4 ms·

This crap hurts an awful lot of good actors. I used to work for a small startup in the education sector. We offered trial subscriptions, but because of the 'can

This crap hurts an awful lot of good actors. I used to work for a small startup in the education sector. We offered trial subscriptions, but because of the 'cancel before your trial expires' anti-pattern that so many companies adopt, potential customers were suspicious. To the extent that they thought they might be charged on trial expiry, despite the fact that they didn't even provide a means of payment at any time during the process.

kennend3 4y ago
Sometimes you find a very underrated comment here, and this is one of those instances. I NEVER subscribe to free trial offers simply because of the number of negative posts about how hard it is to cancel, and the pain involved. It absolutely does hurt "good actors".
- digging 4y ago
  I do sub to free trials, if I have the time/energy to immediately cancel afterward. I never leave it until later for the above reasons.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    More and more I've been seeing the pattern where if you cancel a 7 day trial on day 3, it ends immediately.
    - digging 4y ago
      Still solved by my approach. If you sign up and cancel immediately and the trial is over before you start, you just move on from that service.
rahimnathwani 4y ago
Yeah some companies try to make it more obvious by writing 'no credit card required' as a subtitle on the 'sign up' button itself.
gnicholas 4y ago
I'm also in the edtech sector, and we purposely offer our free trial without requiring an email or credit card, for this reason. This limits our ability to ensure that each person only does one trial though; for years, anyone could get unlimited free trials by uninstalling/reinstalliing. But it was better than the alternative, which you note!