do you propose that they feed and house themselves? Has someone got a GitHub repo for that?
    - mStreamTeam 5y ago
      They can get a real job instead of making products that prey on people with ADHD. There's no job shortage, so don't make excuses for them
      - samhw 5y ago
        My point is about the unbelievably privileged attitude of "you should make products for me free of charge, or else you're the greedy one". Not whether this specific product should exist, which is a different point from how it should be funded.
        mStreamTeam 5y ago
        You're using quotes but I never said those words. Never speak on my behalf again. It's insulting. I don't want them to do it for free. I want then to not make a predatory product. I want them to make their money through a more honest business And if they can't do that, I want them to do nothing
brainwipe 5y ago
Given that executive dysfunction is one facet of ADHD/ADD, having opt-out is definitely preying on the users. Avoid.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
redmaverick 5y ago
>> After the free trial period (7 days), they will charge for an annual subscription ($102.95 US). This is OPT OUT, not opt in. This is the norm right. I don't know ANY app that is OPT IN after the initial trial period is done. This is the Industry Standard.
- danShumway 5y ago
  Industry Standard isn't marketed specifically to people with ADHD at the exclusion of everyone else. At the point where a product is targeted at people who struggle with this, and it's still not putting thought into how they'll react, something has gone very wrong. Industry standards for media often don't included content warnings. However, if someone posts on HN that they're building a streaming service designed primarily for people with trauma, and they don't include content warnings in front of their shows, you'd probably have some questions -- because you expect them to know their audience. To me, this launch suggests that the founders either haven't spent much time thinking about how their process actually will work with their target audience or (much worse) that they did think about it and still decided that it would be OK. It's just really tone-deaf to have a launch HN that spends all this time talking about how the intake process for people with ADHD is thoughtless or needlessly difficult, when their app's funding model is making the same mistakes and lacking the same affordances.
joyeuse6701 5y ago
Presumably for the same reason opt-in is a problem too.
rileypetersen 5y ago
Can confirm: subscribed, never used it, and was charged $102 a week later. I was issued a refund after requesting one through the app store.
mkr-hn 5y ago
I managed to put together a system to keep track of renewals, and still make sure to pre-cancel them so they won't renew without me meaning to. Too many services will take your money and shut you down if you cancel renewal before the end, and I won't touch any that do. They need to be very clear on how they handle this, or it's a hard pass for me.
weathawi 5y ago
maybe it's good to start putting service payments on blockchain to enable easier accounting, and not require ongoing payments.
zafiro17 5y ago
Noom, a popular diet/weight-loss app, works on the same principle. I've used it. To start the free trial you need to prepare the payment mechanism. Then after X amount of days, the paid service automatically kicks in. I wasn't super-excited to discover I'd just committed a lot of money before I was ready or even fully committed to the app/service. I suspect this is going to be the new trend for future apps, since it almost certainly delivers a higher number of paid users than other methods do.
vineyardmike 5y ago
I would encourage everyone who feels strongly about this to feel empowered to use the App Store reporting system, or the Better Business Bureau complaint system to report exploit and manipulation by business. https://www.bbb.org/file-a-complaint https://www.bbb.org/file-a-complaint
renewiltord 5y ago
Thanks for the warning. I'll stick to my prescription.
say_it_as_it_is 5y ago
Are you working on a competing product in the mental health space? You're clearly not a prospective patient and you don't have loved ones who you were evaluating this for. Your careful scrutiny exposes you.

mStreamTeam 5y ago

As someone with ADHD, I can confirm this model is super predatory. I cancel all my credit cards every year just to get rid of all opt-in charges on regular basis

