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Cancelling Dropbox Pro is hard

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Re: Cancelling Dropbox Pro is hard

#351

Post by fencepost »

saghm wrote: post #53
fencepost wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their concern is probably someone deleting somebody else's account, along with all record of courses completed, etc. Is it possible to have an Udacity account if you're not actually paying them? If so, "account removed" and "unpaid account" are very different things and the transition between them is one-way.

> Their concern is probably someone deleting somebody else's account Yes, that's what I meant. If some stranger deleted my account, I don't think I would be angry enough to attempt to press criminal perjury charges against them.

It may depend on the real-world relevance of the courses you've taken.

What happens if you're taking part in the Georgia Tech/Udacity online Master's in Computer Science, and suddenly all of your course history on Udacity is gone? Are you then stuck with remotely trying to access records through whatever GA Tech has retained for MOOC students in a degree program? Does it prevent you from signing up for additional courses because there's no record of you completing the prerequisites? Does their platform have a provision for overriding those prerequisites, and what would that have to be based on - word from a professor who taught a MOOC, has never seen you or your work and probably depends on Udacity's listings?

A similar situation could arise if the platform is being used for mandatory continuing education credits in fields that have that. An industry that has CE requirements would often be well-served to partner with an established and stable online learning platform rather than building their own. If you're required to take X hours of CE annually to retain a license but the only proof you have is a PDF certificate from someplace that says "We've never heard of this person," do you qualify or do you end up in licensing/certification hell?

Re: Cancelling Dropbox Pro is hard

#353

Post by dependsontheq »

justinclift wrote: post #168
dependsontheq wrote: post #33

I have been working as a ux consultant for 15 years now, there are two things that are serious problems: 1. Forcing your users into actions they don’t want to take (dark patterns) 2. Having users delete their accounts and data because you didn’t install enough hurdles on their way to the delete button I am actually not very sure what we see here, is it a dark pattern? It could be, but at the size of Dropbox I could e…

> I have been working as a ux consultant for 15 years now > ... > I am actually not very sure what we see here, is it a dark pattern? It sounds like you've been in the grey/black side of the UX industry for too long, and have become a bit institutionalised. eg You're not see things clearly. If possible, maybe take a break from the UX space for a year or so, and do something else? Might help to regain your sense of th…

I’m not defending Dropbox, some parts of this are definitely dark patterns, but I worked for one startup that had decorated their hallways with messages from people who had erroneously deleted their own accounts and data. To do that they had to click 3 times. In the beginning you just had to click “yes” 3 times, we changed it to delete and did the same thing as Dropbox using the other UX color so people would not just click but read and think. Dropbox is used in situations where I could easily imagine scores of user keeping valuable data on it and forgetting about his data, forcing them through a process seems prudent.

Re: Cancelling Dropbox Pro is hard

#354

Post by troydavis »

rolleiflex wrote: post #102
Tomte wrote: post #27

Amazon is the same. I just cancelled Prime yesterday. It took me four or five confirmations that yes, I want to lose the benefits. The buttons were jumping around. Sometimes the left one was for cancelling, sometimes the right one, sometimes it was a few centimeters lower. I love my Kindle, but without that my Amazon account itself would be in real danger.

Oh, heads up, you're in for a treat. Amazon will try to tack on a Prime subscription on every order you try to make from now on. They do this with a permanent full-page interstitial (not a pop-up) for ex-Prime users before the order confirmation page whose big green 'continue' button automatically one-click charges your account for a full year of Prime. You have to read down and click the tiny 'no, I don't want these…

I've received this interstitial and it's one of the darkest dark patterns I've ever seen. It would fit right in with an adware, pharmacy, or porn site's checkout flow.

Here's screenshots over time:

2017: https://twitter.com/troyd/status/819409073590308864

2016: https://twitter.com/troyd/status/765560428663443456 2013: https://twitter.com/troyd/status/394173352199196674

All of these activate a recurring subscription fee. You can see the fee go from barely mentioned (2013) to as little disclosure as possible (2016, 2017). The 2016 version is so intentionally deceptive that it inspired a discussion among friends whether, if we were asked to implement something like this by an employer or client, we'd quit instead of doing it. The easy consensus was yes, both because it's beneath our ethics and because it destroys long-term value for the employer.

I'd love to hear how this came to be within Amazon, let alone how it got approved, kept, and made worse. Somewhere inside Amazon, there's a two-pizza team of developers implementing this value destruction.

Re: Cancelling Dropbox Pro is hard

#355

Post by anticensor »

xibalba wrote: post #342
r3bl wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This tool is highly useful: https://backgroundchecks.org/justdeleteme/ It ranks hundreds of websites from "easy" to "impossible".

Interestingly enough, HN is listed as "impossible".

Because it is. How would delete account work in a threaded forum? Delete all your posts?

