Hacker News Reader

Comment by wccrawford | Hacker News Reader

I've come to associate those things with snake oil. They're right up there with "Free trial, but you need to put in a credit card." Sure, some legit services use those techniques, but they're a red flag that they might be a pain to deal with if you choose to back out.

View on HN

A lot of legit services take a cc with trial sign up to separate the people who might pay from the people who would pay if it was the right solution. The right thing to do when taking a cc for a trial is to send reminder emails that they will be charged.. Which not enough do.

I see more and more startups using stripe, between that and the ability to do chargeback with that cc company, I worry less about it. The chargeback dispute is quite powerful.

> The right thing to do when taking a cc for a trial is to send reminder emails that they will be charged.. Which not enough do.

Not sure about that. Wouldn't the "right thing to do" be to not auto-renew the account? Suspend the account after the trial until the user logs in and confirms the renewal?

Those would also be good ideas.

The worst scenario is when the subscription begins and the user has forgotten the cancelation date. A link could be embedded in the email to say yes or no. It must be profitable not to do this for some.

> The right thing to do when taking a cc for a trial is to send reminder emails that they will be charged.. Which not enough do.

> Wouldn't the "right thing to do" be to not auto-renew the account?

I suspect we sometimes conflate "right" and "convenient". I am curious, don't most people (especially those with technical chops) just drop a calendar event as a reminder?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com