throwanem 5y ago
Billing an entire annual subscription up front, as opposed to monthly, seems especially questionable. What if the therapy doesn't work? What if it's so badly implemented that it can't work? You're still out a hundred bucks just the same, and that's just in the first year. edit: There is also a monthly subscription option, in the Apple app store at least. It's $22 a month - so over twice as much as the annual. This does not give me to think the product here is less sketchy. And the Psy.D founder, Sachs, is a pretty blatant self-promoter of the sort endemic to the ADD/ADHD "coaching" space, if unusually well qualified by that standard: https://sachscenter.com/adult-child-psychiatrist-psychologist/ https://sachscenter.com/adult-child-psychiatrist-psychologis... Perhaps it's less of a surprise than I initially found it that the account posting this Launch HN has thus far had nothing further to say. also edit: Sachs is a Psy.D, not an MD. Granted, this does entitle him to "Dr." as a term of address, just as would a doctorate in physics, ancient history, or underwater basket-weaving. But, just as with any of those, it doesn't qualify him as a doctor in the generally understood sense. Again, this gives one reasonably to question, and the questions thus raised are ones for which well-prepared founders may reasonably be expected to provide compelling answers.
- skeletron 5y ago
  I just downloaded the Android app to check, and it's a similar ratio as you describe for the Apple app store: £19.99 per month if paid monthly, but £7.17 per month (as £85.99 per year) if paid annually. And on my phone at least, the monthly payment option is also hidden behind a scroll down action: https://i.imgur.com/rV0bMTH.jpg https://i.imgur.com/rV0bMTH.jpg, with the yearly subscription already selected by default. It would seem they're pushing quite strongly this annual payment option.
  - throwanem 5y ago
    It's really remarkable. I'm not too proud to admit that I spent a long time not really taking ADD/ADHD all that seriously. That was before I fell in love with someone who has ADD. Seeing on a daily basis the effect it has on him, and the extent to which, even with effective treatment, it remains a serious obstacle in terms of executive function and followthrough even for things he plainly cares a lot about - to say nothing of subscription fees, which even people without these disorders find easy enough to forget that tools for managing them constitute an entire genre in their own right... Well, I'm really looking forward to seeing what the founders have to say for themselves here, if anything, and wondering what reasons they could give me not to warn my boyfriend off their product in the strongest of terms.
    - chrsig 5y ago
      Hey, as an adhd person that really gets frustrated when people don't take adhd seriously -- thanks for changing your stance. it generally only gets portrayed in the media based on how other people experience people with adhd -- never the actual experience of the person with adhd. i hope that changes in the future, so more people can have a similar exposure to it that you've had as a loved one.
  - sebisaacsinflow 5y ago
    Thanks for the feedback - this is due to screen size on Android and we're current working on fixing issues impacting smaller screen sizes at the moment.
toqy 5y ago
If you aren't doing so already, you should look into if your card has virtual cards. Capital One for example does. I think it would make your current process easier.
- d4mi3n 5y ago
  I use Privacy[1] for this and would highly recommend the service to anybody using a bank that doesn't have an easy and convenient way to issue disposable card numbers (most US banks). 1. https://privacy.com/ https://privacy.com/
- gnicholas 5y ago
  It looks like Capital One does this via a Chrome extension, which you have to install (and which can presumably look over your shoulder to see all of the shopping websites you visit). I might consider installing this, deactivating it by default, and then only enabling it when I want to make a purchase. But I was hoping there would be a simple number generator in the mobile app. I guess that would be too easy!
ivank 5y ago
Canceling a credit card does not cancel your obligation to pay a vendor unless you also terminate your plan with them. Some of them will try to collect, especially if you had a contract.
- mStreamTeam 5y ago
  Sometimes I go through my bill and find opt-in services so I can call in charge backs against them before I cancel. They can pry that money out of my cold dead hands. And I've yet to have anything sent to collections
zarkov99 5y ago
Try Privacy.com that should help you manage your subscriptions a lot better.
weisk 5y ago
There are nowadays plenty of e-banking solutions which provide you with virtual cards, which you can create and destroy on the fly and at 0 cost. It is really wonderful for this kind of scenario. Vivid is the one I've been using, I couldnt be happier with it. Theres also N26 allowing this, and Im not sure but, Skrill, Transferwise, Revolut,...
Justin_K 5y ago
Also, as someone without ADHD, I can also say this model is predatory. Nobody should have to remember to put in a request to not be charged after a trial.
- chrsig 5y ago
  You're not wrong - but it's maybe not great to distract from the predatory nature of targeting people that are at high risk of being exploited from this model. It's bad all around, but it's extra bad for people with adhd -- and considering it's an adhd app, it really puts it on a different level of predatory that's worth focusing on.
anchpop 5y ago
I tried this to get out of my gym membership and they sent the bill to collections. Luckily I called them and they didn't make me pay it. They did ban me from the gym however

what_is_orcas 5y ago

I mean, reading the description, it's hard not to get a little concerned: "a start up that's going to try to make money off of folks with ADHD" isn't a great starting place. I think this is sort of a broader start-up problem. Some things shouldn't be monetized (period, but for the sake of the audience, I'll add: at least not as aggressively as is required for a start-up).

