Comment by tpmoney | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tpmoney | Hacker News Reader

>Do you want to get out of the trial and avoid getting charged? Well, that's a problem, an obstacle course for consumers.

I'm sorry what? Settings -> Apple ID & Purchases -> Subscriptions -> Choose subscription -> Cancel Subscription

Or if going into the phone settings to manage your app store subscriptions doesn't make sense to you, there's also App Store -> Account -> Subscriptions -> Choose subscription -> Cancel subscription

It even tells you both when the subscription renews and how long you can keep using the features for even if you unsubscribe. Once you unsubscribe that's it. Since the purchases go through Apple, unsubscribing means the developer can't pull a Comcast and "forget".

I even just now grabbed and app and started a "free 1 month trial" for their service. It shows up in the same subscription list and tells me when it will renew and how much it will charge me. If I tell it to cancel the free trial, it even lets me know that I can continue to access the trial services until the end of the trial period next month.

How is any of that "an obstacle course"? Yes, I agree that it would be nice if trials defaulted to not auto-renewing or you were given a choice when starting a subscription. But managing what you're subscribed to is about as simple as it gets.

Maybe the author is talking about an app that you subscribe to outside of the app store (e.g. Netflix or Spotify style). Certainly I can appreciate that you can lose track of your subscription there, but I fail to see how apple has any responsibility for "not protecting" you if you don't actually go through their processes for being protected.

> Maybe the author is talking about an app that you subscribe to outside of the app store

No.

> I fail to see how apple has any responsibility for "not protecting" you if you don't actually go through their processes for being protected.

This seems like a strange statement to me. How is Apple protecting you if you have to look out for everything yourself and make sure you don't forget to cancel one of your possibly many trials or subscriptions on a very specific date?

People forget payment dates. This is totally common and normal. It's why many business have auto-pay, so you don't forget to pay your bill on time. In this case, though, Apple is more than happy to automatically take your payment, even if you didn't actually intend to pay.

I'm not sure whether this implementation has changed recently or not, but it used to be — and may still be the case — that if you started a trial with an app, and then you deleted the app from your devices because you weren't interested in the app, the trial was still active and not cancelled.

>This seems like a strange statement to me. How is Apple protecting you if you have to look out for everything yourself and make sure you don't forget to cancel one of your possibly many trials or subscriptions on a very specific date?

You don't have to cancel it on a very specific date, you just go in and cancel it whenever you want. Whatever you've paid for (or whatever time you have left on your trial) will remain and then it simply stops renewing. You don't have to remember anything other than to actually cancel in the first place.

> I'm not sure whether this implementation has changed recently or not, but it used to be — and may still be the case — that if you started a trial with an app, and then you deleted the app from your devices because you weren't interested in the app, the trial was still active and not cancelled.

Possibly a useful setting, but I think it would be a worse experience if your subscriptions were canceled every time you deleted the app from your device(s). Certainly one can't conclude that just because an app was deleted from a device that the user isn't actually using the app in general. There are any number of reasons to remove an app from a device that aren't "I don't intend to ever use this app or its services again"

> You don't have to cancel it on a very specific date

This is again a strange response. You don't have to cancel on a specific date, any more than you have to pay a bill on a specific date. You have to cancel or pay by a very specific date.

> I think it would be a worse experience if your subscriptions were canceled every time you deleted the app from your device(s).

I was talking about a subscription trial, not necessarily a subscription in general.

The auto-renewing trials is where they get you.

>You don't have to cancel on a specific date, any more than you have to pay a bill on a specific date. You have to cancel or pay by a very specific date.

Yes, usually when you subscribe to something, you must end your subscription before the next renewal or you will be charged again. This is sort of the definition of a paid subscription. However, we can contrast the process of doing this in the app store (cancel any time, without speaking to anyone, in an obvious and well known location, continue to use your paid for services until the end date) with other subscriptions.

For example, Adobe Cloud if you are paying monthly requires that you cancel within the last month of your subscription, or not only will you lose the year you've paid for, but you will also be charged a cancelation fee. At least they don't charge you that if you pay for the full year up front and your service continues to the end of the year.

Or we could look at the NY Times which has such an awful cancelation experience that they had to settle a class action lawsuit about it.

And surely you remember the bad old days of AOL and Comcast dial-up services where the standard recommended procedure was to call and cancel and then watch your credit card statements for the next few months to make sure you didn't get re-added?

Heck it was only a year and a half ago that the FTC released their enforcement memo telling companies they would be enforcing actions against them for "click to subscribe, call to cancel" tactics.

And let's not forget that a major selling point of financial apps is that they will help you find unwanted/forgotten subscriptions (https://www.rocketmoney.com/feature/manage-subscriptions).

But I'm confused now about what you complaint actually is. My original comment was addressing the statement that "[getting] out of the trial and [avoiding] getting charged" was some sort of complex obstacle course. To get out of a trial and avoid being charged, one simply needs to, at any time before they are charged, unsubscribe. My assertion is this is hardly an "obstacle course".

Now though we're talking about how you must do this action before you get billed. So is the complaint that getting out is difficult, or that you simply have to get out in the first place?

> Now though we're talking about how you must do this action before you get billed. So is the complaint that getting out is difficult, or that you simply have to get out in the first place?

There are 2 complaints:

1) Yes, I'm complaining about opt-out trials. These are consumer hostile.

