[sanswork]

Adobe isn't hard to cancel if you sign up for monthly subscriptions. I do it fairly regularly because I need PS in short bursts.

A lot of people sign up for discounted annual commitments though then complain when they can't cancel before the year is up.

[IneffablePigeon]

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.

[sanswork]

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?

[HDBaseT]

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.

[sanswork]

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.

[HDBaseT]

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.

[sanswork]

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.

[m463]

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?

[sanswork]

"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.

[m463]

"you pay what you use"

[hartator]

Shouldn’t auto renew and auto commit though.

[sanswork]

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?

[Marsymars]

> 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.

[sanswork]

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

[DangitBobby]

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

[sanswork]

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.

[HDBaseT]

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!

[sanswork]

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

[DangitBobby]

Why are you defending obvious theft?

[koolba]

> 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?

[DangitBobby]

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

[anomaly_]

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

[whyenot]

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?

[DangitBobby]

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

[cryzinger]

If you only need PS in short bursts, may I recommend https://www.photopea.com/?

It's not at 100% feature parity with PS but it's pretty darn close.

[sanswork]

Appreciate the suggestion but I'm terrible at editing so I just stick with PS because the cost for a month or two when I need it isn't much and it's really easy to find videos walking through exactly what I need to do. Even a single hour spent trying to translate a tutorial would more than wipe out the savings.

[cryzinger]

Totally fair, I understand :)

[chatmasta]

No, the complaint with Adobe is that if you cancel, they terminate access immediately rather than at the end of the billing period. There is no explanation for this other than a predatory one; they’re betting you’ll forget to cancel by the time your bill comes around. The immediate termination is effectively depriving you of the next N months of access for which you already paid.

[sanswork]

This isn't true though. Again like with the annual plan people are confusing things. I just looked it up and checked a few reddit posts to confirm and heres what's happening.

If you cancel in the first 14 days they terminate immediately and refund you. After the 14 days the subscription is cancelled and you keep access until the point you paid for. If you signed up for an annual contract you have a cancel fee of 50% of the remaining agreed amount.

[like_any_other]

Maybe now, after they had to pay a $150M fine for using dark patterns and making unsubscribing difficult: https://www.gadgetreview.com/adobe-pays-150m-to-settle-subsc...

They did a lot more than just making it hard to cancel, too: https://www.deceptive.design/brands/adobe

[sanswork]

Your deceptive design link is literally outlining the plan discussed in the rest of this thread.

The first one in your deceptive design was:

Adobe: Unclear yearly subscription terms and cancellation fees "Apparently monthly subscriptions, but you are signed up for a year. Cancelling early results in a 50% of remaining months subscriptions being applied as a cancellation charge."

Then you click through to look at it and the button the user selects says

Annual, Paid Monthly Fee applies if you cancel after 14 days

With an information popup.

Scrolling through the rest all of it is them just selecting this option without reading the details then being upset when the Annual plan is an annual plan.

I have no clue why they decided to settle that lawsuit since they still have the same plan. I'm not a lawyer.

[like_any_other]

You are describing the current state of Adobe subscription. If you check out the post linked on the deceptive.design page [1], one of the replies states [2]:

after the original thread a year or so ago, team made a clearer way to show pricing options to give ppl/teams who buy an annual sub a discount w/o paying it all up front

So the clear language is new. And that doesn't touch on the losing access during the current billing period either.

> I have no clue why they decided to settle that lawsuit

Because they have changed their subscription page as part of the settlement. All the posters telling you how Adobe ripped them off are describing Adobe from before the settlement.

[1] Adobe's subscription model deploys recurring annual plans or termination with massive penalty - https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1660907518430699523

[2] https://x.com/scottbelsky/status/1661376319169372166

[sanswork]

I'm describing the state from the screen shots on the site you included.

>https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1660907518430699523

This screen shot is too heavily cropped for me to know exactly what the page explained. I'm going to go ahead and assume this was intentional on the part of the x poster. I've been using Adobe subscriptions on an off for several years so before this point and somehow manage to continue to be able to cancel.

[whh]

I was on the monthly plan mate. I don’t know what UX you’re talking about but it was literally impossible to find how to cancel it.

And they chased me for months to update my card after I’d cancelled it.

Please stop attacking people’s genuine lived experience of a company’s genuinely bad practice…

[supern0va]

>No, the complaint with Adobe is that if you cancel, they terminate access immediately rather than at the end of the billing period. There is no explanation for this other than a predatory one

This is exactly what Shutterstock does. What's maddening is that you can be getting a monthly charge, but are locked into a year contract. If you cancel, they'll continue to charge monthly but without being able to use the service. It's absurd.