predatoryyc 5y ago
It’s shameful for YC to invest in this and blast it onto the front page of HN. Unethical and gross. I wish this site was community driven and not used as an avenue for YC to promote their awful investments.
rubylark 5y ago
Here's a counter argument: "a company making money off of folks with ____" describes the entirety of the Biomed industry. Every medical device is sold with the intention of helping people with medical issues, but they can't be free. The cost of development and production has to be covered by somebody (be that by the government, medical insurance, or private party). If it wasn't, the company making the device wouldn't have developed it in the first place.
- throwanem 5y ago
  That industry is also regulated and monitored to ensure that the interventions coming out of it are generally safe and effective. Is the same true here?
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  > Every medical device is sold with the intention of helping people with medical issues, but they can't be free. Close, but a slight correction here: Every medical device is sold with the intention of maximising profit, but they can't do nothing or people wouldn't buy them. That more accurately portrays the priority.
- drgeorgesachs 5y ago
  So true.

chrsig 5y ago

yeah, this really undermines the credibility of the app. I really hope that they address this.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

101008 5y ago

This is so shady and I "could" understand it coming from a random startup... but by a startup backed by YC? And that it gets it own Launch HN thread (while others startups had to do it in the batch posts?). This is no the first time in the last months that something like this happened, unfortunately.

beaconstudios 5y ago
why do you think YCombinator isn't willing to exploit people? They're a VC accelerator, of course they are. Just because the profit motive doesn't always lead to immoral behaviour, doesn't mean that profit-motivated people aren't going to pursue immoral behaviour if it's profitable.
- throwanem 5y ago
  It's a little surprising to see YC start to risk the brand this way, though, and as others have noted in this thread, not for the first time recently - Skip the Interview, in particular, being of note in this connection, after having shut down the same day it launched due to a complete, and frankly rather easily predictable, failure of product-market fit. Right now, and in the past, "YC-backed" has consistently been a very solid selling point, both for following rounds and in recruitment. Maybe it's just a transient bobble, and I strongly hope that proves true. Still, at this rate, I'm starting to wonder a little what "YC-backed" might come to mean a few years hence, and whether it'll still be worth the same.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    The low-hanging fruit have been picked over. The easy wins of SaaS and consumer web tech have been won already, but they still have an obligation to generate the same levels of profit (have you ever seen a company gracefully shrink with its industry, especially a financialised company?), so they will start to both go for niches, and go for exploitation. Growth is always most rapid at the introduction of a new industry, and if you're a hypercapitalist (as VCs tend to be) you're going to be under pressure to see continued profit levels long after the industry can sustain them healthily.

mrkurt 5y ago

It's fair to criticize this, but it's worth noting that this is how subscriptions work in Google / Apple app stores. You really can't do anything else.

eh9 5y ago
Why do you think you can’t do anything else? There’s different trial methods. Shorter subscription periods. OPT-in models.
- mrkurt 5y ago
  There are no free trial subscriptions with opt-in "continue paying" as far as I know. I mean, why would Apple and Google build that? They make more money with trial + automatic billing.
  - Geeflow 5y ago
    I once built such a trial option myself. You could start a free trial (just within the app, no "native trial" involved) and then sign up for the paid plan with native in-app purchases once it ran out. It got rejected by Apple. They insisted I use the native app store trial which is opt-out.
  - lucasmullens 5y ago
    Of course they support an opt-in model, they can't really choose to not support it. The "free trial" can just be the app giving you all the features for a week, and then the app can prompt you to sign up (opt-in) for a subscription with Apple/Google when that ends. No CC number until after the trial ends. EDIT: I'm wrong, comment next to mine says Apple has rejected this. Maybe Google wouldn't though?
jnovek 5y ago
I have ADHD, so wearing my consumer hat for a moment, I guess I just don’t really care. It’s their problem to figure out how to present their product to me in a compelling way that I am willing to pay for. I don’t open my wallet just because I feel bad for starving founders.

