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Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

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Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#121
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what's scummy about this. Every service out there offers discounted prices for longer-term contracts since they are guaranteed a sustained future income. If they didn't have a penalty for breaking the contract then everyone would just game the system. What should they do instead? Not have the annual payment option and screw over all the people who do want to pay for the entire year and are happy wi…

Personally, I think they should simply sell the product rather than rent seeking. Perhaps combined with some sort of rent to own option for people who are unable to make a single upfront purchase.

Rent seeking? Seriously? You realize that rent seeking actually has a definition and it isn't "any business model I don't like" . This is the opposite of rent seeking, you pay for a monthly subscription to a product line that keeps getting updated and supported. That's a directly & mutually beneficial transaction.

Take video editing as an example. The tech it involves (such tracking or object detection) usually improves pretty quickly and the improvement can be drastic . Not having to shell out hundreds of dollars outright every new CS version just to keep up with the tech is a pretty big benefit for a lot of people and makes the ecosystem more accessible. That's true for almost every other software included in the Adobe subscription.

Now, it's absolutely okay to still dislike subscription based business models (I do too) but in this case it's non sense to argue it's rent seeking.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#122
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is disingenuous at best, and fraudulent at worst - and I know ACCC in Australia will take a very dim view. Take the main page for instance, the one you linked - it lists monthly prices. No mention whatsoever of "annual pricing paid monthly" - it's JUST monthly mentioned. Pic: https://imgur.com/sZPfFDI When you click "See plans and pricing details" it gives you the Annual monthly and ACTUAL monthly prices. Pic: h…

To me this is a very intuitive presentation of pricing, so not sure what you are referring to as a dark pattern. There are three clearly laid-out options: 1. No contract, pay monthly 2. Annual contract, pay monthly (cheaper than 1) 3. Annual contract, pay in one go (cheaper than 1 & 2) You pick one of the three options and check out. Where exactly is the confusion?

I think they have to display the total price for the contract here in Australia, not just the monthly payments.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#123
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I cancel my lease, the penalty is one month's rent. It doesn't seem unusual to charge a cancellation fee. But for a company like Adobe, they don't have to find a new tenant to take your spot, as a landlord would. So the claim of the cancellation seems less legitimate.

That sounds generous. If I cancel my lease I have to pay 100% of the remaining balance.

Well you have a shitty lease.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#124
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first screenshot in the comment you're replying to says the price is "$52.99/mo". A reasonable person would look at that and conclude that if they purchased the product for 1 month, they would pay $52.99. But it seems (from the other, subsequent screenshots) that the actual cost Adobe would charge is $635.88. (That $52.99/mo, for a year.) It is only on subsequent screens that the bait and switch becomes visible.…

Automobile leases, apartments, and the like are listed with monthly rates, but your commitment to pay is longer than one month. What's the difference?

Mobile phone plans and car payments all display the total price here in Australia as well as the monthly payments.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#126

This has happened for years! It's not some new terrible thing. You sign up for an annual subscription, paying monthly installments. They give you the option to pay half of it out if you want to cancel, it's no different than a 12 month phone plan in places like Australia. God I hate Twitter. People on their are so used to only reading 150 characters, that it's started affecting them in their daily life, that they're…

Adding onto this.

The actual shitty thing that people should be complaining about, is that the subscription auto-renews (unless I missed the checkbox) and I couldn't find a way to cancel it pre-emptively, outside of blocking it at the bank level, otherwise it signed me up for another 12 months.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#127
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the dark pattern is - the convoluted pricing and terms. Also, not everybody is a uckin lawyer, that's another problem. The customer has already been paying more than they'd have paid if they went for a long duration contract.

You are stretching the definition of convoluted. Offering discounts for signing a longer-term contract is standard practice in every industry. Don't need to be a lawyer to figure that out.

There is no reason to give billion dollar companies with a staff of thousands of full time workers which have meetings in which professional designers meet with professional decision makers to approve of each step in a web store before it goes live the benefit of the doubt instead of the customer who spends 2 minutes in a web form.

