Oh... glad to see. I just wrote a pissed off feedback message in their unsubscribe page last night.
I accidentally signed up for a "yearly subscription that bills monthly"... I misread it and thought it was just a monthly subscription.. and get this.. if I cancel early I get billed the full yearly amount.... AND there is no way to turn off auto renew.. so now I have to set my own reminder at the end of year to cancel my subscription, and if I forget I need to pay for another "yearly subscription billed monthly".. that I cannot cancel without a fee.
So I just looked it up, and there's apparently a trick which lets you get out of your year-long contract, because you can change plans and then you have 14 days to cancel your new plan:
It sucks to have to jump through hoops -- this is not defending Adobe in any way -- but hopefully it helps you personally?
(I guess it's kind of like hotels that don't let you cancel the day before, but will allow you to change your date to 2 weeks in the future, and then you call back the next day to cancel that, and it's no problem because it's far enough out -- for anyone unfamiliar with that trick.)
I just found myself in this exact situation today. I picked up "a month" of Illustrator a couple months ago for a few tasks and went to cancel it today, only to discover that after paying for two months I will be billed close to $100 for canceling. The UI included a nice lecture about how Adobe had generously given me a significant discount in return for the annual commitment I have no recollection of making.
Pretty sad, to see the tech company that put the cool symbology puzzle on corporate hq many years ago now applying their innovative efforts to devising ever-more effective anti-patterns. Somebody must have gotten a nice bonus for creating this revenue stream.
I got so fed up with this that I've been determined to find a replacement ecosystem.
I can now wholeheartedly recommend the Affinity suite that is not only subscription-free, but clearly shows the innovation cost of Adobe's business model.
Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher replace Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, and can seamlessly share files.
You really can't just block them from that card and be done with it? Or switch payment methods to a card you can block and then simply not pay? Abusive bullshit indeed.
Figma has its own problems, at least in a company/team setting. I'm not 100% certain how it happens, but it seems that when you follow a link without having an account, it offers to easily 'register' and then silently adds a new paid seat.
We've first had this issue with Miro, and then discovered they took a cue from Figma. Admittedly it's even worse in Miro.
In both cases we found out when the bill arrived.
I fear it's on the way of becoming the norm.
I think Congress should pass a law that if you send a registered letter to the legal department of these e-commerce companies with your name, address and credit card number with an order to drop the service then they have to process it and cancel your "subscription". Companies would be required to print out the address of their legal department on the ordering page and sign-up page. Right now if you complain to your credit card company they won'thelp you and will refer you to the company which won't help you.
That's too milquetoast to even be half assed. You must be able to unsubscribe by whatever mediums you can subscribe by and do so without any bullshit dark patterns trying to trick you into not unsubscribing.
I sometimes think about a possible app idea that manages your monthly subscription payments (like Apple Pay but only deals with monthly subscription fees) which allows all the payments to set the same deadline all at once. Not only that, my idea was to have standardized contract and ToS that users find easy to navigate and understand that also allows subscription and cancellation through the app (generate some sort of token to allow you to receive the service immediately), not through the company website you pay for. I believe Apple already does this to an extent in their app store, but I have not seen any app that works for all platforms smoothly. Of course you need to have the subscription service companies to be on board, and maybe that is why it does not exist.
Use something like privacy.com. you can generate a unique cc for each subscription. just go and cancel that virtual card number to stop paying for the service.
I cancelled all company subscriptions to Adobe after going through their cancellation process and realizing they were just straight up scamming me. Just no. Love me in don’t lock me in you fools.
We just stopped doing business with them. Then they bought figma. And we had to figure out how to divest ourselves of Figma, which we are doing slowly. I really think they control too much of the market.
Interesting that they make you contact support to cancel your subscription, but don't make you contact support to sign up for one. I wonder why the discrepancy.
Readit News
I accidentally signed up for a "yearly subscription that bills monthly"... I misread it and thought it was just a monthly subscription.. and get this.. if I cancel early I get billed the full yearly amount.... AND there is no way to turn off auto renew.. so now I have to set my own reminder at the end of year to cancel my subscription, and if I forget I need to pay for another "yearly subscription billed monthly".. that I cannot cancel without a fee.
Abusive BullSh**
https://prodesigntools.com/guide-to-change-cancel-creative-c...
It sucks to have to jump through hoops -- this is not defending Adobe in any way -- but hopefully it helps you personally?
(I guess it's kind of like hotels that don't let you cancel the day before, but will allow you to change your date to 2 weeks in the future, and then you call back the next day to cancel that, and it's no problem because it's far enough out -- for anyone unfamiliar with that trick.)
Pretty sad, to see the tech company that put the cool symbology puzzle on corporate hq many years ago now applying their innovative efforts to devising ever-more effective anti-patterns. Somebody must have gotten a nice bonus for creating this revenue stream.
Edit:typo
So refreshing.
Deleted Comment
Why not just cancel now? You're paying for the whole year either way.
I don't understand why you have to set a calendar reminder.
Sorry if I'm missing a detail here.
Dead Comment
Figma has been much more pleasant. I fear the worst now that Adobe bought Figma.
They should switch to something similar to JetBrains license model.
Its absurd to pay a monthly subscription for a year and still not own a license for that version indefinitely.
Furthermore, the defaults store your art/assets in their cloud, further trying to keep you beholden to maintaining an active license.
Plain and simple greed serving their stakeholders and contempt for their paying customers.
We just stopped doing business with them. Then they bought figma. And we had to figure out how to divest ourselves of Figma, which we are doing slowly. I really think they control too much of the market.
Adobe needs to stop behaving badly.
Are there any good examples of a major company where a non-founder CEO was able to put off seeking profit in exchange for a "lofty" goal like this?
As for Adobe — GFk'd! I'm still keeping CS4 alive, offline, on legacy hardware =D
Obvious reaction: WTF is it taking 17+ months to resolve this?
https://medium.com/let-s-talk-design/bye-bye-adobe-3c3ba22c4...