No shit! As an anecdote just yesterday I fell for the premium meme on LinkedIn... I could just not stand the idea of not knowing who visited my profile! (how weak of me), they literally charged me 20 bucks (half price) for a month of premium, I bet I will completely forget to cancel the sub next month and I will end up paying 40 dollars for a few more months until I finally decide its been enough... Also, fell for Sp…
Are any of those dark patterns? They all seem very transparent. Set a reminder to cancel the subscription.
It would make more sense to ask the user if they wish to transition from the trial into a subscription. If they don't, consider giving them an exit survey.
You know which services I don't have problems cancelling? Ones I subscribe to via Apple's in-app payments. I get that it sucks to have Apple scrape a percentage of my payments for themselves, but if you're a company I don't fully trust and/or want to have total control over my subscription without a bunch of hassle, Apple's IAPs are the way to go. Mostly this is great with the big streaming services. Want Disney+ or…
Every individual company has an incentive to be a bad actor when it comes to subscriptions (or dark patterns in general). Apple is a regulatory authority acting on this tragedy of the commons. Apple has created a situation where it has a near monopoly of force when it comes to apps in the apple'sphere and is using this to the benefit of consumers.
It's no wonder people prefer apple's walled garden to libertarian android. Being able to force apps to act in a specific ways makes the experience as a whole better. Given apple's market share amongst people who can afford it, I would say the free market agrees that the Apple way is better.
Another way to forcefully cancel a subscription is simply registering with a card to which you can manually add or recharge credit, the day that you do not put money in it (or remove from it), the subscription should be automatically cancelled as they can't debit that amount from you (yeah, it doesn't work if you're subscribed to several services. Or maybe it could if you meticulously add/remove credit the exact days…
How is this legal? This always seemed like a weird "hack" to me. Just because your payment method does not work anymore, this does not cancel your buying contract. If they wanted to, couldn't they just sue you?
It's a nuclear option and you need to justify it, but having made good-faith efforts to cancel will cover you, as any company starting legal action will also need to explain their side of events and why they ignored your good-faith effort to cancel. This will also bring any of their dark patterns to light in front of a court which they definitely wouldn't want, so in practice you are fine.
I could have, but I don't think I should have to massage the facts to get this fixed. I made the account. He just lost his password.
I call bullshit on this one. Apple allows a Parent / Guardian account to reset the password of a child account. I do not have to do anything. I can just go into my iCloud settings and just reset my child’s account right away. Also, Apple does not allow you to create a child account (below 13) without having a parent account attached to it. My guess is that you lied during account creation and created an adult account…
My child's school forces us to create accounts the way you describe. Since kids all get ipads they need icloud accounts, but the school does not participate in the program that lets them create icloud accounts for kids. You as a parent must create the account.
If you don't use apple products, I don't, you can only create an adult account. You cannot create a child account, or manage it once created, without another apple device.
I went through all the steps to create an adult account, then logged out of the ipad and used the child account I created, but the account was useless without me being logged into the parent account on an apple device. You could not use the web-ui from a linux or windows device.
I complained to the school and said I thought this was a violation of the laws for children under 13. They said the child doesn't own the account, I do as the parent and give them permission; so it's fine.
There was no other choice to setup the devices for my children.
Why do you allow your child to buy subscriptions without approval? Does "Family Sharing" with "Require Purchase Approval" not work as described?
It's (IMO) intentionally crippled because it asks for every app install. Including free ones. Which is not only annoying, since kids play a lot of games, but also creates a time delay. For example, the child is in a special education program that requires certain apps. If he tries to install one at school and I don't approve it immediately then that's a problem. There is no option to "ask for permission if it costs m…
Not only that, but it can only be managed from another apple device. If your kid has an ipad and you don't have an iphone, ipad, or mac; you can't use the child accounts.
The OP missed the one where they add new categories of email subscriptions so that even if you keep removing the old subscriptions, you are automatically opted into new categories of email subscription. I have an account where the email subscription category list to unsubscribe from increases every month and there are dozens of categories.
No shit! As an anecdote just yesterday I fell for the premium meme on LinkedIn... I could just not stand the idea of not knowing who visited my profile! (how weak of me), they literally charged me 20 bucks (half price) for a month of premium, I bet I will completely forget to cancel the sub next month and I will end up paying 40 dollars for a few more months until I finally decide its been enough... Also, fell for Sp…
Terrible, terrible interface in the linked website. I've no idea how much to scroll to get "next" paragraph of content. Gave up after a few attemps, I don't care what he's trying to say, that UI deserves to die.
You know which services I don't have problems cancelling? Ones I subscribe to via Apple's in-app payments. I get that it sucks to have Apple scrape a percentage of my payments for themselves, but if you're a company I don't fully trust and/or want to have total control over my subscription without a bunch of hassle, Apple's IAPs are the way to go. Mostly this is great with the big streaming services. Want Disney+ or…
Every individual company has an incentive to be a bad actor when it comes to subscriptions (or dark patterns in general). Apple is a regulatory authority acting on this tragedy of the commons. Apple has created a situation where it has a near monopoly of force when it comes to apps in the apple'sphere and is using this to the benefit of consumers. It's no wonder people prefer apple's walled garden to libertarian andr…
Play store is able to do the same if google want to. It's not a problem. Its company's choice to sideload
100% this. Going even further I always get emails when yearly subscriptions are charging in a few days and those emails even include how to cancel the subscription if I no longer wish to use it. I know people love to complain about the App Store, and there are some valid complaints. But companies being forced to use this mechanism for subscriptions is a huge benefit for consumers. Also frankly, it's a huge benefit fo…
A company is “forced” to use Apple for subscriptions. It’s been years since either Netflix or Spotify has even allowed in app subscriptions. I’m not going to subscribe to some unknown indy outside of the app store and guess what happens when someone changes credit cards or they expire? I’m going to update my Apple payment information. I may or may not update my other subscriptions or I may just decide it’s not worth…
If I remember correctly they are forced in the sense that neither of those apps are allowed to give you a link to go outside of the App Store?
However I vaguely remember that Netflix had an exception to this, but I don't use Spotify so can't comment on that one.