this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2024
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If a subscription is harder to cancel than it is to sign up, that's anti-consumer. It's not really anything to do with anyone's intelligence.
It's also illegal in EU.
and California (where this lawsuit is coming from)
It's not harder to cancel than to sign up though. It's a one or 2 clock process to cancel and a whole lot of card details entering to sign up.
I mean technically it is harder to sign up to Discord Nitro, you have to enter your payment details. Where cancelling is just a few clicks.
No, it absolutely does have something to do with people's intelligence. Because if you can't seem to follow the prompts there to cancel? Yeah, you're kind of dumb.
It's different than in Amazon's case where sometimes they'll flip the buttons on you, tricking you to resume. That kind of thing is anti-consumer.
They’re both anti-consumer; the difference is in the degree.
How is the Discord way anti-consumer? Here, let me walk through to you the steps:
I go to Subscriptions on the app, I see my subscriptions now, I see a button that says Cancel. I click it, a window pops up that says I can Continue or Nevermind. Right now I'd Continue but I don't want to because I'm on a month trial, but I do imagine that by clicking Continue, it'll end things with a notification that tells me I've unsubscribed.
How is that process anti-consumer? It's stupid easy to understand. I think you're just arguing for the sake of arguing.
Button that doesn’t look like a button.
Unclear phrasing…
Now, am I saying it’s impossible to understand? No. Do I think it rises to the level of law-suit worthy? Barely.
Is it anticonsumer and intentionally designed so as to make it more difficult to unsubscribe and put up barriers to get people to stay? Absolutely.
Because it's easier to sign up than it is to cancel.
What the other user here is documenting Discord doing with the cancel button that doesn't look like a cancel button are called "Dark Patterns."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern
The point of a Dark Pattern is to make options unclear and how to do things just ever so slightly confusing. Why? Because unlike you and me, this will trip up a significant number of users. They wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't working.
Further, the US FTC considers Dark Patterns such a big deal that in 2021 they committed to ramping up enforcement of removing Dark Patterns that make it difficult to cancel subscriptions.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2021/10/ftc-ramp-enforcement-against-illegal-dark-patterns-trick-or-trap-consumers-subscriptions
It's also important to note that Discord is being sued through a California law:
https://casetext.com/statute/california-codes/california-business-and-professions-code/division-7-general-business-regulations/part-3-representations-to-the-public/chapter-1-advertising/article-9-automatic-purchase-renewals/section-17602-unlawful-acts-by-business-making-automatic-renewal-or-continuous-service-offer-to-consumer#%3A%7E%3Atext=2024+Legislative+Session.-%2CSection+17602+-+Unlawful+acts+by+business+making+automatic+renewal+or%2Cthe+automatic+renewal+offer+terms
When you read through this, the Dark Patterns that Discord uses definitely fall under this law. One hopes that the FTC will do some follow-up with Discord as well.
But I mean, go ahead, keep denying that psychological tricks are being used to make it difficult for some people to cancel. Not everyone's brain works the same ways, and things that are easy to see for you aren't easy to see for everyone. When it comes to consumer protections, we protect everyone, we don't just say "You must be dumb, sucks to be you! I guess that means it's okay to exploit you!" I mean, I personally am not cool with tricking the mentally handicapped for a quick buck.
A lot of people are dumb. Half the world's population has a below average intelligence.
Why should we allow companies to victimize dumb people? Why is that ok to you?
Why are you pulling strawmen out of your ass?
I fail to see how it's a strawman. Either you're ok with companies taking advantage of people because they're not very intelligent or you're not.
Half of the world are below median intelligence, it's likely the average isn't also the median
Intelligence is usually graded on a normal distribution.
Dumb people deserve to be protected by the law.
Amazon is pretty easy, just go to the renewal page and say don't auto renew and hit confirm