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Comment by Gentil | Hacker News Reader

Credit card for trial is a dark pattern from the end user's perspective for sure.

Cos, that is one more place where the end user have to risk his/her/their PII. This is especially important considering the end user is trying the product out. The person has no idea whether they will invest in it or not. Yet, the person have to worry about their information leaked when he/she/they see this company on the news for a data breach.

Also, another problem is the overhead for the company on managing this data. The security, PR situation if this gets leaked. It's expensive and unnecessary. This is a risky business unless you are a data hoarder who sells them at which point that is again bad for the end user.

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what if the card transaction was handled by a well known processor? The SaaS business doesn't actually have to store the card details themselves - and this can be made clear.

Interesting question. My question again would be why?. You just transferred the responsibility from you (the SaaS company) to a well known processor. This doesn't make a data breach or data sharing avoidable/impossible.

Also, anything related to finance is always hot. And this comes back to the same thing I made in the above comment, why should an end user who is just trying it out risk all of this? It's like telling a stranger a secret of yours. You wouldn't just share a secret with a stranger just because they say "trust me", would you?

It is the company who needs the users attention, not the other way around. The users shouldn't be punished for the same.

> This doesn't make a data breach or data sharing avoidable/impossible.

this risk will always be present. Choosing a well known processor will reduce it quite a bit imho.

If you're asking why a user would take on this risk, i would say that they are getting a "free" trial in return. By having to take on this risk, the user is more conscious of using the product, and cut out the people who would just kick the tyres.

I would have to respectfully disagree though. Cos like I said, the reason why free trial is there in the first place is to entice users. There are so many products without free trials.

Again, the burden should not be in the shoulders of the end user. There is no reason for the company to ask for credit card other than data sharing, other dark patterns and spam. Like many have mentioned, spam can be dealt with better by other means. These are companies who have tried it out. I don't know what else more to say. :)

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