Re: Cancelling Dropbox Pro is hard

#356

Post by fl0wenol »

jammygit wrote: post #212
briandear wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than PayPal monetizing your payment history, sure it’s great. Apple makes it even easier. This is tangential, but on the topic of PayPal and privacy, this article is interesting about PayPal and HIPAA: https://simple.icouch.me/blog/is-paypal-hipaa-compliant-revi... Short answer: if privacy matters, PayPal is a non-starter. I don’t want news publishers to have my information either. I know publishers like to how…

What is the alternative? Is, what do informed people do instead of using credit cards or PayPal to buy things? (I assume stripe is the same)

Checks, ACH, wire transfers. Bank to bank, for free or very low fee (compared to transferred amount, like 20 bucks to transfer $$$$ with 1 day settlement for a wire transfer)

Re: Cancelling Dropbox Pro is hard

#357

Post by js2 »

mrspeaker wrote: post #8

If it's harder to leave than it is to join, then I'm not using your stuff. It's mildly condescending and very transparent and so I don't want/need to deal with it. If you believed in your product, you wouldn't do it. I subscribed to the New York Times with a simple one-step "put in your credit card deets". One year later I was going to leave the country so tried to cancel it. After several steps of forms you get the…

I just canceled my NYT subscription based on this comment. I was able to do so by logging into my account, following the "Cancel" link, then choosing the online chat option. It wasn't as easy as an automatic cancellation, but it wasn't terrible. Here's the transcript:

Isaiah: Hello Jay and thank you for contacting The New York Times! My name is Isaiah and I will be able to make any changes to your account today! One moment while I pull up your account.

Isaiah: I have located your digital account and I would like to personally thank you for being a Basic digital subscriber with the account number (XXXXXXXX)

Isaiah: If you don't mind me asking, what led you to cancel? I would love to gain your insight and see if there are any potential issues that I may resolve for you.

Jay: Please cancel my subscription.

Isaiah: May I ask why you wish to cancel?

Jay: I decline to answer that. Please cancel my subscription.

Isaiah: please note that leaving will put you back at 5 free articles per month and you will no longer have unlimited access to our content. Any saved Cooking recipes will stay saved but you will not be able to view them until you subscribe again.

Jay: I understand. Please cancel my subscription.

Isaiah: I understand your concerns. Because your readership is important to us, I'd like to extend a special offer for $2 per week for 1 year.

Jay: No thank you. Please cancel my subscription.

Isaiah: You will continue to enjoy all your subscription benefits for the rest of your billing cycle, which ends on February 07, 2019. Unfortunately we cannot issue any credits or refunds for the remainder of this billing cycle.

Re: Cancelling Dropbox Pro is hard

#358

Post by ccmonnett »

cde-v wrote: post #165
sambucini wrote: post #22

Retain with pain.. The other day I tried to delete my udacity account. No button in settings, I mailed support, they asked my to mail legal (apparently they don't fwd mail..). From legal I received the following response: Hello, We are in receipt of your request to delete your account. We are sorry you want to leave the Udacity family; you will be missed. Before we can proceed with fully processing your request, we n…

Wow, thank you so much for bringing this to light. Our org is literally in the process of signing up for their enterprise product but I can not in good conscience allow it to proceed after seeing that, it is unprofessional on so many levels. I would expect this kind of contractual bullshit from an NY landlord, not from an education platform. I know they wont miss our 220ish users, but I hope enough individuals see yo…

It's worth mentioning that people are completing courses, nanodegrees, and even Master's degrees through Georgia Tech on Udacity. These are significant life events for people trying to change/shift their careers, get that next promotion, etc. Having all records of your Master's degree deleted by a 'griefer' is a terrible thing to have to recover from.

I have no affiliation with Udacity but I feel that yours is an extreme response to a company that holds records of work that is very dear to some people and their careers.

Re: Cancelling Dropbox Pro is hard

#359

Post by dhimes »

mrspeaker wrote: post #8

If it's harder to leave than it is to join, then I'm not using your stuff. It's mildly condescending and very transparent and so I don't want/need to deal with it. If you believed in your product, you wouldn't do it. I subscribed to the New York Times with a simple one-step "put in your credit card deets". One year later I was going to leave the country so tried to cancel it. After several steps of forms you get the…

pbs did this to me (wgbh). Pissed me off.

Re: Cancelling Dropbox Pro is hard

#360

Post by dhimes »

troydavis wrote: post #354
rolleiflex wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, heads up, you're in for a treat. Amazon will try to tack on a Prime subscription on every order you try to make from now on. They do this with a permanent full-page interstitial (not a pop-up) for ex-Prime users before the order confirmation page whose big green 'continue' button automatically one-click charges your account for a full year of Prime. You have to read down and click the tiny 'no, I don't want these…

I've received this interstitial and it's one of the darkest dark patterns I've ever seen. It would fit right in with an adware, pharmacy, or porn site's checkout flow. Here's screenshots over time: 2017: https://twitter.com/troyd/status/819409073590308864 2016: https://twitter.com/troyd/status/765560428663443456 2013: https://twitter.com/troyd/status/394173352199196674 All of these activate a recurring subscription f…

I almost want a separate thread for Amazon, so they are sure to notice it.
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