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>You don't have to cancel on a specific date, any more than you have to pay a bill on a specific date. You have to cancel or pay by a very specific date. Yes,

>You don't have to cancel on a specific date, any more than you have to pay a bill on a specific date. You have to cancel or pay by a very specific date. Yes, usually when you subscribe to something, you must end your subscription before the next renewal or you will be charged again. This is sort of the definition of a paid subscription. However, we can contrast the process of doing this in the app store (cancel any time, without speaking to anyone, in an obvious and well known location, continue to use your paid for services until the end date) with other subscriptions. For example, Adobe Cloud if you are paying monthly requires that you cancel within the last month of your subscription, or not only will you lose the year you've paid for, but you will also be charged a cancelation fee. At least they don't charge you that if you pay for the full year up front and your service continues to the end of the year. Or we could look at the NY Times which has such an awful cancelation experience that they had to settle a class action lawsuit about it. And surely you remember the bad old days of AOL and Comcast dial-up services where the standard recommended procedure was to call and cancel and then watch your credit card statements for the next few months to make sure you didn't get re-added? Heck it was only a year and a half ago that the FTC released their enforcement memo telling companies they would be enforcing actions against them for "click to subscribe, call to cancel" tactics. And let's not forget that a major selling point of financial apps is that they will help you find unwanted/forgotten subscriptions (https://www.rocketmoney.com/feature/manage-subscriptions https://www.rocketmoney.com/feature/manage-subscriptions). But I'm confused now about what you complaint actually is. My original comment was addressing the statement that "[getting] out of the trial and [avoiding] getting charged" was some sort of complex obstacle course. To get out of a trial and avoid being charged, one simply needs to, at any time before they are charged, unsubscribe. My assertion is this is hardly an "obstacle course". Now though we're talking about how you must do this action before you get billed. So is the complaint that getting out is difficult, or that you simply have to get out in the first place?

lapcat 4y ago
> Now though we're talking about how you must do this action before you get billed. So is the complaint that getting out is difficult, or that you simply have to get out in the first place? There are 2 complaints: 1) Yes, I'm complaining about opt-out trials. These are consumer hostile. 2) The obstacle course is more knowledge than difficulty. You've described the cancelation process, starting with the implicit assumption that you already know what it is. But we can't start with that assumption. Many consumers simply don't have that knowledge. As I wrote in the article: "App Store customers sometimes contact me anyway for a refund, because Apple does not educate them about the refund process". The process itself is not particularly difficult... if you're aware of it! If you're not aware of it, then it's a major obstacle. Don't you think it's weird that you can subscribe or start a trial inside the app, but you can't cancel the subscription inside the app?
- tpmoney 4y ago
  >You've described the cancelation process, starting with the implicit assumption that you already know what it is. But we can't start with that assumption. Many consumers simply don't have that knowledge. At a certain point, you have to assume the adult person using a credit card to start a subscription knows what a subscription is and that they would have to cancel it if they don't want to be charged. Apple's dialogs make it very clear when you sign up for a trial both that it will auto-renew at the end, that it is cancelable, what the charges will be if you don't cancel and how frequently those charges will be made. You also have to accept that some people, no matter how much you try to educate them, will be confused or will refuse to be educated. Any ex-retail employee can share stories of customers who walk up to you with something labeled with a very clear price tag and ask how much it costs. Some people are just oblivious, and you can't make your rules around them.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > At a certain point, you have to assume the adult person using a credit card to start a subscription knows what a subscription is and that they would have to cancel it if they don't want to be charged. I don't know why you bring "adult" into this, because children generally don't have to pay bills. Yes, people know what a subscription is. But when you're talking about trials, I think you're missing the whole point of trials, which is to spend time trying the app. When you start a trial, you know how long the trial lasts, but what you don't know is (1) how long it will take for you to try and evaluate the app and (2) whether you'll end up subscribing in the end. During that period of time and uncertainty, it's easy to forget, especially if you're using multiple apps. You skipped my question about why consumers can't cancel the trial or subscription in the same place that they started it. The real question is this: > you can't make your rules around them How should Apple design the App Store? Apple has 100% control over it and makes choices that can be either consumer friendly or consumer hostile. Auto-subscribing opt-out trials are flat out consumer hostile. Many people despise them, including me, even though I don't recall ever getting accidentally charged for one. The mere possibility of that makes the entire experience more stressful for consumers. To me, everything about the App Store screams a consumer-hostile cash grab, which is in opposition to Apple's portrayal and justification of App Store lockdown as a necessary means to protect consumers. I'm not actually arguing in favor of paternalism. Quite the opposite. I'm arguing that Apple is guilty of rank hypocrisy. The App Store doesn't do what Apple claims it does, that's my argument. By coincidence, I just read this article, which seems relevant: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2023/01/european-commission-goes-after-dark-patterns-in-web-shops https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2023/01/european-comm... The App Store itself is full of "dark patterns". You can say "caveat emptor", which may be good advice, but Apple can't say that to the public, or to the courts, if it wants to maintain its App Store lockdown and monopoly. Software rental, which is a more accurate term for software subscriptions, is not something that most legitimate app developers even wanted, nor was it a model that most of them used when they chose their own, i.e., before the App Store era. Everything that happens in the App Store is based on Apple's design. In various way, Apple pushes "subscriptions" hard on both consumers and developers, because that's what Apple wants.

