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Comment by chasing | Hacker News Reader

You know which services I don't have problems cancelling? Ones I subscribe to via Apple's in-app payments. I get that it sucks to have Apple scrape a percentage of my payments for themselves, but if you're a company I don't fully trust and/or want to have total control over my subscription without a bunch of hassle, Apple's IAPs are the way to go.

Mostly this is great with the big streaming services. Want Disney+ or Paramount+ for a month to watch a show? Sign up. Immediately cancel within Apple's App Store app. Simple. And if I have a complaint, Apple has generally favored me. For example, I recently signed up for a streaming service and their app simply wouldn't work. No idea why. Pinged Apple for a refund. Got it immediately. No hassle.

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100% this.

Going even further I always get emails when yearly subscriptions are charging in a few days and those emails even include how to cancel the subscription if I no longer wish to use it.

I know people love to complain about the App Store, and there are some valid complaints. But companies being forced to use this mechanism for subscriptions is a huge benefit for consumers.

Also frankly, it's a huge benefit for the developers also. There are a number of apps that I would never subscribe too if I had to use their own custom solution thanks to how many bad behaviors I have seen. But since it is part of Apple's system I don't worry about subscribing.

Edit to add:

I really hope that if Apple does end up being forced to open this up and allow apps to do their own subscriptions. That for many consumers like me, as a developer your choice is 70% of the money or none. I am not moving to your subscription service and will find alternatives.

Apple and Google now only take 15% from mobile app developers with annual revenue under $1 million from the App Store. It means a lot to people like me since they also host and handle payment processing for a net 30-45 contract.

A company is “forced” to use Apple for subscriptions. It’s been years since either Netflix or Spotify has even allowed in app subscriptions.

I’m not going to subscribe to some unknown indy outside of the app store and guess what happens when someone changes credit cards or they expire? I’m going to update my Apple payment information. I may or may not update my other subscriptions or I may just decide it’s not worth it and let it lapse.

If I remember correctly they are forced in the sense that neither of those apps are allowed to give you a link to go outside of the App Store?

However I vaguely remember that Netflix had an exception to this, but I don't use Spotify so can't comment on that one.

Correct, you have to know how to go to their website and subscribe.

I was stuck in a loop where my son's iCloud account had a subscription to Parallels, but it was on my credit card. He lost his password because he's 12. Even though I'm the parent on the account, it wouldn't let me cancel his purchase. But it also wouldn't let me reset his password for 6 weeks, and only a week into that period a $100 parallels subscription was going to go through.

Fortunately, American Express reversed the charge because they're cool. But Apple didn't do anything and I'm not sure how it can be that I can ever be locked out of preventing a charge to my credit card.

I just wish we could find a way to give lower-level people the ability to deal with these absurd situations. It's not just Apple, you get treated like cattle everywhere.

US based? Next time tell them he's 12 and made the account himself without your permission.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_...

I could have, but I don't think I should have to massage the facts to get this fixed. I made the account. He just lost his password.

I call bullshit on this one.

Apple allows a Parent / Guardian account to reset the password of a child account. I do not have to do anything. I can just go into my iCloud settings and just reset my child’s account right away. Also, Apple does not allow you to create a child account (below 13) without having a parent account attached to it.

My guess is that you lied during account creation and created an adult account for your child and then you handed that account password and the reset mechanism to your child and he /she lost BOTH of them. In which case, Apple should still help you but I would say - you are more at fault here than Apple

My child's school forces us to create accounts the way you describe. Since kids all get ipads they need icloud accounts, but the school does not participate in the program that lets them create icloud accounts for kids. You as a parent must create the account. If you don't use apple products, I don't, you can only create an adult account. You cannot create a child account, or manage it once created, without another apple device. I went through all the steps to create an adult account, then logged out of the ipad and used the child account I created, but the account was useless without me being logged into the parent account on an apple device. You could not use the web-ui from a linux or windows device. I complained to the school and said I thought this was a violation of the laws for children under 13. They said the child doesn't own the account, I do as the parent and give them permission; so it's fine. There was no other choice to setup the devices for my children.

