Hacker News Reader

Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

I mean, in my case, I was literally forbidden from canceling. I got a screen saying I couldn’t cancel within 24 hours after the monthly renewal.

Very clearly intended to combat “oh shit I need to cancel that one” when the charge shows up in hopes you forget again.

View on HN

Pretty sure that’s straight up illegal in many jurisdictions

Uber is clever enough to know which jurisdictions and make it as annoying as as likely legally enforceable by state..

Uber had a formal program in place, built into their software, to deny ride requests they suspected came from government and regulatory officials, in cities where they were violating transport regulations [0]. This isn't their first rodeo.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/03/uber-secr...

I'm trying to play Devil's Advocate, but I literally can't think of another reason they would do this.

I can, I’ve written a billing system before (unfortunately). There’s a lot of annoying math/edge cases and systems to sync between.

While I never implemented a restriction like this, it would have prevented a lot of weird bugs/customer support issues and kept the underlying code much simpler.

(Annoying math = time zones, prorations, discounts, billing cycle anchors, etc. see the “falsehoods programmers believe about X” series)

(Systems to sync between = internal DBs, billing APIs, payment processors, etc.)

I mean sure, I get it, but companies like Uber leave edge cases like that out when it hurts them (customers cancelling) but move heaven & earth to remove them when it helps them (I bet its easy to re-join within 24 hours of cancelling?).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com