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I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

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Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#101

Post by ipaddr »

encoderer wrote: post #27

Of all the nasty things somebody can do with billing, I'm surprised the author leads with card-upfront trials. "Free trials should not require a credit card." This is opinion presented as fact. This is not a dark pattern. Totally unrestricted free trials are wonderful, you've invested a ton in your product and you want a prospective customer to experience everything. But there are legions of abusers and bad actors of…

This is used as a dark pattern. Entering a credit card to try out a service without being able to see how you would cancel is asking a lot of faith in a service you are trying out. Asking for a credit card on signup means I've already decided you are worth it. I hope you spent a lot on marketing to prepare me.

Free trials can be limited in terms of services. Many times free trials are not necessary. If someone is willing to enter a credit they will pay a small amount.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#102

Post by ipaddr »

Msw242 wrote: post #82
kevincox wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit cards act as a "cost" of sorts. Credit cards are a limited resource, it is not free to acquire more credit cards. By requiring a valid credit card you are basically relying upon the verification that credit card issuers do to prevent unlimited abuse.

Virtual cards solve this. Create a card with $1 limit. Problem solved.

In one country but this isn't an option globally

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#103

Post by taylortrusty »

CPLX wrote: post #23

These are far from the worst patterns. I've seen so much awfulness out there. My favorite recent one was a renewal if you don't cancel by a deadline that's months ahead of the actual end of the contract period and it also had a substantial rate increase and all the language that we supposedly agreed to wasn't actually present in the contract we signed. Those terms were in one of those "incorporate by reference" claus…

Ironically, I think you could sell this as a product/service.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#104

Post by ipaddr »

elias94 wrote: post #11

I forgot the AWS password once for an account with only one S3 bucket. I did the recovery procedure but they wanted to verify my identity using my document. I send them my ID, which was with a different address from my account information. They didn't accept my ID and I wasn't able to stop the service and the recurring payment. Fortunately I registered my payment with a prepaid credit card, so was easy to empty the c…

Aws rejected my prepaid card with an error 'no prepaid cards allowed" Do they allow that now?

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#105

Post by FpUser »

magicalhippo wrote: post #68
cosmolev wrote: post #4

Subscription-based software is already a dark pattern.

Our software is subscription-based, and our customers love it. They get a predictable cost over time, rather than large costs every now and then. We can afford to include features that otherwise might not be justifiable in terms of new sales. On the flip side, one of our competitors who hasn't switched has been struggling for years and a recent new version almost killed them off as many customers didn't feel they cou…

>"They get a predictable cost over time, rather than large costs every now and then."

For the software I buy one time price is often about the same as the annual subscription. With perpetual license however I often do not upgrade for years. So the perpetual licensing is a clear winner for me. I understand that SAAS can make sense for other customers but it is their choice not mine. I just simply do not buy software without perpetual license. It ruffles my feathers in a bad way.

Of course I am not talking about services where monthly payment is a natural state like Netflix.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#106

Post by CPLX »

awillen wrote: post #79
schnebbau wrote: post #28

> Your company needs a CRM, so you sign a year-long contract for, say, 50 seats on your chosen SaaS CRM. Then — yikes! After six months, half your team is laid off. Will the CRM let you adjust and pay for 25 seats for the remainder of their contract? > That’s a big NO. Unused seats? Still gotta pay for ‘em. (It’s called “SaaS waste” for a reason.) You committed to paying for 50 seats for a year. The CRM may have made…

In general I don't think it's fair to describe anything as a dark pattern this is clearly communicated in a contract. Same with "Here’s a similar problem with a different scenario: You sign a one-year contract with a SaaS provider. You start paying immediately. The process to get API access, build integrations, set up the software, and onboard and train your team takes three months. In those three months, you still p…

That’s not really a fair way to evaluate contracts for fairness and ethical conduct. Not only does the contract have the obligation to be clear (and let’s be blunt the people that do this are often not trying to be clear about what they are doing) it also needs to meet basic standards of reasonableness.

