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Comment by IneffablePigeon | Hacker News Reader

I had been paying monthly for 13 years straight and they still demanded a cancellation fee because it turned out I was on an annual commitment (which by the way they hiked the price of by 50% with a month’s notice and by the time you notice the larger payment go out you are in a whole new 12 months).

So yes, I complained about that.

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Ok so you were on an annual plan to save money and when you cancelled you had to pay an exit fee to account for the annual discount. Seems reasonable to me.

They gave you a months notice of the price increase and you didn't cancel until after it went into effect?

Shouldn’t auto renew and auto commit though.

Why? It's a subscription auto-renew is the default. As for auto-commit why would they change your subscription choices on you without you choosing it?

Because it's not the price you agreed on? Crazy what you people are willing to accept as normal.

The notification is telling you of the new price. If you don't do anything at that point then it is the price you agreed on.

Not how agreements work.

What happens if Adobe changes the price from $299 yearly to 29k?

Do you think that is fair? After all they gave you 30 days!

Why do you feel the need to make up ridiculous numbers?

> It's a subscription auto-renew is the default.

There are a number of subscriptions where I regularly want only a single month of service at a time.

Then cancel your subscription before its over? I'm not seeing what the problem is here.

Why are you defending obvious theft?

> Why are you defending obvious theft?

Where’s the theft?

It’s perfectly normal to have a fee for breaking a lease. And that’s what an annual subscription paid monthly is anyway. It’s a commitment for an extended period of time.

If you could just stop paying and retain the discounted rate, what is an annual subscription vs a monthly one?

Is upping the fee and automatically confirming the contract without a re-up "perfectly normal"? Seems doubtful.

Yes? Commercial leases (and residential for that matter) commonly have increase clauses that operate automatically (CPI, 3/4/5%, market review, etc).

Varies by jurisdiction. Residential leases typically require notice, and inedequate notice (both by time and by method) nullifies the agreement. This is because the legal world generally agrees that contracts that would expose consumers with practically zero legal access or knowledge to one-sided contracts providing one party unilateral control would be unconscionable.

Even if it were technically legal it should distress you.

Because it is not obviously theft. If you are getting a discount for making a year-long commitment, and then cancel, breaking that commitment, isn't a cancelation fee appropriate?

Is that the whole story? Or did you miss literally half of what GP said happened?

An annual plan shouldn't require a termination fee. If I purchase an Annual Subscription, I should be able to cancel it whenever, with no fee whilst retaining the benefits for my subscription, as I paid for a whole year up front anyways....

Adobe software being a subscription service is nonsense too, but thats for another discussion.

Yes, and if you get an annual plan from adobe and pay up front there is no fee for cancelling. The fee is if you get an annual plan with a monthly payment and cancel early.

I remember when it was like $600 for photoshop for a single version(like 25 years ago so what would that be today?). The subscription pricing is a steal.

If the subscription pricing was a "steal" and the perpetual licensing was genuinely more expensive and worse, they'd still offer the perpetual licensing.

Instead they killed it, they clearly do not want to cannibalize their subscription offing. It clearly makes them more money.

Your first point is valid, I was misunderstanding the yearly subscription pricing, they offer an upfront payment as well as a monthly (but with year commitment).

I believe still however, if you pay for a year, cancel, you still get access cut off. Which is absurd.

The subscription pricing makes it more accessible to consumers where as previously the only people that paid for licenses were companies(and probably only large companies given it was basically always the most popular warez). So they charge less per release but they dramatically increase the possible consumer base and release lumpy revenue based around semi-regular annual releases with constant cash flow. So on a per user basis it is without a doubt cheaper but overall they can still make a lot more money.

>I believe still however, if you pay for a year, cancel, you still get access cut off. Which is absurd.

I've not seen anyone claiming this actually happened but maybe I just missed them? Everyone I've seen has said the opposite.

Take a step back and think of the company who designed this machiavellian scheme and generated this dramatic situation...

is this a business relationship with trust and maturity?

"We will give you access to annual pricing discounts but not require you to pay the full year up front"

It's not complex or dramatic.

"you pay what you use"

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