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Comment by civilized | Hacker News Reader

You're just defending the right of a giant corporation to communicate poorly in a way that enriches them at the expense of customers, who are often struggling artists.

> "Annual plan, billed monthly" is about as easy as it's going to be in four words on a button or by a button.

It's absolutely insane that you think Adobe has fulfilled their obligations to communicate to the customer what they're getting into by putting "annual plan paid monthly" in a drop-down next to a button.

Adobe should warn the user of the early cancellation fees in big red letters. We all know why they don't: because they benefit from some users taking a deal that they don't realize is very bad for them.

That's what you're defending.

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> You're just defending the right of a giant corporation to communicate poorly in a way that enriches them.

Thanks for the downvote (I guess) but no, I'm doing no such thing. I'm explaining that the giant monopoly is going to do what the giant monopoly does.

Really almost all subscriptions are like this -- they depend on you forgetting to cancel. And this one is a bit more up-front than most.

> It's absolutely insane that you think Adobe has fulfilled their obligations to communicate to the customer what they're getting into by putting "annual plan paid monthly" in a drop-down next to a button.

Sorry, this is a straw man. I didn't at all say that I thought those four words fulfilled their obligations.

What I said is, they have a maximally clear four word way of summarising the plan right at the beginning of the payment flow.

I'm quite sure they need to do a bit more to explain what the early cancellation options are at some point in the payment flow. But right before you even try to buy, they do explain you're buying an annual plan, don't they?

FWIW, if you do not grasp that "annual plan" means an annual plan and then think about what your early cancellation options might be, perhaps you shouldn't be using the company credit card.

Complaining loudly that you can't use something clearly marked as an annual plan for just one month is a bit of a stretch.

What a staggering battery of distortions. Company credit card? You're just assuming that everyone doing this is spending someone else's money?

Everything you've written functions to blame the victim and leave Adobe harmless here.

> You're just assuming that everyone doing this is spending someone else's money?

To be fair, you're also assuming that starving artists are paying for Photoshop. A quick "Adobe" search on your BitTorrent tracker of choice may change your mind.

Plenty of low-income people do their best to follow the law out of conscientiousness. I know some of them personally.

I object passionately to the idea that, when people misunderstand communication that's designed to be maximally misleading, subject only to the constraint of legal defensibility, they are entirely to blame for falling into the trap.

Adobe should be very clear and upfront about their early cancellation fees.

"Annual plan, billed monthly" is demonstrably not maximally misleading.

If it said "monthly subscription" without clearly identifying the annual commitment, that would be maximally misleading.

I will grant you that it could say "Yearly plan", not "Annual plan", and be less misleading; they do appear to use this alternative phrasing in A/B tests.

If anyone from Adobe is reading this thread: make that change.

(And sort out your Photography plan: make a slimmer version of Photoshop that really does have just the features photographers need, and offer a plan for that.)

Monthly subscription would simply be a legally indefensible lie.

Yes, but also we're talking about the whole Creative Cloud suite, not Photoshop here. There's a Photoshop-only plan that costs about £11 per month and there are Black Friday deals which are well understood by the budget photographer world to provide better value for money than this.

(Even then it is poor value for money, IMO; other packages cover 95% of the functionality of Photoshop and cost less than a year of this, and I really think the market understands that now)

> What a staggering battery of distortions.

I don't know who you're really angry at but it doesn't seem to be down to me. Maybe dial it back a bit.

> Company credit card? You're just assuming that everyone doing this is spending someone else's money?

The tweet talks about the the full Creative Cloud suite (something close to £750/yr), and yes, the majority of these people are either spending the company's money or that of their own freelance business. It's an eye-wateringly expensive commitment otherwise.

This kind of commitment encourages due diligence.

> Thanks for the downvote (I guess) but no, I'm doing no such thing. I'm explaining that the giant monopoly is going to do what the giant monopoly does.

Isn't it our job as consumers to raise awareness and try to change this behavior though?

There's something about this sort of argument that seems off to me. Someone complains about someone doing X, then someone else comes along and says it's always been like that.

Why does that matter?

"Annual plan, paid monthly" seems pretty clear to me too, so help me approach this with a new perspective.