If it looks dishonest it probably is. On this page https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html I see an entry for all apps. The description is like so.

All Apps

US$52.99/mo

It has a big old buy now option that you are obviously supposed to click in place of the small text that says see plan and pricing details.

When you click buy now you are taken to what ought to be familiar to most people as a shopping cart pattern. On the entire left side is just a spot to put your email and a button designed to draw your attention below it that says continue to payment. Most people are going to read it from top down and not glance much at the item they have put in their cart.

If they do they may notice a drop down in the description of the item in their cart with black on grey text that says annual plan, paid monthly in the description of the item you are already buying where people are much less likely to attend to this detail.

If they click the drop down they may note the options but more likely we are already passed this screen and onto the next one.

If you put a nonsense email in and click proceed to payment you will notice, you know or not, text in 6 point font at the bottom.

In light text that on a 24" 1080p screen is 9 pixels high or about 0.098 inches tall

> By clicking "Agree and subscribe," you agree

In bold same size it says

> You will be charged US$52.99 (plus tax) monthly and at the end of your one-year term, your subscription will automatically renew monthly until you cancel (price subject to change). No annual commitment required after the first year. Cancel anytime via Adobe Account or Customer Support.

Now again in light text it says

> Cancel before Apr 26, 2021 to get a full refund and avoid a fee

If you had no economic interest and your job was to be as informative as possible you would allow the user to click the product which would take you to a product page wherein it would list 3 options with separate descriptions where you would add the desired item to the cart. This means that you would affirmatively choose that option instead of having the default in a drop down positioned so many wouldn't attend to it at all and you wouldn't mention the fee in tiny font on the payment screen. It would be fully specified in body text with a check box saying something to the effect. I acknowledge that if I cancel before the one year term I will be charged a fee of up to n dollars. If you check it you would be able to add the item to your cart and pay for it secure in that everyone knew what they are buying.

It doesn't work like this because deceiving people is good for business.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#128
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what's scummy about this. Every service out there offers discounted prices for longer-term contracts since they are guaranteed a sustained future income. If they didn't have a penalty for breaking the contract then everyone would just game the system. What should they do instead? Not have the annual payment option and screw over all the people who do want to pay for the entire year and are happy wi…

Personally, I think they should simply sell the product rather than rent seeking. Perhaps combined with some sort of rent to own option for people who are unable to make a single upfront purchase.

Photoshop is overall a lot cheaper under the subscription model than it was before. A boxed copy used to cost $800-$1000 (in 90s/00s dollars). Even if you skipped some versions and upgraded every 3ish years, it would come to ~$300-$350/yr. You can get an annual subscription today for $240/yr. And that's without factoring in inflation and the fact that you can just pay for a month or two of use if you want. And you're always on the latest version.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is disingenuous at best, and fraudulent at worst - and I know ACCC in Australia will take a very dim view. Take the main page for instance, the one you linked - it lists monthly prices. No mention whatsoever of "annual pricing paid monthly" - it's JUST monthly mentioned. Pic: https://imgur.com/sZPfFDI When you click "See plans and pricing details" it gives you the Annual monthly and ACTUAL monthly prices. Pic: h…

When you click the "buy" button it's made clear https://imgur.com/uUqd9ZY Reminds me of car advertising. They don't show the full price of the lease. They show the monthly payments

It says one thing in the screen where you put the item effectively in your cart and another in the description of the item in your cart wherein its designed for people's eyeballs to hit the continue to payment before they attend to the fact that it says something different in the description of the item IN the cart.

It's beautifully criminal in design.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really that clear? https://imgur.com/a/yQFQRKF Right before hitting 'place order' there's a link to a pop-up modal with the cancellation terms. > "Should you cancel after 14 days, you’ll be charged a lump sum amount of 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period." At no point is the total amount (aka, your contract obligation) displayed,…

I see the total amount here https://imgur.com/uUqd9ZY

That is not the total amount in dollars.
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