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Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

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Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#71

Post by weird-eye-issue »

jaynate wrote: post #65
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #61

One time for my small business I shared a login with one of my employees and they tried to get us to buy some sort of Enterprise subscription because they claimed that dozens of IP addresses were logging into the account and when we refused they simply closed our account. We were paying like over $300 per month and not even using the full subscription limits... We ended up finding a cheaper solution and now just use…

[flagged]

I didn't use the service. Well sometimes I would log in just to check they were actively using it and seeing which images were licensed to make sure they weren't using it for other purposes (remote employee). Only my one employee actually used it. I think she used a VPN which is why they thought dozens of people were using it apparently. Regardless the only loser in all of this was Shutterstock...

The only options they have is single seat or "talk to us" Enterprise level and for basically a one-person company using a virtual assistant we pretty much fall through the cracks there.

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#72

Post by like_any_other »

sanswork wrote: post #45
chatmasta wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the complaint with Adobe is that if you cancel, they terminate access immediately rather than at the end of the billing period. There is no explanation for this other than a predatory one; they’re betting you’ll forget to cancel by the time your bill comes around. The immediate termination is effectively depriving you of the next N months of access for which you already paid.

This isn't true though. Again like with the annual plan people are confusing things. I just looked it up and checked a few reddit posts to confirm and heres what's happening. If you cancel in the first 14 days they terminate immediately and refund you. After the 14 days the subscription is cancelled and you keep access until the point you paid for. If you signed up for an annual contract you have a cancel fee of 50%…

Maybe now, after they had to pay a $150M fine for using dark patterns and making unsubscribing difficult: https://www.gadgetreview.com/adobe-pays-150m-to-settle-subsc...

They did a lot more than just making it hard to cancel, too: https://www.deceptive.design/brands/adobe

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#73

Post by sanswork »

HDBaseT wrote: post #69
sanswork wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and if you get an annual plan from adobe and pay up front there is no fee for cancelling. The fee is if you get an annual plan with a monthly payment and cancel early. I remember when it was like $600 for photoshop for a single version(like 25 years ago so what would that be today?). The subscription pricing is a steal.

If the subscription pricing was a "steal" and the perpetual licensing was genuinely more expensive and worse, they'd still offer the perpetual licensing. Instead they killed it, they clearly do not want to cannibalize their subscription offing. It clearly makes them more money. Your first point is valid, I was misunderstanding the yearly subscription pricing, they offer an upfront payment as well as a monthly (but wi…

The subscription pricing makes it more accessible to consumers where as previously the only people that paid for licenses were companies(and probably only large companies given it was basically always the most popular warez). So they charge less per release but they dramatically increase the possible consumer base and release lumpy revenue based around semi-regular annual releases with constant cash flow. So on a per user basis it is without a doubt cheaper but overall they can still make a lot more money.

>I believe still however, if you pay for a year, cancel, you still get access cut off. Which is absurd.

I've not seen anyone claiming this actually happened but maybe I just missed them? Everyone I've seen has said the opposite.

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#74

Post by sanswork »

like_any_other wrote: post #72
sanswork wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true though. Again like with the annual plan people are confusing things. I just looked it up and checked a few reddit posts to confirm and heres what's happening. If you cancel in the first 14 days they terminate immediately and refund you. After the 14 days the subscription is cancelled and you keep access until the point you paid for. If you signed up for an annual contract you have a cancel fee of 50%…

Maybe now, after they had to pay a $150M fine for using dark patterns and making unsubscribing difficult: https://www.gadgetreview.com/adobe-pays-150m-to-settle-subsc... They did a lot more than just making it hard to cancel, too: https://www.deceptive.design/brands/adobe

Your deceptive design link is literally outlining the plan discussed in the rest of this thread.

The first one in your deceptive design was:

Adobe: Unclear yearly subscription terms and cancellation fees "Apparently monthly subscriptions, but you are signed up for a year. Cancelling early results in a 50% of remaining months subscriptions being applied as a cancellation charge."

Then you click through to look at it and the button the user selects says

Annual, Paid Monthly Fee applies if you cancel after 14 days

With an information popup.

Scrolling through the rest all of it is them just selecting this option without reading the details then being upset when the Annual plan is an annual plan.

I have no clue why they decided to settle that lawsuit since they still have the same plan. I'm not a lawyer.

