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I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

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Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#81

Post by alexwebb2 »

teddyh wrote: post #12
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't think so. If the seller actually incurs monthly costs like hosting, this is absolutely fair. What I would call a dark pattern is when you buy an app, a piece of software that executes code on your device, and are forced to pay monthly fees. This gets more and more common. I understand the reasons, but I personally prefer one-off payments and buy software in this way. If it's good, I will pay for upgrades…

Why does hosting need to be bundled with software upgrade and support? Hint: It doesn’t.

Because otherwise you’re on the hook to support N versions of the software instead of just one.

It’s vastly easier, simpler and cheaper to support hosted software.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#82

Post by Msw242 »

kevincox wrote: post #63
indus wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dont you think users with malintent abuse the platform irrespective of whether a card is on file or not?

Credit cards act as a "cost" of sorts. Credit cards are a limited resource, it is not free to acquire more credit cards. By requiring a valid credit card you are basically relying upon the verification that credit card issuers do to prevent unlimited abuse.

Virtual cards solve this. Create a card with $1 limit. Problem solved.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#83

Post by SavantIdiot »

Forgetting to kill your cloud instances and getting charged isn't a dark pattern, no more than forgetting to fill your gas tank isn't an automotive manufacturing dark pattern, or leaving your water running in the basement sink and forgetting all winter and then having a fight with your husband just before Christmas because the water bill is $1000 and you're the only one that uses the basement utility sink but only in the summer because it is too cold in the winter...

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#84

Post by inetknght »

kevincox wrote: post #63
indus wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dont you think users with malintent abuse the platform irrespective of whether a card is on file or not?

Credit cards act as a "cost" of sorts. Credit cards are a limited resource, it is not free to acquire more credit cards. By requiring a valid credit card you are basically relying upon the verification that credit card issuers do to prevent unlimited abuse.

> Credit cards are a limited resource

> it is not free to acquire more credit cards

If a user is malicious then they quite probably have access to malicious cards too.

Moreover, you're locking out users who don't want to give you their card just to try a service.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#85

Post by inetknght »

indus wrote: post #59
r00fus wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is failure to pay (ie, card authorization) good enough for inability to cancel? Couldn't they just invoice you and hold you liable for fees regardless?

A failed card auth does not remove the obligation to pay. Most vendors write if off, and don't follow-up after a few emails. Plus, they don't want users to get pissed off and post a negative review. Many vendors have now optimized their billing flow to reduce write-offs. They start charging on the first of the month for the upcoming use, and then cancel the account if the auth continues to fail.

> A failed card auth does not remove the obligation to pay.

Let them sue over it. They'll just love how the courts would rule in favor of a customer who clearly tried to recover their account in good faith and tried to cancel the billing in good faith and, failing both, canceled the billing in the only remaining way since the company provides literally zero customer-friendly options.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#86

Post by SilasX »

flerovium wrote: post #58
encoderer wrote: post #27

Of all the nasty things somebody can do with billing, I'm surprised the author leads with card-upfront trials. "Free trials should not require a credit card." This is opinion presented as fact. This is not a dark pattern. Totally unrestricted free trials are wonderful, you've invested a ton in your product and you want a prospective customer to experience everything. But there are legions of abusers and bad actors of…

It's about effort. The seller is asking you to put in the effort to enter your payment info in order to use the "free" version of the product. It's an exchange. The seller benefits because there is less friction to paying later. The dark pattern is billing the card without consent from the user, or some weird implicit consent.

> The seller is asking you to put in the effort to enter your payment info in order to use the "free" version of the product.

Yes, and they bear the cost of the users scared away by the extra step, so it’s sort of self limiting.

> The dark pattern is billing the card without consent from the user, or some weird implicit consent.

Yes, that’s valid to call out as a dark pattern, but the parent quoted the article as saying that requiring the credit card at all is a dark pattern or at least shouldn’t be done, so this isn’t a strawman.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#87

Post by [deleted] »

dinobones wrote: post #55
atgarone wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure that when you're analyzing SaaS transactions for a year (full time), you see a lot more data than we more-select-few-who-can-discern do.

You forget this is HN, where software engineers will go off on tangent talking about how "they could have designed the airplane rotor to not crash" or something equally ridiculous. Everyone here is an expert at everything, because they wrote a blog once, or since Paul Graham is perceived to be an expert on everything, they can be too.

[deleted]

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#88

Post by zinxq »

encoderer wrote: post #27

Of all the nasty things somebody can do with billing, I'm surprised the author leads with card-upfront trials. "Free trials should not require a credit card." This is opinion presented as fact. This is not a dark pattern. Totally unrestricted free trials are wonderful, you've invested a ton in your product and you want a prospective customer to experience everything. But there are legions of abusers and bad actors of…

We have tried both trials with and without CC - the latter is obviously more effective.

On the back-end however, this forced us to spend weeks developing an intelligent automated approval process to limit abuse (which is common).

After that, monitoring systems alert humans to suspicious trial activity for further review. So it continues to be a lot of work.

Financially, we love the idea of a true "free" trial. The abuse was the challenge but we're in a good place with it now. Customers/Potential-customers love it and so do we.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#89

Post by paulryanrogers »

moneywoes wrote: post #69
jedberg wrote: post #64

This is a very cynical take. Not all of these things are designed to trick you. For example, requiring a credit card for a free trial is to prevent free trial abuse. A normal person can only get so many valid credit card numbers, assuming you can detect burner cards (which for the most part the CC companies will happily help you do). Yes, a good company will notify you that a trial is going paid, and a great company…

Does Stripe detect something like privacy.com?

They probably have their own BIN/IIN. So it may be trivial. Still privacy.com per merchant cards are more likely to be actionable than stolen or prepaid cards.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#90

Post by jedberg »

moneywoes wrote: post #69
jedberg wrote: post #64

This is a very cynical take. Not all of these things are designed to trick you. For example, requiring a credit card for a free trial is to prevent free trial abuse. A normal person can only get so many valid credit card numbers, assuming you can detect burner cards (which for the most part the CC companies will happily help you do). Yes, a good company will notify you that a trial is going paid, and a great company…

Does Stripe detect something like privacy.com?

They might, but also privacy.com will not let you get more than two cards per site without a special exemption. I learned this when I tried using multiple cards for AWS, one for each app. They wouldn't let me do it.

So maybe Stripe knows which burner providers have their own restrictions and treat them differently?

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