In order to attend the public school you have been paying for must first agree to a contract with a private company, if you refuse men with guns will put you in prison and put your child into the care of a foster family where they have a fairly high probability of being abused.

Nice kid you got there, would be a shame if something happened to them...

How the hell is this allowed?

Where would you like me to paste the screen shots?

I absolutely permitted him to buy the initial subscription. I approved it. I just wanted to cancel the renewal.

Anyway, I convinced American Express and they gave me my money back so what you think doesn't matter.

Even supposing you were right and I "lied" to let him have an adult account, that should give another purported adult access to my card without my authorization? I think you have the hierarchy of evils backwards just to say something shitty on the internet.

Yep. It's a blatantly obvious dark pattern. It's your credit card. Your money. Yet Apple gives you no way to cancel (or even view!) a child's subscription online. Heck, they won't even tell you which child made the subscription.

One of my younger kids bought $7,200 worth of currency and content on a game on a Kindle. She did so in a single afternoon. I contacted Amazon support and the refund was issued on the spot. After they issued the refund, the only question that was asked was why I had it set to allow her to buy online. I replied that it was because she could not use one of Amazon's services with the family account without having payments enabled (I think it was music). I'm pretty sure they corrected that... but I was struck by how pro-consumer and how little hassle there was. I do not think that either the Play Store or App Store would have issued that refund so quickly.

To be fair, Apple refunded and cancelled the subscription upon request in my instance too. But first you've got to notice the problem, and then jump through the hoops.

There's no good reason I shouldn't be able to cancel an auto-recurring subscription on my own credit card from some interface.

Why do you allow your child to buy subscriptions without approval?

Does "Family Sharing" with "Require Purchase Approval" not work as described?

It's (IMO) intentionally crippled because it asks for every app install. Including free ones. Which is not only annoying, since kids play a lot of games, but also creates a time delay. For example, the child is in a special education program that requires certain apps. If he tries to install one at school and I don't approve it immediately then that's a problem.

There is no option to "ask for permission if it costs money" option. Which, let's be honest - is probably what most parents are looking for (and would be dead simple to implement).

Ah. Totally makes sense.

My “kid” is nearly 30, so we never had to deal with this.

Not only that, but it can only be managed from another apple device. If your kid has an ipad and you don't have an iphone, ipad, or mac; you can't use the child accounts.

[deleted]

Pretty sure I was responding to somebody else? But, if Family Share doesn’t let you view and mange a child’s subscriptions that you’ve approved, that is awful, no disagreement there.

My bad. Deleted.

Apple does this because the alternative would be devastatingly bad press.

I mean, why do they permit 3 day trials that start billing at $9.99/week after that? For an app that creates ringtones? How many phone apps in the world are worth $520 per year?

And BTW, that "3 day trial"? It's actually 2 days since you have to cancel at least 24 hours before the subscription renews. So it's really 33% less than they claim.

If your child signed up for one of these subscriptions? Apple requires that subscription be canceled from the device that made it — yet provides no obvious way to determine which device that was. Is that child away at school? Too bad. Forgot their phone at a friends? Sorry about your luck.

The whole thing is absurd - letting a minor child control their own subscriptions with no way for a parent (the actual credit card holder) to cancel it unless they jump through a bunch of support hoops.

Apple doesn't get a pass here. They're just smarter about it all. I say that as a huge Apple fan generally.

Trials absolutely need to be super clear about the exact date of start of billing. I think iOS has gotten much better and you have even a dedicated subscriptions tab in your iOS profile in settings.

True, but you have no insight into subscriptions that a minor has made on your credit card as part of family sharing. One might expect them to appear there but they don't.

Honestly I wonder how much of the ludicrously priced app fees are just facilitation of money laundering.

There's a reason scammers demand to be paid in iTunes gift cards.