Specifically, to the extent that a contract diverges sharply from the general understanding each party has about how the world works, the more the drafting party has an obligation to clearly call out the terms in a manner commensurate with the importance of the contract term.

Legal documents aren’t software code, it’s a classic mental error developers make when discussing them. They are evaluated by humans.

For example, it would not be reasonable to have a single sentence buried in the middle of a 20 page SaaS contract that obligated you to purchase cat food, or signed away the rights to your apartment. Wouldn’t matter how plainly worded the sentence was and if it was duly signed. You’d still have to convince a judge that was a reasonable thing to do. Good luck with that. And regardless of legality it’s obviously not ethical it’s a trick, intended to be deceptive.

Obviously there’s subtlety to this and the exact details matter. But that’s my point. You can’t just fall back on the idea that anything you get someone to agree to isn’t a dark pattern.

The whole point of dark patterns as a concept is that you’re tricking people into agreeing to unreasonable things.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#107

Post by indus »

jedberg wrote: post #64

This is a very cynical take. Not all of these things are designed to trick you. For example, requiring a credit card for a free trial is to prevent free trial abuse. A normal person can only get so many valid credit card numbers, assuming you can detect burner cards (which for the most part the CC companies will happily help you do). Yes, a good company will notify you that a trial is going paid, and a great company…

Agree with you, most companies have no malice. Especially, the ones that are early-stage, proving their PMF, and ready to scale are a pot of lovely gold. These companies are doing what it takes to make the customers happy.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#108

Post by FpUser »

mdasen wrote: post #38
newfonewhodis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would recommend the creators ask themselves if their software _really_ needs to be hosted or can it be sold as a one-off (self-host or desktop/mobile).

I don't think you should be downvoted for this, but I do think there are some reasonable responses to it. First, supporting desktop/mobile software can be hard. Customers have all sorts of weird things on their machines. iOS cuts down on that, but you still lack access for a lot of debugging and that can cost a lot of money. Support is expensive. Second, I think there's this idea that desktop/mobile software is a one…

>"First, supporting desktop/mobile software can be hard"

I have Windows desktop software (my product with about 40,000 customers) that I support and I would not call it any harder than maintaining for example backend C++ servers I make for my clients.

>"What happens when Apple removes an API that your program used?"

No idea about Apple as I do not develop for their platforms but my yet another desktop software (uses DierctX 9 and DirectShow) that did release in 2003 and abandoned sometime in 2008 as the revenue had decreased still works like a charm.

>"Programming languages move on and you're stuck with an IDE highlighting things as bugs or that won't launch your program because it isn't compatible"

That DirectX program I just mentioned was developed in Delphi 7 (I use Delphi and / or Lazarus to develop desktop applications). This Delphi 7 still runs and compiles this software on my Windows 10 machine. Latest Delphi which I have compiles it as well with no problem (just checked).

So yes in theory you are right, in practice (as much as it concerns my products) it is however totally irrelevant.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#109

Post by indus »

petercooper wrote: post #80

I really appreciate how Slack handles things by scaling down your payment month by month based on how many users are actually using the service. I wish more SaaS providers, especially big ones with the capacity to develop the feature, would do this rather than lean on people or companies forgetting to remove seats.

Slack is the gold standard.

I reached out to a Senior Product person at a very large SaaS vendor on auto-scaling the seats -- based on simple monthly active.

His response: "Our Sales team would never let that happen."

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#110

Post by indus »

moneywoes wrote: post #69
jedberg wrote: post #64

This is a very cynical take. Not all of these things are designed to trick you. For example, requiring a credit card for a free trial is to prevent free trial abuse. A normal person can only get so many valid credit card numbers, assuming you can detect burner cards (which for the most part the CC companies will happily help you do). Yes, a good company will notify you that a trial is going paid, and a great company…

Does Stripe detect something like privacy.com?

Stripe doesnt.

Not trivial to detect something like privacy.com or for that matter any virtual card product.

Blacklisting such cards is a Hobson's choice [1] for the SaaS merchant. A lot of legit users with legit reasons use virtual cards and flagging them could be loss of revenue.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson%27s_choice

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