Is there a SaaS provider using the "annual plan, paid monthly" who does this "right"? Are you against this pricing model in general?

I reject the idea that everyone should know from these words that they will be subject to an enormous early cancellation fee if they forget to cancel before the 7 day trial period is over.

Adobe has a moral obligation to explain that up-front, so that consumers who cannot easily pay the fee are adequately warned of the danger they are getting themselves into.

> I reject the idea that everyone should know from these words that they will be subject to an enormous early cancellation fee if they forget to cancel before the 7 day trial period is over.

I hear you, and I want to dig in on that a bit if you'll be kind enough to indulge me.

I'm currently helping a SaaS vendor define their pricing plan, so I'd like to know what you would like to see in order to feel comfortable with an annual, paid monthly plan. If you have any thoughts on the two questions I asked, I'd really appreciate the feedback!

Haven't I been clear enough? If you're going to charge a giant early cancellation fee, that information should not be hidden behind a link and fine print. It should be explained on the payment page, briefly and in plain language.

I don't really get why the cancellation fee should be the issue here. When I purchase a subscription for a year, I assume that I will have to pay for the entire year. That's why it is cheaper per month than a monthly subscription.

The cancellation fee might be quite high, but it is absolutely expected that there is one. And if I'm not sure if I'll keep the subscription running for an entire year, then I'll look into the cancellation term beforehand or simply pick the monthly plan.

Because some people might not have the background to think exactly the way you do.

People are reporting that they were surprised by the cancellation fee. Is it reasonable to assume that these people were fully aware of what would happen? And chose this path anyway, in order to... what, exactly? It makes no sense. It's more reasonable to take what they say at face value, that they were in fact surprised and didn't understand in good faith what they signed up for.

Given that, what is so unreasonable about expecting companies to be upfront about the fee and explain it in the payment page? Why is this trivial disclosure and transparency to the consumer something to balk about?

I think the reason is pretty obvious. Companies have always loved it when confused customers have to pay money they didn't expect to pay. So the companies design their payment flows to encourage this, to the maximum extent the law allows.

It's sociopathic, and just because it's common and accepted doesn't mean I have to think it's okay.

I think maybe the words:

"Yearly plan, billed in monthly instalments"

makes the point more clear that you're in for a year. You can then put accompanying print that says "early termination fees apply".

But really, apart from people perhaps not understanding that "Annual" is doing the work of saying "yearly, not rolling", I don't get the logic here.

As another interested in this aspect, how about an 'info' tip alongside that states the minimum cost with an asterix?

"Yearly plan, paid monthly, £678" --> [ minimum cost £456 [[ a href="terms-cancel.html" ]] if cancelled early ]

In the interests of reaching a point of agreement, I concur that they could put, in or next to that initial wording, something like "early cancellation fees may apply".

But an annual plan really is that. They are telling you pretty clearly* what you're buying; the fact that there's a way to bail out half way for less is an advance on that position.

* though as I said in the other reply, "yearly" would be better

These four words are clear enough to be legally defensible, but they are the absolute minimum and they are designed to be the absolute minimum. They want to maximize conversion even if it traps people who didn't understand in good faith what they were buying.

It isn't hard to provide a complete explanation of what happens if you go past the trial period and want to cancel. All they have to say is, "if you don't cancel after the trial period, you are obligated to pay X over the next 12 months. Early cancellation is possible for a fee of half the remaining balance. For example, if you cancel immediately after the trial period your early cancellation fee will be X/2."

There's plenty of space to feature this explanation prominently. We all know why they don't. It's to trap people.

Many subscription plans work this way but it's no excuse. It's scumbag behavior. The fact that it's so common is just one of the many reasons why I believe the world is run by sociopaths.

> ... why I believe the world is run by sociopaths.

Finally a point on which we agree. On average I suspect it is.

> I concur that they could put, in or next to that initial wording, something like "early cancellation fees may apply".

Again, this wording seems unnecessarily soft to me - the inclusion of 'may' adds ambiguity to make the user think that there might not be exit fees - it should really be "early cancellation fees will apply".

Better yet, you could give the cost:

"Early cancellation fees of 50% of the remainder of the year will apply".