Still wouldn't fix the problem of a creditor reporting a delinquent payment to a credit bureau, and it's hard to know if that would happen up front. I don't think Apple's solution here comes risk free, but I see your points on the usability enhancements.

As I understand it, Apple's subscriptions represent the subscriptions themselves, not just the payment behind the subscription. So cancelling through the subscription interface on iOS actually handles the cancellation of the subscription, not just the payment.

That's a good argument for requiring App Store apps to offer Apple in-app payments for anything that costs money, but not for requiring App Store apps to only accept Apple in-app payments for anything that costs money.

Good thing Apple doesn’t require App Store apps to only accept Apple in-app payments for anything that costs money. Install the Amazon app and see for yourself.

Remember apple implemented the in-app payments in the first place.

What sucks about apple implementing this is that for a lot of developers who used to get by with a 99 cent app you buy once, now its 99 cents a year, sometimes $99 a year.

Yes. We have re-invented credit cards again.

The thing is. Credit cards may be in favor of the customer in the US, or maybe EU (I’ve never had a credit card while living in the EU so I really don’t know) but where I used to live, Brazil, the customer has always the burden of proof that something is wrong. One time my card was “cloned” and I had to go to court to remove the debt from my name. And I’ll never forget the reply that I got over and over from multiple levels of customer service: “we can’t do anything if you don’t provide the receipt of the purchase”

If you want to do this outside of apples ecosystem, I suggest using privacy.com to generate a card with only the first month's payment available, then closing the card after the charge has been made. simple as, with no corp skimming off the top.

You can do this with subscriptions paid via PayPal as well.

I like my Macbook but I'm going to keep my financial transactions outside of the app store toll booths.

Once you figure out how to cancel via the App Store it’s great. It did take me a while to even go looking for it but once I had, it was awesome.

How do you do this? And is this applicable if the subscription is made thru their website (like Netflix)?

Generally, Settings -> iCloud (click your name/emoji) -> Subscriptions

Only applies to subscriptions made through the Apple ecosystem.

Every individual company has an incentive to be a bad actor when it comes to subscriptions (or dark patterns in general). Apple is a regulatory authority acting on this tragedy of the commons. Apple has created a situation where it has a near monopoly of force when it comes to apps in the apple'sphere and is using this to the benefit of consumers.

It's no wonder people prefer apple's walled garden to libertarian android. Being able to force apps to act in a specific ways makes the experience as a whole better. Given apple's market share amongst people who can afford it, I would say the free market agrees that the Apple way is better.

Play store is able to do the same if google want to. It's not a problem. Its company's choice to sideload

That's what I'm saying, one company took the stance that they want to be a regulator, while the other took the stance that they want minimal regulation. People prefer the regulated environment.

Everyone wants the benefit of regulations (people can't do the thing thing I don't like) but many don't want to pay the cost of regulations (I can't do the things those other people don't like).

It's not like regulation though, it's more like extra service benefits the customers just like credit card (chargeback/insurance/extended warranty etc). There are many credit cards out there and ppl have the choices to have credit card chargeback or not. Or they could choose to use some other payment options. Google could add extra feature when ppl subscribe through play store, and keep app side loading at the same time. It's not either-or situation

I'm usually fine with regulation (and what it costs) that benefit the consumers but I'm not fine with apple (or any private company) being the arbitrator.

Apple is only beholden to it's shareholder and I have 0 influence on their behavior.

Not directed at you, but I don't get how people can complain about unaccountable politicians and then turn towards even less accountable boards of directors instead.

I agree in theory that a company should not be the arbiter, but the reality is that the company is less dysfunctional than the government and less beholden to political powers.

If we had a government that would regulate away dark patterns and generally do things in the interest of us, that would be great. We don't have that.

I think I have more influence over apple than I have over the us government. I think apple works on behalf of me more than the us government does. I've made that calculation differently than you, so we've come to different conclusions.

> It's no wonder people prefer apple's walled garden to libertarian android.

Do they? Or, is that the reason why people in the US buy more iPhones than Androids and the rest of the world buy more Androids than iPhones?

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