2) The obstacle course is more knowledge than difficulty. You've described the cancelation process, starting with the implicit assumption that you already know what it is. But we can't start with that assumption. Many consumers simply don't have that knowledge. As I wrote in the article: "App Store customers sometimes contact me anyway for a refund, because Apple does not educate them about the refund process". The process itself is not particularly difficult... if you're aware of it! If you're not aware of it, then it's a major obstacle.

Don't you think it's weird that you can subscribe or start a trial inside the app, but you can't cancel the subscription inside the app?

>You've described the cancelation process, starting with the implicit assumption that you already know what it is. But we can't start with that assumption. Many consumers simply don't have that knowledge.

At a certain point, you have to assume the adult person using a credit card to start a subscription knows what a subscription is and that they would have to cancel it if they don't want to be charged. Apple's dialogs make it very clear when you sign up for a trial both that it will auto-renew at the end, that it is cancelable, what the charges will be if you don't cancel and how frequently those charges will be made.

You also have to accept that some people, no matter how much you try to educate them, will be confused or will refuse to be educated. Any ex-retail employee can share stories of customers who walk up to you with something labeled with a very clear price tag and ask how much it costs. Some people are just oblivious, and you can't make your rules around them.

> At a certain point, you have to assume the adult person using a credit card to start a subscription knows what a subscription is and that they would have to cancel it if they don't want to be charged.

I don't know why you bring "adult" into this, because children generally don't have to pay bills. Yes, people know what a subscription is. But when you're talking about trials, I think you're missing the whole point of trials, which is to spend time trying the app. When you start a trial, you know how long the trial lasts, but what you don't know is (1) how long it will take for you to try and evaluate the app and (2) whether you'll end up subscribing in the end. During that period of time and uncertainty, it's easy to forget, especially if you're using multiple apps.

You skipped my question about why consumers can't cancel the trial or subscription in the same place that they started it.

The real question is this:

> you can't make your rules around them

How should Apple design the App Store? Apple has 100% control over it and makes choices that can be either consumer friendly or consumer hostile. Auto-subscribing opt-out trials are flat out consumer hostile. Many people despise them, including me, even though I don't recall ever getting accidentally charged for one. The mere possibility of that makes the entire experience more stressful for consumers.

To me, everything about the App Store screams a consumer-hostile cash grab, which is in opposition to Apple's portrayal and justification of App Store lockdown as a necessary means to protect consumers. I'm not actually arguing in favor of paternalism. Quite the opposite. I'm arguing that Apple is guilty of rank hypocrisy. The App Store doesn't do what Apple claims it does, that's my argument.

By coincidence, I just read this article, which seems relevant: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2023/01/european-comm... The App Store itself is full of "dark patterns". You can say "caveat emptor", which may be good advice, but Apple can't say that to the public, or to the courts, if it wants to maintain its App Store lockdown and monopoly.

Software rental, which is a more accurate term for software subscriptions, is not something that most legitimate app developers even wanted, nor was it a model that most of them used when they chose their own, i.e., before the App Store era. Everything that happens in the App Store is based on Apple's design. In various way, Apple pushes "subscriptions" hard on both consumers and developers, because that's what Apple wants.

> Whatever you've paid for (or whatever time you have left on your trial) will remain and then it simply stops renewing.

While you can cancel a subscription and have it keep working until the date you paid, canceling a trial early makes you immediately lose access. Or at least it does in official Apple trials (e.g. Apple Arcade and Apple TV).

As I noted, I tried this with an app (Night Sky) just for this comment chain and canceling the trial still gives me access to the features for the remainder of the trial period. I can't speak to Apple's services since I'm already subscribed and can't start a trial period.

> How is Apple protecting you ... ?

The ostensible protection that Apple is providing is from subscriptions for which cancelling is difficult. If the subscription happens through the app then it's found in the same location as every other subscription that's made through any other app.

I believe OP's point with their quote ("I fail to see how apple has any responsibility ...") is that with the given examples (Netflix, Spotify) one cannot subscribe using their iOS apps. The user will need to go outside Apple's ecosystem (netflix.com, spotify.com) and subscribe in a way that Apple has no control over.

At any rate, I fail to see how this is not user error given that you are sure this is not an app which had its subscription made outside the App Store. If it was made in the App Store, the user is only required to remember to cancel at all.

I don't mean to speak against most of what you're saying but many of your arguments read as a non sequitur. It's hard to agree or disagree because it's just hard to follow along.

(edit: rephrasing)

> one cannot subscribe using their iOS apps

This is all Apple's fault for demanding 30% of their revenue from IAP.

> subscribe in a way that Apple has no control over

What is the benefit of Apple's control, though? That is the main question.

> I fail to see how this is not user error

It was user error. It's a very common user error, forgetting to cancel a trial. You're missing the larger picture here, which is that Apple publicizes and justifies its App Store lockdown and cut in terms of consumer protection, claiming that App Store is a very safe place to find and buy apps. If Apple cared about protecting consumers, it would protect them from common errors such as forgetting to cancel a trial. After all, Apple does "protect" consumers from the common error of installing software that they shouldn't from the internet, by completely banning internet app installs on iOS.

I definitely get email reminders about subscription renewals. I can’t remember precisely if that differs for trials, but I imagine it’s just a decision by UX people, not some nefarious entity inside of Apple out to get people.

> it’s just a decision by UX people

No, the most profitable company in history doesn't get to play dumb. At Apple's scale, Hanlon's Razor does not apply, because there's no effective difference between incompetence and malice.

Apple makes it impossible for apps to link to this Settings page, correct? They do for other types of settings like detailed Notiication settings.

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