this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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As a software developer who only has business customers, let me tell you the following:
No matter how foolproof your system might seem. It never truly is. There is always some idiot (sometimes with a degree) who just can't understand/use it.
But they could still try and mostly succeed. They just don't want to.
“When you make something idiot proof, the world builds a better idiot.” Lol
The system doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough to prevent most customers from accidentally cancelling more than they mean to. Anyone who fucks up can be handled by the customer service department.
"Thanks."
-customer service
You can't make a perfect UI, because people think differently. What is obvious and logical to one person, is obscure and nonsensical to another. It is impossible to make a one-size-fits-all interface to anything, not just software.
You could make a big, red, flashing button that says "pressing this button will cancel all your channels, are you sure you want to do that?", and you would still get an significant amount of users complaining that pressing the button did exactly what it said it would because users don't read.
And there are plenty of ways to mitigate that such as having a window in which cancelled subscriptions can be reinstated.
Making software and services awful because theoretically a bad user is going to misuse it is dumb, it's the very core of enshittification.
That's just the cost of doing business.
The system now is that you have to call them, get bombarded with ads and berated by their customer service for an hour, then maybe they'll think about cancelling you. And gyms are even worse.