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Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

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Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#511

Post by 5560675260 »

doublerabbit wrote: post #481
tomaskafka wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how a milking stage of a product looks like, it's a last stage before death.

However in this case there is no death. Adobe is the de-facto for drawing to photo manipulation. While there may be open-source alternatives however Adobe is kept alive via media & enterprise where there is no alternative. edit: downvoted?

> de-facto for drawing

I don't think that this is still true - most artists switched to CSP, Procreate, various other programs. There isn't really an industry standard any more.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#513

Post by wpietri »

d110af5ccf wrote: post #176
wpietri wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canceling at will sounds great. Why should they be able to charge you for things you don't use?

Because they gave you a discount on that basis! How is it ethical to receive a discount from someone and then go back on your word?! They also offer a full price monthly option (ie no cancellation fee) if that's what you want. The "cancellation fee" is because you are breaking a contract which you agreed to in order to receive a discount . If you are actually given a meaningful choice (which I feel quite strongly tha…

They gave a discount from a made-up price to another made-up price. The "contract" is a pure marketing fiction here. You can condescendingly explain what a contract is all you like, but the point of contracts is to reflect some underlying reality of the parties that needs mitigation so that they can have a mutually beneficial relationship.

For example, apartments are rented with an annual price and a monthly payment because a) both landlords and tenants have a lot of switchover costs, and b) tenants want to avoid landlords exploiting the pain of moving by jacking their rent up after a month.

But this is just exploitative marketing BS. When you sign up, Adobe is not buying a physical server that they have to depreciate and would sit empty when you quit. They did not buy extra buckets of pixels that will now sit unused in a warehouse. If a person stops using Photoshop, both the the provider expenses and the renter benefits cease immediately. There's no legitimate reason to charge people a cancellation fee here; it's pure exploitation of purchaser optimism and cognitive bias.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#514

Post by wpietri »

nicbou wrote: post #302
cbmuser wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "cancellation fee" is because you are breaking a contract which you agreed to in order to receive a discount. Exactly. And it’s perfectly legal and practiced by a lot of companies, even the public transport company in Berlin does that. There seem to be a lot of people in this discussion on HN who seem very inexperienced in signing business contracts.

It's also practised by almost every landlord. You can end your lease without the usual 3 month notice but expect to pay a fee or lose a month of rent.

That's because you're putting the landlord to a lot of unexpected effort and expense which he was expecting to amortize over the full term of the lease. Are you saying something similar applies here?

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#515

Post by FireBeyond »

sofixa wrote: post #500
alisonkisk wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying it's OK to order stuff and not pay for it, as long it costs less than the cost of going to court?

No, it's okay to subscribe to something, stop using it and stop paying it. When your access is cutoff due to non-payment, what's the problem?

Their argument (and to be clear, how much I agree with it depends on the nature of the product/service, and the amount), is that your subscription had an intended duration, and was priced accordingly, and that you received discounts from the "on-demand" pricing that you would otherwise not have been entitled to.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#516

Post by FireBeyond »

alexvoda wrote: post #468
bjornjajayaja wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, you signed up for the annual subscription so it’s on you. They give a decent cost discount for yearly subscription—it’s only fair to them that they get their end of the bargain. Important takeaway: only buy month to month plans when testing out services. EDIT: I’m not a huge fan of subscription models in general. Software doesn’t need to change at the rate it is these days, but it does work wonders for the…

Their website actively tries to trick you into falling for it.

Honestly, not so much. Perhaps it did before. It isn't great, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a dark pattern.

It does list the "Best Value" plan, but when you go to "Buy", it presents a shopping cart with the following text (no fine print, no other tricks), and even uses the word "commitment":

"Commitment:

Annual plan, paid monthly: US$52.99/mo."

Even at that point, the above is in a drop-down, and you can change it to "Annual plan, pre-paid", or "Monthly plan".

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#517

Post by skeeter2020 »

alexvoda wrote: post #463
alias_neo wrote: post #319

I got hit with this a few years back. I signed up for Ps CC for a month (I thought) to create an anniversary gift for my wife. I used it ONCE. Tried to cancel and they told me I had in fact signed up for a year, and that if I didn't cancel now, they'd give me two months free. I didn't want it at all! Anyway, I sucked it up, got on with the remainder of the year, because they wouldn't let me put the cancellation in ea…

This is why for such services (though I haven't used Adobe software in more than a decade) I use single use debit cards like the ones offered by Revolut. Adobe is in the same ring of trust as a random shady website and one ring above a Nigerian prince.

That contract you signed with Adobe has residual value when they give up on charging you. They don't just move on, they sell it to a debt collection service and then you will really learn about aggressive tactics.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#518

Post by FireBeyond »

Tenoke wrote: post #444
mmarx wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that you can put in your cancellation notice early, even on the very first day.

Here you could, too as far as I understand you just get 2 months free if you don't. At any rate, what's even worse for me is that you can't cancel in the last 3 months of the contract with ISPs which nobody tells you so it's even easier to get stuck with it for an extra year.

> At any rate, what's even worse for me is that you can't cancel in the last 3 months of the contract with ISPs which nobody tells you so it's even easier to get stuck with it for an extra year.

Which is ridiculous. It doesn't require 90 days to de-provision a circuit.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#519

Post by Kye »

Just putting it out there: The Affinity suite for the desktop is currently 50% off. The Designer app for the iPad works great on my Mini with good Pencil support, and I've used the desktop apps for a long time. It saves to iCloud (you can choose another place since it's a plain old Files path chooser) and the files open up on the desktop app with no problem.

Capture One Express is a free and highly functional alternative to Lightroom if you have a Nikon, Sony, or Fujifilm camera.

Re: Adobe charges subscription cancellation fee

#520

Post by onikolas7 »

Interesting how most comments react with "I'll just pirate it" not realizing that they are just solidifying Adobe's lock-in.

Few years down the line they will turn legit (guessing most are poor students who will graduate and get jobs) and will have to pay or pass the cost to their employer.

"Free for educational use" is the legitimized version of the same scummy tactic. I wish universities would not fall for it.

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