Thank you EU I guess?
The EU Just Killed ARR
41–50 of 98 posts
Re: The EU Just Killed ARR
#42So, can I use this against Google to get our locked-in annual gmail subscription nuked in 2 months, instead of next May when the contract change date is?
Re: The EU Just Killed ARR
#43The EU trying to solve a non-existing problem.
If a company offers a discount (or not) for a longer minimum term contract and you accept then that's just liberty in action as long as the terms are made clear in advance. There is neither a need nor benefit in regulatory intervention, especially considering all the actual issues on Europe's plate...
Re: The EU Just Killed ARR
#44Wow, companies being forced to provide good service to customers through a contract term and upholding the primary driving force of market capitalism (customer can take their money to a better provider).
Sounds like distopia! /s
Re: The EU Just Killed ARR
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> The issue is you can't use the "I'll give you a deeper discount for a 3 year contract" line anymore. I don't see why not. You can still offer a low price right? You can still promise it won't go up for 3 years. But the customer can now cancel at any time.
You can, but the thing that you get as a SaaS company in exchange for that 3 year discount is the certainty that you'd have a customer for 3 years. There is no longer an incentive to offer the discount.
But there is once you remain competitive, if the reason for people staying on your platform is because they're locked in for 3 years then you're not offering a good enough service as others. This opens the market to competition who will offer better services or prices. The free market at work.
Re: The EU Just Killed ARR
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is you can't use the "I'll give you a deeper discount for a 3 year contract" line anymore. It'll potentially create a situation where customers in the US pay a lot less because they still have that incentive.
I think you could still do it but it would involve some clever financial engineering.
20 years or so ago a gym made me take out a loan from them to pay for a year’s contract in advance, presumably for exactly this reason.
Re: The EU Just Killed ARR
#47This is a silly article. It seems premised on the idea that ARR can only happen with contractual or vendor lock-in. Which is silly. Like most things, if you can get in the door, and aren't price gouging, few people will want to rock the boat for the sake of it.
Re: The EU Just Killed ARR
#48The only thing this 'kills' is a stupid metric. You can no longer guarantee a customers LTV will be more than two months. So the metric used to try to value these businesses will change a little. Otherwise, if you offer a good product and don't engage in scummy practices to lock people in, you should be unaffected. If you're a scumbag (and unfortunately, there are a lot of them out there) you will need to work a bit harder to maintain your subscribers.
Re: The EU Just Killed ARR
#49Good Riddance. ARR is one of those 'fake' metrics like 'EBITDA' that mean nothing but numbers with make up.
a more reflective number is last year revenue + revenue growth rate. and yeah costs / growth of costs.
Re: The EU Just Killed ARR
#50I wish EU (or may be just a Swedish thing) also could have same kind of cancellation possible for post-paid phone/ internet, eye-glasses subscriptions.
We have it in Germany since 2025 and I thought it was a EU thing.