If done through third parties directly the scammers will not make unsubscribing easy and it will not be as easy to find out where you are subscribing.
Thus I expect the scamming to increase.
I doubt a scammer will do that.
It took me about 5 seconds to google "cancel subscription apple" and find about a zillion articles on how to do it. Basically open up the App Store, go to your account, click on subscriptions, click on the one in the list you want to cancel. Done.
On the other hand, I also wanted to cancel a pet-locator subscription that was coming up for renewal (we're leaving the country, they don't have coverage outside the US) and I had to go through about 30 layers of "are you sure", "are you really sure", "you know this will stop your service, right?", "we'd sure hate to lose you", "Is there anything we can offer to change your mind", etc. etc.
There was a link in that email to a page to manage and cancel that subscription, although it might not be obvious.
I guess I just saw the title, saw it was a subscription renewal and jumped to "not just no, but hell no", missing the link at the end :)
This is fairly quickly resolved though - if anything close to 1% of customers complain to their banks that they don't want this payment and can't cancel it, triggering a chargeback, the scammers end up entirely blocked from the payment networks entirely in pretty short order. If you end up banned from Visa & Mastercard your whole operation is permanently kaput.
Also, this might be a non-US thing, but over here most modern banks (e.g. Revolut) will let you view & block recurring payment authorizations directly from your banking app anyway.
For me to get to it from App Store, I have to click a tiny profile pic (smallest allowed button on iOS?)
The next screen displays Purchase History and other items. However, no way to cancel from this page (insane?)
To get to subscriptions, I have to click my name at the top of that page (which doesn’t even look like a button) which loads for 3 seconds then pops up.
On this hidden account page, it shows Purchase History along with subscriptions list to cancel.
If any other site hid subscription cancelling behind a flat contact header secret account page, it’d be an issue, so yeah it’s an issue for Apple too.
And if that’s too tricky, you can just type “Subscriptions” (shows up after just typing “sub” for me) into Spotlight Search, and it’s the top option.
It's also Apple's specialty to create false dichotomies and shit sandwich bundles: it's either the 30% cut or daylight robbery. No third option (in reality PayPal is more consumer-friendly and allows managing subscriptions in one place from more than iOS).
The whole App Store model is a false dichotomy between the 30% cut and Disney-like moderation vs raging malware that will take down the whole mobile network. No third option (so you can't have Fortnight, or any app showing a nipple).
- Most legit services move to a web based Apple Pay (note to the unaware reader: this is NOT In-App Purchases and has never had 30% fees) due to the ease of implementing and lower fee (easier to do cross platform + web) - Non-legit developers keep the In-App flow
Over time this would skew In-App Purchases to be scammy-only (and therefore, easier to spot). I'm sure people at Apple consider this possibility too – and therefore, now that there's actual competition, IAP flows will probably have to change to prevent this and compete for actual developer preference (and keep it a viable legit-developer choice)
There is a lot to criticize Apple for -- the 30% fee is disgusting, and the subject of this order where they bar external payments without fees is criminal -- but the subscription complaint has always been weak.