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I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

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Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#181

Post by ssss11 »

tzs wrote: post #155
ssss11 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From one individual user’s perspective - card upfront trials mean that there’s a good chance either (a) I don’t want the product but will be unable to cancel the account due to dark ux/cx or (b) I’ll forget about the trial period and begin being billed then go through hell to get out of it. I much much much prefer a no ties trial, even if you restrict functionality, volume or some other thing which makes it not useab…

> I’ll forget about the trial period and begin being billed then go through hell to get out of it OK, this is probably a stupid question...but when signing up for a trial of product/service X, why not put a "decide on X" item on your calendar for sometime near the end of the trial?

You’re right - that’s a no brainer everyone should be doing, but we don’t.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#182

Post by pupala2020 »

Subscription service is a blessing for both businesses and consumers. However it is shocking to see the exploitations. This is what telecom companies did before congress legislated to protect customers from unscrupulous charges. Hope this doesn’t happen with SaaS as the industry is new and there is a long road ahead for developers and entrepreneurs.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#183

Post by rapind »

mitchdoogle wrote: post #139
rapind wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this a dark or “grey“ pattern. Are they being sneaky about it? At most it could be a signal that a business intends to be a douche, but that’s only because douchey companies ruined it. Just like duchey free customers ruined that for everyone. My employer probably thinks payroll is a “grey” pattern by this logic.

It's a dark pattern because they claim the trial is free, but ask for a credit card. They are betting on the user forgetting to cancel, or worse, actually make it difficult to cancel. If it was just about giving the user a chance to try a product, they wouldn't need to collect credit card information. Some people claim it helps to prevent abuse. Maybe, but there are other, user-friendly ways to prevent abuse.

I disagree. I can't see how this is a dark pattern / trick. They are just saying if you want to participate in the trial they need to validate that you're serious about it. If you don't like these upfront terms, then you can bail right there and then. If however they are being sneaky about the CC requirement, or actually bill you a month later, then I could see that qualifying as a dark pattern (or straight up fraud).

I probably wouldn't move forward as a potential customer myself once the credit card requirement pops up unless I'd already done my research and was pretty sure I wanted to use that product.

They could lose potential customers, but they also probably eliminate a massive amount of customer support... which maybe they just can't afford yet. Customer support isn't free.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#184

Post by rapind »

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #145
rapind wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this a dark or “grey“ pattern. Are they being sneaky about it? At most it could be a signal that a business intends to be a douche, but that’s only because douchey companies ruined it. Just like duchey free customers ruined that for everyone. My employer probably thinks payroll is a “grey” pattern by this logic.

> Just like duchey free customers ruined that for everyone. But you need to factor this in. Nobody forces you to offer free trial. But if you do, you need to accept the fact that there are people who are going to use your product for free to the maximum available capacity. In the old days, it wasn't much of a problem: you basically gave away pieces of software that stopped working after a certain period usually with…

Support costs need to be factored in too. Free customers can often have an enormous customer support cost. They'll send emails to sales@company.com if they can't find a support email with questions along the lines of "How do I do x..." (which might be completely covered by the documentation they didn't read), or "I have a suggestion...".

You have to weigh the pros and cons. In some cases the cons might outweigh the pros and so you further qualify your free users, for example by requiring a Credit Card.

This can be a big problem in freemium (and open source) type products.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#185

Post by Gentil »

chii wrote: post #160
Gentil wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit card for trial is a dark pattern from the end user's perspective for sure. Cos, that is one more place where the end user have to risk his/her/their PII. This is especially important considering the end user is trying the product out. The person has no idea whether they will invest in it or not. Yet, the person have to worry about their information leaked when he/she/they see this company on the news for a dat…

what if the card transaction was handled by a well known processor? The SaaS business doesn't actually have to store the card details themselves - and this can be made clear.

Interesting question. My question again would be why?. You just transferred the responsibility from you (the SaaS company) to a well known processor. This doesn't make a data breach or data sharing avoidable/impossible.

Also, anything related to finance is always hot. And this comes back to the same thing I made in the above comment, why should an end user who is just trying it out risk all of this? It's like telling a stranger a secret of yours. You wouldn't just share a secret with a stranger just because they say "trust me", would you?

It is the company who needs the users attention, not the other way around. The users shouldn't be punished for the same.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#186

Post by chii »

Gentil wrote: post #185
chii wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what if the card transaction was handled by a well known processor? The SaaS business doesn't actually have to store the card details themselves - and this can be made clear.

Interesting question. My question again would be why? . You just transferred the responsibility from you (the SaaS company) to a well known processor. This doesn't make a data breach or data sharing avoidable/impossible. Also, anything related to finance is always hot. And this comes back to the same thing I made in the above comment, why should an end user who is just trying it out risk all of this? It's like tellin…

> This doesn't make a data breach or data sharing avoidable/impossible.

this risk will always be present. Choosing a well known processor will reduce it quite a bit imho.

If you're asking why a user would take on this risk, i would say that they are getting a "free" trial in return. By having to take on this risk, the user is more conscious of using the product, and cut out the people who would just kick the tyres.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#187

Post by Gentil »

chii wrote: post #186
Gentil wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting question. My question again would be why? . You just transferred the responsibility from you (the SaaS company) to a well known processor. This doesn't make a data breach or data sharing avoidable/impossible. Also, anything related to finance is always hot. And this comes back to the same thing I made in the above comment, why should an end user who is just trying it out risk all of this? It's like tellin…

> This doesn't make a data breach or data sharing avoidable/impossible. this risk will always be present. Choosing a well known processor will reduce it quite a bit imho. If you're asking why a user would take on this risk, i would say that they are getting a "free" trial in return. By having to take on this risk, the user is more conscious of using the product, and cut out the people who would just kick the tyres.

I would have to respectfully disagree though. Cos like I said, the reason why free trial is there in the first place is to entice users. There are so many products without free trials.

Again, the burden should not be in the shoulders of the end user. There is no reason for the company to ask for credit card other than data sharing, other dark patterns and spam. Like many have mentioned, spam can be dealt with better by other means. These are companies who have tried it out. I don't know what else more to say. :)

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#188

Post by tpxl »

jwr wrote: post #147
tpxl wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to run a business ethically so that gives you the right to run it unethically? Business convenience should rank far lower than personal convenience in the world. I will _never_ provide a credit card for a free trial because some companies will charge you at the end of the trial and I don't have time to figure out whether you're one of those. I will _never_ provide my phone number for "security reasons" beca…

> It's hard to run a business ethically so that gives you the right to run it unethically? The word "ethically" implies a strong moral judgment. We can discuss ethics of course. For example, why would you think that charging at the end of a free trial is a problem, if this is clearly stated when signing up, notification E-mails are sent before any charge happens, and refunds are provided with no questions asked when…

> But my point was that many of these decisions are made not because of evil approach to making more money, but because of very practical and down-to-earth things.

You make these decisions for these reasons, and others do it so they can charge me at the end of a free trial. I don't have time to figure which one of these companies you are.

That being said, if I got redirected to a CC company website so they could verify my identity and give you a token, so you can prevent free trial abuse, I'd be down with that.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#189

Post by ec109685 »

indus wrote: post #133
ec109685 wrote: post #126

Some of these dark patterns like getting charged for 9 months without knowing doesn't make sense to me. Don't people have to file expense reports each month for their corporate credit cards?

expense reports going directly to the corporate card are signed-off. Finance see a "software charge" and assume that someone is actually using it. No red flags.

Where I work, we have to attach the receipt for each one.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#190

Post by elias94 »

ipaddr wrote: post #104
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?

No idea, the card was an N26
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