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Amazon canceled the existing deal for 100% of their customers and thus accepted money without delivering the advertised service. What happens in the future is

by Retric 3y ago

Amazon canceled the existing deal for 100% of their customers and thus accepted money without delivering the advertised service. What happens in the future is a different question, especially when they aren’t willing to give a full refund. Also when you return something you got the utility of the item and deprive the seller of the item for that time period. Larger up front payment for services not rendered is simply a net loss.

crazygringo 3y ago
> The number who accept the new deal or don’t even notice the difference is irrelevant to this calculation. Of course it's relevant. If someone doesn't cancel, there's nothing being refunded, so there's no theoretical interest to be paid back. They accept that, going forwards, the deal is still worth it for them. The refund-with-interest you brought up isn't about compensation for no longer having video without ads, it's about the remainder of your payment having been tied up during your previous usage. If you continue the subscription, that means you want to continue to keep the upfront payment in exchange for the lower annual rate. There's no interest on anything to be paid back. It wouldn't make any conceptual sense.
- Retric 3y ago
  > They accept that, going forwards, the deal is still worth it for them. People doing nothing isn’t consent. ~0.1% of their customers die each month, you can’t argue the dead are accepting a new deal. Further, if you’re unwilling to preform a full refund, they are asking if the service is worth $69.50 not the $71.59 or whatever they actually owe you. A slightly worse service for slightly less money isn’t a true test here. > If you continue the subscription, that means you want to continue to keep the upfront payment in exchange for the lower annual rate. Order and pay for a burger and fries from McDonalds and accepting a burger from them isn’t saying they don’t still owe you the fries. There is no continuing a contract that’s already been broken. You can accept a new contract going forward but that’s a different question.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    I literally don't know what you are talking about anymore. You were originally talking about getting a small amount of interest refunded on top of them already refunding your unused portion. And I simply pointed out that it's a negligible amount of money that doesn't really matter. Amazon is not stealing half a billion dollars from people like you claimed. Now you seem to be talking about refunds or something, but I can't tell what. Obviously you don't get a refund for your past months of annual, because you used them already on free shipping and video-watching. And Amazon already will refund your future months if you don't like the change. That's fair. It's like when you try to order something online and then two days later they tell you it's out of stock and they aren't carrying it anymore in the future either and they refund you. A refund is acceptable compensation.
    - Retric 3y ago
      I’m talking about the same thing as my first comment: ‘ Simply canceling mid contract isn’t a perfect remedy.’ Musk didn’t get to simply walk away from Twitter and lost a ton of money because he couldn’t renegotiate at that point. Contracts are binding, that’s the entire point. The interest bit is just one small part of that, but it’s illustrative of what gets done to compensate people for breaching a contract. Getting out legally is no big deal. Provide services until the end of the contract and then cancel the automatic renewal until the new terms are agreed upon is the least contentious option. But obviously no company wants to do this as many dead accounts are still automatically renewing. Thus lawsuits just like this one which companies often though not always lose.
      - crazygringo 3y ago
        Maybe it's not a 100.00% perfect remedy, but it's generally considered good enough for small consumer things. For small consumer things, a prorated refund is seen as sufficiently acceptable. There's a big difference between a custom contract concerning billions of dollars involving teams of lawyers, and a annual consumer subscription a little over a hundred dollars. Quite simply, you can't show any substantial damages here. Nobody got harmed because a subscription option ceased to be available (the way shareholders would have been harmed if Twitter hadn't sold). Contract law doesn't treat all contracts equally importantly. Contracts aren't some ironclad unbreakable perfect guarantee. To go back to your example -- if you pay for a burger and fries, and then they discover they're out of fries, they don't have an obligation to deliver fries to your house tomorrow. They can just refund you. In this particular case, it's just not a big deal. Contracts get broken all the time, and the correct legal remedy is very often simply to ensure payment for services previously rendered and a refund for any other payment. Especially if there's no provision in the contract for fines or penalties. Remember, the Twitter deal had penalties built in to the contract. Amazon's obviously doesn't.

by Retric 3y ago

crazygringo 3y ago

> The number who accept the new deal or don’t even notice the difference is irrelevant to this calculation. Of course it's relevant. If someone doesn't cancel, there's nothing being refunded, so there's no theoretical interest to be paid back. They accept that, going forwards, the deal is still worth it for them. The refund-with-interest you brought up isn't about compensation for no longer having video without ads, it's about the remainder of your payment having been tied up during your previous usage. If you continue the subscription, that means you want to continue to keep the upfront payment in exchange for the lower annual rate. There's no interest on anything to be paid back. It wouldn't make any conceptual sense.

Retric 3y ago
> They accept that, going forwards, the deal is still worth it for them. People doing nothing isn’t consent. ~0.1% of their customers die each month, you can’t argue the dead are accepting a new deal. Further, if you’re unwilling to preform a full refund, they are asking if the service is worth $69.50 not the $71.59 or whatever they actually owe you. A slightly worse service for slightly less money isn’t a true test here. > If you continue the subscription, that means you want to continue to keep the upfront payment in exchange for the lower annual rate. Order and pay for a burger and fries from McDonalds and accepting a burger from them isn’t saying they don’t still owe you the fries. There is no continuing a contract that’s already been broken. You can accept a new contract going forward but that’s a different question.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  I literally don't know what you are talking about anymore. You were originally talking about getting a small amount of interest refunded on top of them already refunding your unused portion. And I simply pointed out that it's a negligible amount of money that doesn't really matter. Amazon is not stealing half a billion dollars from people like you claimed. Now you seem to be talking about refunds or something, but I can't tell what. Obviously you don't get a refund for your past months of annual, because you used them already on free shipping and video-watching. And Amazon already will refund your future months if you don't like the change. That's fair. It's like when you try to order something online and then two days later they tell you it's out of stock and they aren't carrying it anymore in the future either and they refund you. A refund is acceptable compensation.
  - Retric 3y ago
    I’m talking about the same thing as my first comment: ‘ Simply canceling mid contract isn’t a perfect remedy.’ Musk didn’t get to simply walk away from Twitter and lost a ton of money because he couldn’t renegotiate at that point. Contracts are binding, that’s the entire point. The interest bit is just one small part of that, but it’s illustrative of what gets done to compensate people for breaching a contract. Getting out legally is no big deal. Provide services until the end of the contract and then cancel the automatic renewal until the new terms are agreed upon is the least contentious option. But obviously no company wants to do this as many dead accounts are still automatically renewing. Thus lawsuits just like this one which companies often though not always lose.
    - crazygringo 3y ago
      Maybe it's not a 100.00% perfect remedy, but it's generally considered good enough for small consumer things. For small consumer things, a prorated refund is seen as sufficiently acceptable. There's a big difference between a custom contract concerning billions of dollars involving teams of lawyers, and a annual consumer subscription a little over a hundred dollars. Quite simply, you can't show any substantial damages here. Nobody got harmed because a subscription option ceased to be available (the way shareholders would have been harmed if Twitter hadn't sold). Contract law doesn't treat all contracts equally importantly. Contracts aren't some ironclad unbreakable perfect guarantee. To go back to your example -- if you pay for a burger and fries, and then they discover they're out of fries, they don't have an obligation to deliver fries to your house tomorrow. They can just refund you. In this particular case, it's just not a big deal. Contracts get broken all the time, and the correct legal remedy is very often simply to ensure payment for services previously rendered and a refund for any other payment. Especially if there's no provision in the contract for fines or penalties. Remember, the Twitter deal had penalties built in to the contract. Amazon's obviously doesn't.