Alternatively, "how to improve your subscription revenue retention". These dark patterns are outlawed by the card networks (visa and mastercard both have lengthy policy around this) but seems those rules are very seldom enforced, especially for the big players.
How companies use dark patterns to keep you subscribed
81–90 of 191 posts
Re: How companies use dark patterns to keep you subscribed
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was stuck in a loop where my son's iCloud account had a subscription to Parallels, but it was on my credit card. He lost his password because he's 12. Even though I'm the parent on the account, it wouldn't let me cancel his purchase. But it also wouldn't let me reset his password for 6 weeks, and only a week into that period a $100 parallels subscription was going to go through. Fortunately, American Express revers…
Yep. It's a blatantly obvious dark pattern. It's your credit card. Your money. Yet Apple gives you no way to cancel (or even view!) a child's subscription online. Heck, they won't even tell you which child made the subscription.
One of my younger kids bought $7,200 worth of currency and content on a game on a Kindle. She did so in a single afternoon. I contacted Amazon support and the refund was issued on the spot. After they issued the refund, the only question that was asked was why I had it set to allow her to buy online. I replied that it was because she could not use one of Amazon's services with the family account without having payments enabled (I think it was music). I'm pretty sure they corrected that... but I was struck by how pro-consumer and how little hassle there was. I do not think that either the Play Store or App Store would have issued that refund so quickly.
Re: How companies use dark patterns to keep you subscribed
#83You know which services I don't have problems cancelling? Ones I subscribe to via Apple's in-app payments. I get that it sucks to have Apple scrape a percentage of my payments for themselves, but if you're a company I don't fully trust and/or want to have total control over my subscription without a bunch of hassle, Apple's IAPs are the way to go. Mostly this is great with the big streaming services. Want Disney+ or…
Yes. We have re-invented credit cards again.
Re: How companies use dark patterns to keep you subscribed
#84Not that corporations need me to carry their water, but I believe the popular subscription whipping boy, the New York Times, might be unfairly characterized now. After yet another one of these "subscriptions are evil" articles, I decided I wasn't going to support such shenanigans anymore, plus I don't read the NYT like I used to, so I'd sit on hold for as long as it takes. But it looks like it's now a few button clic…
Do you happen to live in California? The state requires that residents are able to either cancel subscriptions online or at least via the same method they used to sign up.
Would be curious to see if they are changing their cancel methods depending on your billing address. I know SiriusXM does this.
Re: How companies use dark patterns to keep you subscribed
#85May the 4th be with you in avoiding the dark side.
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Re: How companies use dark patterns to keep you subscribed
#86[flagged]
Re: How companies use dark patterns to keep you subscribed
#87You know which services I don't have problems cancelling? Ones I subscribe to via Apple's in-app payments. I get that it sucks to have Apple scrape a percentage of my payments for themselves, but if you're a company I don't fully trust and/or want to have total control over my subscription without a bunch of hassle, Apple's IAPs are the way to go. Mostly this is great with the big streaming services. Want Disney+ or…
Once you figure out how to cancel via the App Store it’s great. It did take me a while to even go looking for it but once I had, it was awesome.
Re: How companies use dark patterns to keep you subscribed
#88You know which services I don't have problems cancelling? Ones I subscribe to via Apple's in-app payments. I get that it sucks to have Apple scrape a percentage of my payments for themselves, but if you're a company I don't fully trust and/or want to have total control over my subscription without a bunch of hassle, Apple's IAPs are the way to go. Mostly this is great with the big streaming services. Want Disney+ or…
Once you figure out how to cancel via the App Store it’s great. It did take me a while to even go looking for it but once I had, it was awesome.
How do you do this? And is this applicable if the subscription is made thru their website (like Netflix)?
Re: How companies use dark patterns to keep you subscribed
#89You know which services I don't have problems cancelling? Ones I subscribe to via Apple's in-app payments. I get that it sucks to have Apple scrape a percentage of my payments for themselves, but if you're a company I don't fully trust and/or want to have total control over my subscription without a bunch of hassle, Apple's IAPs are the way to go. Mostly this is great with the big streaming services. Want Disney+ or…
Apple does this because the alternative would be devastatingly bad press. I mean, why do they permit 3 day trials that start billing at $9.99/week after that? For an app that creates ringtones? How many phone apps in the world are worth $520 per year? And BTW, that "3 day trial"? It's actually 2 days since you have to cancel at least 24 hours before the subscription renews. So it's really 33% less than they claim. If…
Trials absolutely need to be super clear about the exact date of start of billing. I think iOS has gotten much better and you have even a dedicated subscriptions tab in your iOS profile in settings.
Re: How companies use dark patterns to keep you subscribed
#90You know which services I don't have problems cancelling? Ones I subscribe to via Apple's in-app payments. I get that it sucks to have Apple scrape a percentage of my payments for themselves, but if you're a company I don't fully trust and/or want to have total control over my subscription without a bunch of hassle, Apple's IAPs are the way to go. Mostly this is great with the big streaming services. Want Disney+ or…
Apple does this because the alternative would be devastatingly bad press. I mean, why do they permit 3 day trials that start billing at $9.99/week after that? For an app that creates ringtones? How many phone apps in the world are worth $520 per year? And BTW, that "3 day trial"? It's actually 2 days since you have to cancel at least 24 hours before the subscription renews. So it's really 33% less than they claim. If…
Honestly I wonder how much of the ludicrously priced app fees are just facilitation of money laundering.