lapcat 4y ago

> Now though we're talking about how you must do this action before you get billed. So is the complaint that getting out is difficult, or that you simply have to get out in the first place? There are 2 complaints: 1) Yes, I'm complaining about opt-out trials. These are consumer hostile. 2) The obstacle course is more knowledge than difficulty. You've described the cancelation process, starting with the implicit assumption that you already know what it is. But we can't start with that assumption. Many consumers simply don't have that knowledge. As I wrote in the article: "App Store customers sometimes contact me anyway for a refund, because Apple does not educate them about the refund process". The process itself is not particularly difficult... if you're aware of it! If you're not aware of it, then it's a major obstacle. Don't you think it's weird that you can subscribe or start a trial inside the app, but you can't cancel the subscription inside the app?

tpmoney 4y ago
>You've described the cancelation process, starting with the implicit assumption that you already know what it is. But we can't start with that assumption. Many consumers simply don't have that knowledge. At a certain point, you have to assume the adult person using a credit card to start a subscription knows what a subscription is and that they would have to cancel it if they don't want to be charged. Apple's dialogs make it very clear when you sign up for a trial both that it will auto-renew at the end, that it is cancelable, what the charges will be if you don't cancel and how frequently those charges will be made. You also have to accept that some people, no matter how much you try to educate them, will be confused or will refuse to be educated. Any ex-retail employee can share stories of customers who walk up to you with something labeled with a very clear price tag and ask how much it costs. Some people are just oblivious, and you can't make your rules around them.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > At a certain point, you have to assume the adult person using a credit card to start a subscription knows what a subscription is and that they would have to cancel it if they don't want to be charged. I don't know why you bring "adult" into this, because children generally don't have to pay bills. Yes, people know what a subscription is. But when you're talking about trials, I think you're missing the whole point of trials, which is to spend time trying the app. When you start a trial, you know how long the trial lasts, but what you don't know is (1) how long it will take for you to try and evaluate the app and (2) whether you'll end up subscribing in the end. During that period of time and uncertainty, it's easy to forget, especially if you're using multiple apps. You skipped my question about why consumers can't cancel the trial or subscription in the same place that they started it. The real question is this: > you can't make your rules around them How should Apple design the App Store? Apple has 100% control over it and makes choices that can be either consumer friendly or consumer hostile. Auto-subscribing opt-out trials are flat out consumer hostile. Many people despise them, including me, even though I don't recall ever getting accidentally charged for one. The mere possibility of that makes the entire experience more stressful for consumers. To me, everything about the App Store screams a consumer-hostile cash grab, which is in opposition to Apple's portrayal and justification of App Store lockdown as a necessary means to protect consumers. I'm not actually arguing in favor of paternalism. Quite the opposite. I'm arguing that Apple is guilty of rank hypocrisy. The App Store doesn't do what Apple claims it does, that's my argument. By coincidence, I just read this article, which seems relevant: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2023/01/european-commission-goes-after-dark-patterns-in-web-shops https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2023/01/european-comm... The App Store itself is full of "dark patterns". You can say "caveat emptor", which may be good advice, but Apple can't say that to the public, or to the courts, if it wants to maintain its App Store lockdown and monopoly. Software rental, which is a more accurate term for software subscriptions, is not something that most legitimate app developers even wanted, nor was it a model that most of them used when they chose their own, i.e., before the App Store era. Everything that happens in the App Store is based on Apple's design. In various way, Apple pushes "subscriptions" hard on both consumers and developers, because that's what Apple wants.