Hacker News Reader

Comment by thoraway1010 | Hacker News Reader

Except it is very user friendly.

Try to cancel your newspaper subscription - you have to call in and jump through hoops.

Try to cancel your cable or internet, you didn't realize the rate you got was a "promo" rate that required a two year contract?

I guarantee that if apple used the approaches others use, subscription revenue would be a LOT higher.

They send you an email saying, here's what will be renewing soon, click here to cancel. I end up canceling about 80% of what would auto renew.

And I hate the developers who are not upfront with the subscription price. If there is a free trial, what does it cost after. Even NY Times did this ($1/month in big print - fine print said something like $54/month after 1 month or maybe it was just in a link burried etc).

View on HN

Wouldn't it be even better if companies couldn't have those nefarious business practices because they don't have the ability to auto-renew your subscriptions in the first place?

Couldn't does not mean they will not, even if it is illegal.

A lot of shady companies thinks customers will not chase after 5 dollars a month and even if they are right %50 of time, they make a pretty penny.

Compliance is pretty good here in Quebec - nearly no one offers a free trial, and those that do don't auto-renew.

Isn't MindGeek one of the Montreal "tech giants"? Their entire business model is free trials and hoping people don't cancel on auto-renew.

But not in Montreal! They only do it where it's legal! Laws absolutely work.

I thought their main revenues were ads and cams?

Just because neswpaper companies are utter assholes, it doesn't mean Apple can't do better. Like in subscriptions being opt IN not opt out.

The subscription is opt-in. You have to explicitly choose the subscription, you get an alert, and you get an email before the subscription is charged.

Just because there's worse, does that mean bad is good?

There's something to be said for a floor on how bad it can be.

It would be even more user friendly if it just popped up a message "You're free trial period has ended, would you like to subscribe?" People here seem to be claiming Apple will send you a message except it will be passive in that if you do nothing you're money will be taken. There are so many reasons I might miss that message, not the least of which is it being buried in all the other messages and notifications I get all day. Just make it opt-in instead of opt-out and suddenly it's super user friendly. In fact the companies can pause your subscription so if you don't get around to it the first time you interact after the free trial it's one click to subscribe and pick up where you left off.

Agree, also I think those tactics should be illegal, like all other dark patterns. This is a classic race to the bottom.

Okay, so what I’m reading is that in defense of apple not allowing a company to be user-friendly, you list companies that are even worse and use that as justification for apple to force developer to be somewhat user-unfriendly instead of fully. I honestly don’t even know what to say to that.

Try to cancel an apple sub after moving to android.

It's pretty easy, so long as you're either using a Mac or are on Windows and able to install iTunes. The subscription-billing-reminder email includes a "review your subscription" link, which opens up Music / iTunes to the relevant buried section.

Really, I feel it should be available through icloud.com, but I couldn't find it anywhere. That'd avoid any of these issues where you need access to a non-phone device.

...vaguely possible that you could get to it through the Apple Music app on Android. I can't easily check that from where I am now, though.

I moved to another continent, closed all my US accounts or left them empty. Apple considered me "delinquent" on my subscriptions and refused to let me switch my app store's country.

It took being on the phone for over 8 hours before someone figured it out (I didn't know that was the issue) and they ended up writing off $12 to let me make the switch.

Took me 30 minutes to convince someone of fingerprint temperature meter fraud that tricked my dad into 100 buck subscription.

Apple prides into protecting customers, but when such issue appears you can’t do anything in the usual case deflection UI.

Provided that you have a Mac or a PC with Windows installed first. Then you'll have to sully your Windows installation by installing iTunes.

Op state they have a broken leg, you say they should be happy not to have cancer.

This is like saying China is a free nation because NK has worse authoritarianism

Try to cancel your newspaper subscription - you have to call in and jump through hoops.

I can do that online with a few clicks. (I do not subscribe to the NYT or WSJ). This is the same with most newspapers that are not the NYT or WSJ.

Try to cancel your cable or internet, you didn't realize the rate you got was a "promo" rate that required a two year contract?

I can do that with a simple call. My rate was not a promo that required a two year contract. I know this because they said so in big letters on the contract, which they're legally required to do in most states...

I guarantee that if apple used the approaches others use, subscription revenue would be a LOT higher.

TIL that if Apple didn't force trial periods to become auto-billed, revenue would somehow be higher. Instead of the more obvious result, which is that revenue is higher because people are being auto-billed after they forget to cancel. That is the business model of quite a few scams, and it's disappointing but not surprising that the Cooks-era Apple has embraced this business model.

I will (and have) pay more for an in-app Apple subscription just because of how easy it is to manage. I don’t think requiring a call is ever “simple”. Some people just prefer different things.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com