[bdunn]

Some services don't send invoices (which really, really bothers me. I don't want to remember that I'm paying for a service after looking through my AMEX statements.)

Others, like KissMetrics, sends you an email a few days before billing you... but their price points start in the 3-figures.

I think a policy of "We will bill you monthly and send you an invoice every time we bill you, and we'll always refund your last month's payment if you'd like" is best.

[larrys]

"Some services don't send invoices (which really, really bothers me."

Would like to point out that separate from the fact that it bothers you and/or might not be right or ethical or whatever there is no doubt that in general in business you don't want to make it to easy for someone to think and cancel.

I don't think everyone feels that they are "ripped off" just because they didn't get notified that they were still paying for something that they agreed to.

An example is, say, with cable and a premium channel.

We decided to get showtime so we could watch Dexter. We forgot to cancel. The cable company didn't ask us each month "by the way we are still charging you for Showtime, ok?". By some of the comments in this thread it's as if people would expect that would be the "right" thing to do.

Forgetting personal responsibility for a moment if, as a business, you constantly give people a chance to bail many of them will bail (even for the wrong reason) and you will make less money.

The credit card companies by the way will approve charges even on expired credit cards. (Under a certain dollar amount you just have to put in the current month to get an authorization). Apparently they haven't found that practice to be a problem with consumers (although I'm sure they do get complaints.)

[lsc]

>Would like to point out that separate from the fact that it bothers you and/or might not be right or ethical or whatever there is no doubt that in general in business you don't want to make it to easy for someone to think and cancel.

Eh, I think if I have a product that the consumer doesn't want, I've pretty much already lost. 'extracting value' from people who aren't paying attention is best left to the professionals. I mean... the line between making it hard to cancel and outright fraud... can get fuzzy. I think it's best to make, as it were, a "Good faith effort" to insure that you are only charging people who want to be charged.

Now, you can argue that recurring billing with an easy way to cancel can count as that 'good faith effort' - It's certainly the industry standard.

If you start doing things with the goal of making it hard for users to cancel, though, you are certainly stepping outside of that 'good faith effort' - and where the line is between that and outright fraud, I do not know. I do think that my current system, with it's manual cancellation process would be unacceptable by my standards if I pulled money from customer accounts. I don't think it would be unacceptable by legal standards, but it would be well into the gray area.

[larrys]

For any individual of course it all comes down to what allows someone to sleep at night, right?

What I've found as a general rule is depending on where the line is people tend to think that someone who does something that they wouldn't do (wherever the line is for them) is either a) "really honest" or b) "a crook, cheat, dishonest etc."

Same with paying taxes. If we can assume that most people fudge a bit then someone who fudges 5 times as much is a cheat but someone who goes to extraordinary means to pay every cent is "really honest". Because it's usually in relation to how you view what you do as being "the right middle ground".

You strike me as being really honest by the way simply because (using my own ethics) you do things that I don't do more in the direction of being transparent and to the benefit of your customers at your own expense.

[lsc]

>For any individual of course it all comes down to what allows someone to sleep at night, right?

That, and risk tolerance. You could just as easily call me a coward. Especially when it comes to taxes; There are few mistakes I can make that I can't get out of through bankruptcy. Screwing up my taxes is one of those mistakes. (and I'm in a situation where my revenue, but not my profit, is fairly significant. So obviously, if a substantial portion of my revenues are ruled profits, I'm... in trouble.)

It's also, I'm given to understand, important to maintain a 'good faith effort' to pay the taxes you owe... my understanding is that has a lot to do with what happens after you are audited. If they think you intended to defraud them, that's criminal. If you just made a mistake, well, you've still gotta pay it back plus penalties, but you aren't getting a criminal record.

>You strike me as being really honest by the way simply because (using my own ethics) you do things that I don't do more in the direction of being transparent and to the benefit of your customers at your own expense.

That is the goal I aspire to... I don't always live up to those standards. Usually my failures can be attributed to (or framed as) incompetence rather than dishonesty, but... that can be difficult to determine externally. I personally see dishonesty as way worse than incompetence, even when the effect is the same, though I acknowledge and have a hard time arguing with the argument that the effect is what matters. I actually have some conflicts here because I /know/ I'm overconfident about how quickly I can get something done... but by how much? it varies a lot. Does this mean I shouldn't take jobs? I've chosen to take jobs. I pad my estimates a lot (like 2x) to cover the uncertainty, but sometimes that's still not enough. (and sometimes, it's way too much) I personally see that as a little bit dishonest. But, I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to re-frame it as incompetence, which is easier for me to swallow.

