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Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

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Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#351

Post by kevincox »

dheera wrote: post #337
arcticbull wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may get sent to collections and thats a whole pile of misfortune.

Most online services just terminate your service after a couple warnings and don't bother with collections. In any case just set it as your policy that you don't talk to collectors, you only engage with businesses directly. Send Adobe a written notice of termination of the agreement, stop payments, and I believe that's all you need to do, but IANAL.

IANAL but if you agreed to a fixed term contract you can't just inform the other party that you are leaving early. You need to use an exit clause within the contract or somehow invalidate it. (For example by saying that you didn't knowingly enter into a 1 year contract.)

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#352

Post by unfocussed_mike »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #74

They’ve done this for close to ten years (or however long Creative Cloud has been around) and you have to be careful to cancel before they renew you into another yearly contract. I swore I would never have a personal subscription again (and just use the one I have at work for personal projects, which is against TOS but prove it), but then they had a 50% off special and I caved. I also set a calendar entry to remind m…

While I am sure this is not really a "dark" pattern, Adobe's subscription terms definitely discouraged me from subscription software generally. As soon as Affinity Photo was stable in beta (March/April 2015 time) I cancelled my Photoshop Plan subscription at the first opportunity.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#353

Post by mthoms »

mrtksn wrote: post #334
mthoms wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's one of the things that's great about Apple's iAP and Apple being the handler of transactions. There's no tricks If you don't cancel a three day trial before the end of the second day, you are automatically billed. That's not a three day trial, that's a two day trial. A full 33% less than what you are explicitly promised[0]: >If you signed up for a free or discounted trial subscription and you don't want to re…

Yes it happens but you get the refund easily. You also get an e-mail before that happens.

Well you don't get the refund at all if you try to cancel less than 24 hours out. As technical users, you and I both know there is no technical reason for this. None. It's designed to catch users off guard, plain and simple.

There's also this (emphasis mine): "3 months free. Apple TV+ is included for three months when you purchase an Apple device and redeem the offer within 90 days"[0].

What does included mean in this context to you? It means included in the purchase of the device. Right? As in, we are giving you a bonus incentive over and above what you would normally get.

Sorry, no. If you cancel or decline autorenewal, nothing is in fact "included". It's a deception. It's conditionally included.

Sure, it's all covered in the fine print, and everybody is doing it but come on. Apple is engaging in dirty trick after dirty trick.

[0] https://www.apple.com/ca/apple-tv-plus/

For the record, I use Apple devices exclusively and happily pay for many services (including AppleTV+) but this stuff still needs to be called out.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#354

Post by Ma8ee »

anon23anon wrote: post #318
cpach wrote: post #68

If you’re on macOS and just want a good and convenient image editor, I warmly recommend Acorn. The Muellers (owners of Flying Meat Software) have put a lot of effort to make it feel like a really solid Mac application. The price is good and from time to time they offer discounts. The whole experience reminds me of using good old Paintshop Pro back in the late 90s (^_^) Other options are Affinity Photo from Serif Ltd…

I've bought both Acorn and Affinity over the years. W/ Affinity they're license is only good for the platform you purchased it on e.g. you can't use a windows license on your mac - you'd need to purchase 2 separate license. Considering I have a work mac and a work windows this was kind of annoying but whatever. The thing that I encountered w/ Acorn was their license was tied to a particular version. For example a new…

Yes, either you pay for a subscription or you once pay for a specific version and have to pay again if you want to use a later version. You can’t both, that is, you pay once and get upgrades indefinitely. Even developers have to eat.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#355

Post by [deleted] »

mrtksn wrote: post #64

Just yesterday, on a local streaming platform that has a series that I want to watch I was offered "7 days free". Great, I can watch the accumulated episodes and if I still feel like watching the new ones that come weekly I can keep the subscription, right? Nope, the "7 days free" wasn't a a trail but 7 extra days when you purchase a full year subscription. I was considering to get a monthly subscription to try it ou…

[deleted]

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#356

Post by unfocussed_mike »

fermentation wrote: post #309
prox wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Affinity Suite professionally, absolutely possible to switch. Have done for three years, it’s really good.