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#75

Post by margalabargala »

jaynate wrote: post #65
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #61

One time for my small business I shared a login with one of my employees and they tried to get us to buy some sort of Enterprise subscription because they claimed that dozens of IP addresses were logging into the account and when we refused they simply closed our account. We were paying like over $300 per month and not even using the full subscription limits... We ended up finding a cheaper solution and now just use…

[flagged]

It's not predatory, it's just Shutterstock being shitty. And in this case, self-destructive.

Shutterstock should care how much OP paid, because if they were paying a subscription and not maxing it out, Shutterstock lost money because they had a draconian TOS that they aggressively enforced to their own detriment.

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#76

Post by like_any_other »

sanswork wrote: post #74
like_any_other wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe now, after they had to pay a $150M fine for using dark patterns and making unsubscribing difficult: https://www.gadgetreview.com/adobe-pays-150m-to-settle-subsc... They did a lot more than just making it hard to cancel, too: https://www.deceptive.design/brands/adobe

Your deceptive design link is literally outlining the plan discussed in the rest of this thread. The first one in your deceptive design was: Adobe: Unclear yearly subscription terms and cancellation fees "Apparently monthly subscriptions, but you are signed up for a year. Cancelling early results in a 50% of remaining months subscriptions being applied as a cancellation charge." Then you click through to look at it a…

You are describing the current state of Adobe subscription. If you check out the post linked on the deceptive.design page [1], one of the replies states [2]:

after the original thread a year or so ago, team made a clearer way to show pricing options to give ppl/teams who buy an annual sub a discount w/o paying it all up front

So the clear language is new. And that doesn't touch on the losing access during the current billing period either.

> I have no clue why they decided to settle that lawsuit

Because they have changed their subscription page as part of the settlement. All the posters telling you how Adobe ripped them off are describing Adobe from before the settlement.

[1] Adobe's subscription model deploys recurring annual plans or termination with massive penalty - https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1660907518430699523

[2] https://x.com/scottbelsky/status/1661376319169372166

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#77

Post by weird-eye-issue »

margalabargala wrote: post #75
jaynate wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's not predatory, it's just Shutterstock being shitty. And in this case, self-destructive. Shutterstock should care how much OP paid, because if they were paying a subscription and not maxing it out, Shutterstock lost money because they had a draconian TOS that they aggressively enforced to their own detriment.

Yes exactly it's not like it's unlimited downloads we had a fixed amount of images per month

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#78

Post by sanswork »

Marsymars wrote: post #67
sanswork wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's a subscription auto-renew is the default. As for auto-commit why would they change your subscription choices on you without you choosing it?

> It's a subscription auto-renew is the default. There are a number of subscriptions where I regularly want only a single month of service at a time.

Then cancel your subscription before its over? I'm not seeing what the problem is here.

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#79

Post by sanswork »

like_any_other wrote: post #76
sanswork wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your deceptive design link is literally outlining the plan discussed in the rest of this thread. The first one in your deceptive design was: Adobe: Unclear yearly subscription terms and cancellation fees "Apparently monthly subscriptions, but you are signed up for a year. Cancelling early results in a 50% of remaining months subscriptions being applied as a cancellation charge." Then you click through to look at it a…

You are describing the current state of Adobe subscription. If you check out the post linked on the deceptive.design page [1], one of the replies states [2]: after the original thread a year or so ago, team made a clearer way to show pricing options to give ppl/teams who buy an annual sub a discount w/o paying it all up front So the clear language is new. And that doesn't touch on the losing access during the current…

I'm describing the state from the screen shots on the site you included.

>https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1660907518430699523

This screen shot is too heavily cropped for me to know exactly what the page explained. I'm going to go ahead and assume this was intentional on the part of the x poster. I've been using Adobe subscriptions on an off for several years so before this point and somehow manage to continue to be able to cancel.

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#80

Post by s1artibartfast »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #77
margalabargala wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not predatory, it's just Shutterstock being shitty. And in this case, self-destructive. Shutterstock should care how much OP paid, because if they were paying a subscription and not maxing it out, Shutterstock lost money because they had a draconian TOS that they aggressively enforced to their own detriment.

Yes exactly it's not like it's unlimited downloads we had a fixed amount of images per month

Why is number of images more 'real' than number of users?

What is your strategy for all you can eat buffets?

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