A good way, I think, for me to get around this is to take more 'pay upon completion' type projects. If I make it? great. If I don't? I don't get paid. I'd feel pretty good about that. Unfortunately, most of my good-paying contacts want to go hourly; all the per-job offers I've gotten have been... much less remunerative, for any reasonable estimate of how long the project would take.

I'm not entirely sure that a focus on honesty and transparency is entirely 'at my own expense,' though; It could also be seen as me trying to turn one of my weaknesses into a strength.

I'm sure you can get ahead by pushing that line if you are good at it... but because my line is so, for lack of a better word, conservative, once I step over my line... I have a hard time seeing where other people would set their line. I suspect (partially supported by some tentative exploration when I was younger) that I'd be bad at pushing that line. Worse-off than if I was too conservative.

I don't really see the line between the normal schmoozing and quid pro quo of enterprise sales and the unacceptable kinds of kickbacks. Pushing that line is... difficult; there's a sea of cultural norms that don't make any sense at all to me, and knowing how to give the acceptable gifts and not offer the unacceptable kicbacks is essential to enterprise sales. If you do it improperly, well, everyone sees you as very unethical, and your behavior can easily be seen as criminal. So again, here is both self-knowledge (that where other people draw that line makes no sense to me, so I can't predict where that line would be) and cowardice, in that I don't want to 'guess and check' where the consequences to being wrong are so high.

But yeah, a lot of it is also just what makes me, perhaps irrationally, feel good. I can make a pretty good living as an individual contributor, and my financial needs are small. I

A good example of how it is just irrational good feelings is that I'm mostly okay working for body shops and having someone else do all that shady shit. As long as I do my job, I feel pretty okay. I'd class this as the same variety of hypocrisy as eating meat but being unwilling to kill animals yourself.

[larrys]

Yours is probably a textbook case of someone needing a partner who has a better idea of where that line is seat of the pants wise. I've never needed that it comes naturally. I simply weigh the downside to any decision vs. the upside. It's almost automatic. After a while your brain just works that way.

I'll give you an example (which doesn't relate to business). My state requires front license plates. But I have a nice car that I don't want to mess up. But I also don't care if the cops stop me. So I didn't put the license plate on the car. Worst case is I get pulled over. I get a ticket for $85 or whatever. Maybe in some extreme case something even worse will happen but it shouldn't. So I decide to take that chance. (Nothing has ever happened not that it couldn't etc.).

In the case of the body shops you are probably shielded enough from the down side both legally and also emotionally so you are ok with it. I think that's fine from the way you are describing it.

[lsc]

>Yours is probably a textbook case of someone needing a partner who has a better idea of where that line is seat of the pants wise. I've never needed that it comes naturally.

My life partner, actually, is sort of stepping into the role you describe. It's hard for me letting go, but I'm far more likely to be okay with my partner taking that role than some random sleazebag. I mean, her background is more technical than mine; which is a downside in that role (though an upside for me actually following. Like most technical people, I have a hard time accepting leaders who don't have a technical background.) but eh, hiring for that role is really hard; judging from my past, when it comes to evaluating business people? I'm worse than random.

But it's still ultimately my business, and ultimately mistakes (or unethical decisions) made by that business are still my responsibility. Perhaps I will feel differently if someday I'm no longer the majority shareholder? (my partner is vesting in over time, so I am still the majority shareholder by quite a bit..)

But it's probably good that it's her; we have a lot of shared values and cultural background, and ultimately I see her as a good person, so while she's probably not the best businessperson available, she might be the best at working with me.

>I simply weigh the downside to any decision vs. the upside. It's almost automatic. After a while your brain just works that way.

Yeah, but almost nobody weighs moral concerns as zero. I mean, for an extreme example, you wouldn't murder someone for money even if you were certain you wouldn't get caught, and wouldn't face any negative consequences save those you imposed yourself.

(I'm not claiming that 'sharp' business practices are anything like murder; I'm just pointing out that you have the same line I have, even if yours isn't quite in the same place as mine. Almost nobody does a pure cost benefit analysis with no ethical or moral overlay.)

[larrys]

One more thought that relates to what I said below "chance to bail".

As a business you might give someone a 100% money back guarantee. But the same business would never go to someone and say "by the way you haven't complained are you sure you are 100% satisfied? If not let me know and I'll give you your money back!" What do you think would happen then?

(The above is a bit of an extreme example to make a point.)