Hacker News Reader

Comment by radicalriddler | Hacker News Reader

This has happened for years! It's not some new terrible thing.

You sign up for an annual subscription, paying monthly installments.

They give you the option to pay half of it out if you want to cancel, it's no different than a 12 month phone plan in places like Australia.

God I hate Twitter. People on their are so used to only reading 150 characters, that it's started affecting them in their daily life, that they're not reading the paid agreements they're signing up to.

Edit: This isn't defending Adobe. I was stuck in this agreement for a whole extra year than I wanted to be, because I didn't get a notification about it renewing (but that was again, my mistake). Fuck Adobe, they have shitty practices.

View on HN

Adding onto this.

The actual shitty thing that people should be complaining about, is that the subscription auto-renews (unless I missed the checkbox) and I couldn't find a way to cancel it pre-emptively, outside of blocking it at the bank level, otherwise it signed me up for another 12 months.

Yeah, I agree that is the truly shitty thing here. You should be able to cancel, but still pay until your contract runs out.

Yes, this! I signed up for Creative Cloud for a year with monthly payments, but I was absolutely not prepared for the fact that if I didn’t cancel by the end of the 12 months then I would be signed up for another 12 months.

This is not how subscriptions usually work, but with Adobe it is.

With every other subscription I have ever had if I have it for say 14 months or 16 months and then want to cancel I have been free to do so.

But with Adobe when I wanted to cancel after 13 months I learned that I had automatically been committed to another 12 months and would need to pay a hefty cancellation fee.

I like the software that Adobe makes but I hate hate hate the subscription.

When I leave Adobe after my subscription ends this time, I hope to never have to sign up for their subscription again.

What? That's exactly how annual contracts have worked for the last decades...

If you choose the annual contract, that will run for a full year with you paying monthly installments. If you want to cancel early, you will have to reimburse them. That is exactly the same as phone plans, gym plans (with the exception that gyms often don't allow early cancellation at all), etc. Now if you don't cancel what do you think will happen with an annual contract? Of course it will prolong for another period of time that you chose, in this case a full year again. This is literally hoe contracts work.

If you get a monthly subscription of Netflix, you don't need to manually prolong it every month, do you?

I live in Norway. When I sign up for a phone subscription with a 12 months period for example, it will continue to run yes but crucially I can cancel at any point after those 12 months are up without any fees or anything, that’s what I am saying.

12 months binding is fine. Cancellation fee before the 12 months are up is fine.

Automatically binding your customers for another 12 months every year is insane and extremely hostile and abusive behavior. And I will have no part in such things so even though I love the software that Adobe makes I quite frankly will avoid doing any business with them ever again now to the extent that I am able to.

Seconded, this is the way everything in Greece works. Automatically entering them into another contract is scummy.

God I was looking for this. Went through the exact same thing. Lots of people on their forums complaining about it too. Put me off ever going near Adobe again.

This is also pretty common, at least in Germany. If you don't cancel a contract within a certain period, it auto renews.

It's not that terrible, but it certainly is something immigrants like me don't expect. Now I assume it's the case.

While I agree it is "in the contract" it's not SUPER obvious that there is an early cancellation fee during the checkout process.

If there was a separate box or better, a popup modal/page, that explains this, I'd give Adobe the benefit of the doubt.

The problem is patterning - _a lot_ other companies monthly subscriptions don't have 50% annual cancellation fee or any cancellation fee. So this method of 'lowering the price' is uncommon/against-the-grain.

When faced with an uncommon situation you really need people to understand what they're getting into, otherwise lots of people are surprised when they get hit with this.

I dunno, if someone presents me with two options:

- Annual plan, paid monthly: $50 / month

- Monthly plan: $75 / month

Then of course there is going to be a catch to the first one. I cannot imagine anyone being so naive they’d just assume both plans are the same aside from the price...

This comment is so tone deaf.

Tons of people will be so naive as to either not read closely, or just not know that the cheaper one comes with a catch.

It's an example of "this thing you complain of doesn't affect me, a working age adult, a university educated and highly paid white male, living in a rich area, so it couldn't possibly be of merit."

People should spend some more time in the community, talk to the old people at the library, do some volunteering. The immense difficulty many people have in filling out a government form is almost traumatic to witness.

It’s really hard to not blame the people that do ‘not closely’ read the 10 words they need to read to not get fucked by their $75 / month subscription.

Like, some basic due diligence when spending a lot of money is normal right?

Looking at the Adobe website, you can easily get in touch with sales reps if you have any questions about the products. These are products that cost hundreds of dollars per year and are marketed as tools for professionals. If you fly through without reading anything, or if you don't understand and don't ask for help... I'm not sure what you expect people to do.

> While I agree it is "in the contract" it's not SUPER obvious that there is an early cancellation fee during the checkout process.

Because it’s common sense and practice.

Why would anyone commit to a yearly contract otherwise?

I wish common sense was truly common... overtime, I've come to believe it's not[0].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUjcHW7SHaI

It is to you. Just imagine someone having a mental handicap or just tired and not paying enough attention.

Terms should be easy to read and understand, that is one part of accessibility.

> It is to you. Just imagine someone having a mental handicap

If you have an actual mental handicap that's keeps you from understanding, you are usually not entitled to sign contracts without a supervisor anyway.

> or just tired and not paying enough attention.

Then you shouldn't be signing contracts in that condition. It's like complaining to the police that they caught you speeding and then excusing that with tiredness. I'm pretty sure the officer won't accept that excuse.

> Terms should be easy to read and understand, that is one part of accessibility.

They are. It's your duty as a grown-up to read a contract before signing it.

> "it's no different than a 12 month phone plan in places like Australia."

No major phone carrier in Australia charges cancellation fees on a 12 month contract. None of them even offer a 12 month SIM only contract.

If you have a phone payment attached, you just pay the remainder of the phone which you keep. With Adobe's contract you pay half the remaining amount and immediately cannot use the software anymore.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com