[maldeh]

What does a yearly installment plan even mean in the context of a cloud subscription-based service, as opposed to one for which one has already received goods?

And first of all, as the OP noted in the twitter thread, they believed they were doing a monthly subscription as advertised; the "yearly plan" interpretation is Adobe getting creative in the terms of service.

[NovemberWhiskey]

You subscribe to Creative Cloud on an annual basis. Please take a look here by clicking into the pricing for the plans or the "buy" option:

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html

... from my perspective, it is clearly written "annual plan". You can choose to pay on a monthly basis, or in a lump sum. There is no "monthly subscription" or similar.

Now it's possible that this page has changed since the OP subscribed, but I don't think it's changed that much - I remember this clearly from when I signed up which was many years ago.

The OP might be unhappy that their expectations were violated but I really don't think Adobe is trying to hide the nature of the product and its annual commitment cycle.

[michaelmrose]

It says

All Apps

US$52.99/mo

with a button that says buy now. It says its an annual plan billed monthly in the item description after you put in in the cart for one screen prior to you paying for it with the description in small print off to the side wherein most users will see the form they are supposed to fill out and the brightly colored button below "continue to payment"

They get more clicks by not listing it as n dollars a month in one page, putting the description in small print on the side in another page, and mentioning the fee vaguely faded 6 point font on a third page.

[wpietri]

That doesn't really explain it. I signed a 1-year lease with my landlord because it lets him amortize the expense and work of getting a new tenant. But this is cloud-based software. The "annual basis" thing is arbitrary, just a way of extracting money from people even when they aren't using the software.

[maccard]

My health insurance provider does yearly installments for services rather than physical goods. Its no different to that. You've signer up to an annual plan at a discount but paid monthly for it.

[Meph504]

It means what it means in almost ever contract you sign for a subscription service. You agree to purchase a year of service, and pay for that monthly. It is a very common practice across multiple industries.

If they believed that they were signing up for a monthly, they did not read, what they were signing up for, its clearly stated on the sign up screen.

https://i.imgur.com/CZSCvw8.png