colinplamondon 5y ago

This is totally wrong. The economics of monthly billing are awful, and completely unworkable for a new startup. You have to do annual. Cost of Install: $7.00, for something this specific Trial Start Rate: 20%, if paywalled like this app is Cost Per Trial: $35 Conversion to Trial: 40% Cost Per Subscriber: $87.50 If they charge you $10/month, they can't get into the black on a new customer for 9 months. They have to eat support costs that whole time. It just doesn't work, when you're starting out. You must charge annual. Medical licensing cartels charge $500-800 PER MONTH. These guys are trying to charge $100 PER YEAR. This is an order of magnitude more effective. Said another way: if someone is too poor for this, they're fucked. They're definitely too poor for any other treatment option. On the other hand, this will open up treatment to people who can't pay the medical cartels. That's amazing, iterative progress. Let's give props to these guys for making epic iterative progress, not shit on them because they're not working for free.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
d4mi3n 5y ago
The problem isn’t the cost, it’s the way folks with ADHD are being charged. The whole point here is to help folks who are having trouble remembering to do things. Regardless of the economics, the optics here make this seem like exploitation. Making this opt-in avoids a dark pattern. Folks with ADHD are often impulsive and strike while the iron is hot—if this has value people will opt-in.
- colinplamondon 5y ago
  Why are we holding this new startup to a standard we don't hold anyone else? 6 months from now when they have their economics figured out, cool, they can run that test. Generally, giving users a toggle to get reminded when a trial is about to run out will INCREASE conversion rates. That depends on the business, and is part of a pretty standard set of experiments you run post-launch. With your comments you're part HN is descending into a circular firing squad of virtue signaling. These guys shipped something that could help a lot of people, over time they can improve their onboarding flow, lower cost. Is the most remarkable thing about a really cool CBT tool for ADHD really that they have a standard trial flow?

SyzygistSix 5y ago

"but for an app for people with executive function issues, an opt out format seems shady" is so dead on. What an enormous red flag. Might as well come right out and say that they understand ADHD and plan to use its drawbacks to make money from people. Considering how desperate a lot of people are for treatment, this sounds like a great monetary investment for people with no conscience. This may be a bit harsh. I'm a bit salty as navigating the process to get treatment for ADHD is a continual reminder that most services are tilted towards providing services to already well-functioning people. I probably will try it, after all you did just remind me to cancel my free Prime membership, even though it was right there in bold on my day planner a week ago.

djbusby 5y ago
Argg! I also have a thing I forgot to cancel last month! Did you get your Prime one done? I'm doing mine right now. Edit: done! Thanks.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  I did it right away, half asleep. The post absolutely reminded me to. The app worked! lol Plus my dislike of Amazon is rather motivating.

deeblering4 5y ago

FWIW this is how several diet apps work as well. Short initial free trial, followed by auto-charge lump sum subscription of 6-12mo. Not my favorite model, but also probably not intentionally predatory towards a specific group of people. From a business point of view it makes some sense. It extracts maximum money from customers in a niche that is inherently flakey (dieting, self-help, etc.). People often start off strong for a few weeks/months and flake out. Forcing a longer up-front commitment helps their bottom line, and possibly helps some customers stick with it since they already spent the money. I'm not trying to defend it, but I do think it's a bit much to say it's intentionally predatory. From my view it's just app economy capitalism at work.

krono 5y ago
The massive difference that you are overlooking, however, is the fact that ADHD Brains are neurologically and/or biochemically incapable of defense against this. That inner voice telling you what to do or what not to do? ADHD brains have... well, let's just say "something else".. in its place.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > That inner voice telling you what to do or what not to do? ADHD brains have... well, let's just say "something else".. in its place. Pretty much every description I’ve heard from people diagnosed with ADHD features the same kind of internal voice as neurotypical people describe; the “something else” seems to be between that voice and action, not in place of it.
  - krono 5y ago
    I'm diagnosed with severe combined type ADHD (top tier, best of both worlds) which could have something to do with this, but I can't say I have ever thought of this voice and action/driver as separate things. My natural, pre-treatment, and unmedicated sub-/semi-conscious behaviour is not at all like that of a typical person.
staticautomatic 5y ago

sebisaacsinflow 5y ago

Thanks for highlighting this - we're trying to figure out what the best model is for our community. A lot of other apps follow a similar model, we allow people to cancel anytime and have refunded everyone that has forgotten to cancel. Some people also like having the subscription because it is a pay per use model rather than putting everyone under the same one-off bundle. We're working on extending the free trial / moving to a freemium model. Would love any suggestions on how to improve this.