As soon as Affinity releases a Lightroom replacement I will buy it. I've tried using the open source apps and it just doesn't feel as good on a mac.

Definitely a limitation, though I'd imagine we will see a Bridge/DAM type product before we see a specifically Lightroom-type product.

Perhaps we'll see a Lightroom-type persona in Photo and integrations with some sort of DAM.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#357

Post by DangitBobby »

unfocussed_mike wrote: post #281
DangitBobby wrote: post #195

This is fraud, not a dark pattern. You are intentionally making designs with the intent to deceive, knowing that if people understood the terms they would not agree. Free trial? Actually it's a minimum $150 obligation. I don't understand how companies that do this aren't being fined or having people put in jail.

No, it's a free trial, because you can cancel it. And if you look in the screenshots in the very tweets this item is about, you can see that they tell you this up front, on the third screenshot, including the date by which you can cancel to get a full refund. It's not "fraud". Could it benefit from clearer language -- there are some small tweaks they could do.

Would you say the goal of the setup is to deceive the user into paying for a much longer term than they would agree to if they knew?

To me, two things stand out. 1) The fact that they have a "monthly price billed anually" could only be used for deception. Either you bill monthly or annually. Telling me how much per month is not helpful, it's deceptive. That's the billing scheme in my head. I am thinking of monthly billing. 2) The fact that they will charge you 50% of the full term no matter how soon after you cancel. The subscription is automatic and has near 0 marginal cost to Adobe. Clearly, the goal is to suck money from the pockets of people who either didn't find the software useful after all or didn't even intend to buy a full year.

Together, I see a clear intent to deceive with the goal of financial gain. Fraud. The fact that you can know what you are signing up for is immaterial. They could and would make it clearer if the goal wasn't to deceive, and they wouldn't charge you 50% on cancellation if the goal wasn't to profit off of people who mistakenly paid for more than they need.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#358

Post by chansiky »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #159

Screw those guys. At least for amateur/hobby work, I've used the following for years and love them. I also try to regularly donate to them. Instead of Illustrator for drawing, use Inkscape https://inkscape.org/ and/or Krita https://krita.org/en/ . Instead of Lightroom for developing digital photos, use Darktable https://www.darktable.org/ Instead of Photoshop for touchups, use GIMP https://www.gimp.org/ . Instead of…

If you want something more professional you can look to the Affinity products which have a very reasonable one time fee:

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/

I personally like Affinity Designer and have designed quite a few things with it. They are behind illustrator on features, I can't deny that, but I've been able to find answers to everything I needed.

Also they have solid developers working on the app. Check out this technical explanation of performance improvements to their rendering pipleline:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnfxzknVK_0

For a photoshop replacement, however, I would say Krita hands down. Again, its not as polished as photoshop, but I prefer it over Photoshop at this point even with all its rough edges. I really need to make a video or something about how to set it up and use it correctly but I think its got a lot more going for it.

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#359

Post by ferminaut »

asdefghyk wrote: post #349
bambax wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you can just block the recurring payments and wait for them to come at you? Anyway a "free" trial that asks for your cc number is obviously not free. Better to stay away of those to be on the safe side.

A person meeds to have a cc where transactions are disabled. ( My bank via its online customizer accounts - allows a person to turn this on / off for security )

I got a X1 credit card a little bit ago. You can have unlimited "virtual" credit cards, trial subscription cards, and one time use cards.

I now use it for everything, with a different "virtual" card for every business. I wish more credit cards offered this.

(not affiliated with x1)

Re: Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract

#360

Post by jijji »

Negative Option billing practices, as this is referred to, has been a violation of Visa rules since at least 2010 and MasterCard rules since 2021 [0] and also an FTC illegal practice [1].

[0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/ne...

[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-16/part-425

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