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this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
17 points (90.5% liked)
Fuck Subscriptions
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Naming and shaming all "recurring spending models" where a one-time fee (or none at all) would be appropriate and logical.
Expect use of strong language.
Follow the basic rules of lemmy.world and common sense, and try to have fun if possible.
No flamewars or attacking other users, unless they're spineless corporate shills.
Note that not all subscriptions are awful. Supporting your favorite ~~camgirl~~ creator or Lemmy server on Patreon is fine. An airbag with subscription is irl Idiocracy-level dystopian bullshit.
New community rule: Shilling for cunty corporations, their subscriptions and other anti-customer practices may result in a 1-day ban. It's so you can think about what it's like when someone can randomly decide what you can and can't use, based on some arbitrary rules. Oh what, you didn't read this fine print? You should read what you're agreeing to.
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Some other groovy communities for those who wish to own their products, their data and their life:
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Louis Rossman's YouTube channel
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The article is nonsense though. They signed up for a service where HP would send free cartridges as long as they keep the monthly subcription. Of couse they can't get a full cartridge and then just cancel the subscription...
It's like complaining that you can't finish watching that show on Netflix, that you downloaded to save mobile data, after you cancel your Netflix subscription.
Can’t speak for the article because all it leads me to is a photo disguised as a video without much context and pop-up galore.
That said, it’s a bit more nuanced that you make it out to be. HP uses some very shitty dark patterns.
Used to be that printers came with a set of starter ink cartridges.
HP nowadays uses Schrödinger’s ink called “HP Instant Ink Ready” cartridges.
If you never sign up for the HP Instant Ink subscription (incl. trials), then the cartridges that in the box will just be like the starter cartridges you’re used to.
If you however sign up for the subscription **or its ** trial, then the cartridges are changed into Instant Ink cartridges and will refuse to work once the trial is up and/or cancel the subscription.
I can see how people would expect to be able to use the cartridges that came with the printer like they always have been able to before HP pulled this nonsense.
It’s bad enough that this isn’t clearly and explicitly communicated with the customers.
What’s worse is that during setup of the printer (and in the marketing materials for the printer) customers are offered and asked if they want X months ink for free, without much indication that this is a trial for a subscription service.
Even worse that is not ink based, but per pages printed. Or to put it more bluntly: it’s a subscription that, depending on the tier chosen, gives you X amount of pages to print per month (paper needs to be provided by yourself) and HP will automatically send you ink to ensure you can print that amount of pages.
However, in all the marketing HP emphasizes ink and ink subscriptions (or “free” ink), and only after spending time looking into details can you figure out that you don’t pay for the ink, but for pages.
Here’s an example of how they market it as “6 months free ink”:
That ink is not free, because if after 6 months you cancel the trial, that ink is unusable.
Is that so self-evident?
Classically (and HP also still has this as an option somewhere hidden away I believe) these kind of subscriptions used to be supply subscriptions.
For X amount a month we’ll send you Y amount of supply and it was yours to keep and do as you see fit, nowadays it’s often marketed as “auto-ship” across many web shops and comes with a marginal discount, but there are also plenty of examples that just call it a subscription (e.g. razor blade subscriptions).
If you could use if after 6 months, it would be more than 6 months of ink..?
Either you like the deal or not. You can't be mad at it because you wanted to outsmart it but then you couldn't.
The point is that “6 months free ink” is misleading whichever way you look at it because it’s ambiguous since ink isn’t measured in months.
Even if your reading of it would be the intended reading, then it’s still misleading because it’s just a 6 month trial for a per page subscription. Or put differently: if you surpass the monthly allocation of pages, you would have to pay, making it not free.
Given that neither the trial component nor the per page component is mentioned in the image and given the fact that the offer is ambiguous, there isn’t much to like or dislike about the deal because the deal as presented is false and non-existent.
Moreover, you conveniently sidestep all the other issues I’ve mentioned.
Like the fact that people receive cartridges with their printer that will be rendered useless with no clear warning on the box that this will happen or how to prevent this, instead they’re listed on the box in the same fashion other printer manufacturers list their cartridges that don’t get rendered useless.
"mentioned in the image" was the part where you lost me. There is no offer, there are no contract details, it's just an ad. They have to give you details before you sign anything. You can't blame them if you didn't read the EULA and TOS before agreeing to it.