mStreamTeam 5y ago
The best model for your community is free and open source. Your current model of opt-in subscriptions makes it clear you're looking for the best model for your bank account
- samhw 5y ago
  How do you propose that they feed and house themselves? Has someone got a GitHub repo for that?
  - mStreamTeam 5y ago
    They can get a real job instead of making products that prey on people with ADHD. There's no job shortage, so don't make excuses for them
    - samhw 5y ago
      My point is about the unbelievably privileged attitude of "you should make products for me free of charge, or else you're the greedy one". Not whether this specific product should exist, which is a different point from how it should be funded.
      - mStreamTeam 5y ago
        You're using quotes but I never said those words. Never speak on my behalf again. It's insulting. I don't want them to do it for free. I want then to not make a predatory product. I want them to make their money through a more honest business And if they can't do that, I want them to do nothing

brainwipe 5y ago

Given that executive dysfunction is one facet of ADHD/ADD, having opt-out is definitely preying on the users. Avoid.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

redmaverick 5y ago

>> After the free trial period (7 days), they will charge for an annual subscription ($102.95 US). This is OPT OUT, not opt in. This is the norm right. I don't know ANY app that is OPT IN after the initial trial period is done. This is the Industry Standard.

danShumway 5y ago
Industry Standard isn't marketed specifically to people with ADHD at the exclusion of everyone else. At the point where a product is targeted at people who struggle with this, and it's still not putting thought into how they'll react, something has gone very wrong. Industry standards for media often don't included content warnings. However, if someone posts on HN that they're building a streaming service designed primarily for people with trauma, and they don't include content warnings in front of their shows, you'd probably have some questions -- because you expect them to know their audience. To me, this launch suggests that the founders either haven't spent much time thinking about how their process actually will work with their target audience or (much worse) that they did think about it and still decided that it would be OK. It's just really tone-deaf to have a launch HN that spends all this time talking about how the intake process for people with ADHD is thoughtless or needlessly difficult, when their app's funding model is making the same mistakes and lacking the same affordances.

joyeuse6701 5y ago

Presumably for the same reason opt-in is a problem too.

rileypetersen 5y ago

Can confirm: subscribed, never used it, and was charged $102 a week later. I was issued a refund after requesting one through the app store.

mkr-hn 5y ago

I managed to put together a system to keep track of renewals, and still make sure to pre-cancel them so they won't renew without me meaning to. Too many services will take your money and shut you down if you cancel renewal before the end, and I won't touch any that do. They need to be very clear on how they handle this, or it's a hard pass for me.

weathawi 5y ago

maybe it's good to start putting service payments on blockchain to enable easier accounting, and not require ongoing payments.

zafiro17 5y ago

Noom, a popular diet/weight-loss app, works on the same principle. I've used it. To start the free trial you need to prepare the payment mechanism. Then after X amount of days, the paid service automatically kicks in. I wasn't super-excited to discover I'd just committed a lot of money before I was ready or even fully committed to the app/service. I suspect this is going to be the new trend for future apps, since it almost certainly delivers a higher number of paid users than other methods do.

vineyardmike 5y ago

I would encourage everyone who feels strongly about this to feel empowered to use the App Store reporting system, or the Better Business Bureau complaint system to report exploit and manipulation by business. https://www.bbb.org/file-a-complaint https://www.bbb.org/file-a-complaint

renewiltord 5y ago

Thanks for the warning. I'll stick to my prescription.

say_it_as_it_is 5y ago

Are you working on a competing product in the mental health space? You're clearly not a prospective patient and you don't have loved ones who you were evaluating this for. Your careful scrutiny exposes you.