Fair point, though at that stage, early cancellation only may apply, because you can back out of the trial on/before seven days.

Early cancellation fees will apply after the trial, is the wording that is the clearest, I guess.

This is a really interesting exploration of word choice though. I must say, I had not considered that the word "annual" could be perceived to be unwieldy in this situation, for example.

What does 'annual plan' mean to you?

How can you misinterpret those words?

I would probably understand it, but I don't think those two words would necessarily make it clear to every person of every background, and it's very easy for Adobe to briefly explain the early termination fee on the payment page where everyone can easily see it.

They don't explain it because they want everyone to convert, even people who did not understand what they signed up for and would not have signed up if they had understood.

Subscription fee companies have always behaved like this.

> They don't explain it because they want everyone to convert

Being charitable, I would guess that they don't explain it because it seems like plain language and should be understandable.

That's only "charitable" to the giant company. It's not so charitable to the people who say they were confused in good faith and signed up for something they wouldn't have signed up for if they had understood it.

These people exist and have made themselves known in the OP Twitter thread and other HN comments on this post.

I can't help but wonder if all this "how can people not understand" is just thinly-veiled contempt for people who don't have the same background or way of thinking or interpreting words as you do.

Who gives a shit about those people, am I right? Who cares if they're on the hook for hundreds they didn't expect to have to pay. Good on Adobe for imposing that stupidity tax on lesser minds than yours!

If people can't understand 'annual plan' then I'm not sure what it's reasonable to do? How can you conduct business with a person who can't understand language like that?

I already explained how Adobe could be more clear, by briefly explaining their early cancellation policy on the payment page. Amazingly, it's quite easy to be more clear by using more than two words to explain something.

You're just playing dumb and it's uninteresting and in bad faith, so, bye. Enjoy being baffled about how a giant rich company could possibly be less shitty to their customers.

> You're just playing dumb

I'm playing dumb by understanding the sales copy?

And the people who pretend to be dumbfounded by 'annual plan' are the ones who aren't playing dumb?

Come on - people are putting on this outrage. Nobody was seriously confused at what 'annual plan' means. It's the plainest language possible.

It could easily mean "we will bill you monthly 12 times, for one year, and then stop billing you". It's not immediately clear that it means "we will bill you monthly forever, if you cancel within a year you owe us big money".

Annual typically implies recurring. Annual in APR (Annual Percentage Rate) etc. An annual plant flowers once a year, not just once, etc.

If it said "one year", that would match the meaning you have.

For plants it's exactly the opposite, actually. An annual completes its life cycle fully in a year - germination to death. Perennials come back year after year.

> I reject the idea that everyone should know from these words that they will be subject to an enormous early cancellation fee if they forget to cancel before the 7 day trial period is over.

Reading the twitter thread it seems to me that you can cancel within 14 days of subscribing without a cancelation fee. See also: https://twitter.com/darkpatterns/status/1489901691151519746

For most users it isn't a bad deal at all. It's a 33% price savings over straight monthly, and I suspect many/most users have subscriptions much longer than a year.

This all seems a bit overwrought. Like the root post, I cannot fathom who would go through a purchase process that included the phrase "Annual plan, billed monthly" and not clue in. Or that that drop down includes a separate straight monthly plan at a significant price premium (50% higher). To give even more of a hint, a separate "you have until this date to cancel without a penalty" disclaimer gives another clue.

On the scale of dark patterns, this one is pretty eh. It clearly could be clearer for people who seem to just click straight through stuff, but I suspect a lot of the people chose the cheaper per month annual plan thinking they were hacking the system, and then discovered that it wasn't all upside.

> This all seems a bit overwrought. Like the root post, I cannot fathom who would go through a purchase process that included the phrase "Annual plan, billed monthly" and not clue in.

FWIW (mine is the root post and) I am definitely coming around to the idea that it should at least say "Yearly", and maybe say "in monthly installments", because that language may be more familiar to buyers. But the rest of your point about the other plan you can choose is right.

I don't yet believe Adobe is evil, either. Banal, corporate, plodding, slow-witted, yeah. It is definitely an 800 pound gorilla.

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