
Think twice before signing subscription to Adobe products - EugeneOZ
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1372913
======
DonHopkins
Notice how Adobe support staff are quick to address each individual
complaining customer's short term one-off problem of unsubscribing, yet they
never acknowledge that there is a general overarching problem with
unsubscribing being impossible because of their broken looping web site, or
promise to fix the actual cause of such a frequent and long standing problem.

Why, after the many years the problem has been repeatedly reported, doesn't
Adobe fix their apparently terribly designed and maintained web site, which
sends many of their customers who are trying to unsubscribe into a frustrating
infinite loop, instead of manually unsubscribing the few persistent squeaky
wheels who one by one eventually find their way to the forum to complain and
demand a refund?

Could the reason be that Adobe's staff is unable to fix the looping bug in
their own web server that their users keep reporting? Do they not employ
anyone who has the appropriate skill set to fix that problem? Do they not have
a bug reporting and tracking system in place? Does Adobe, of all companies,
not consider the web to be important enough to devote sufficient resources to
competently maintaining their own web presence? Or perhaps there is another
reason?

The reason is because it's a dark pattern they've purposefully implemented and
maintained in its broken yet lucrative state, because it makes them a hell of
a lot more money that way by systematically fucking their customers on a large
scale, while also saving them money paying their staff to fix their "broken"
web site that's actually working as designed, by making them more and more
money each time it "malfunctions".

~~~
andybak
Alternatively - it might be typical big company bureaucracy. These staff
members might simply not have an effective way to communicate with anyone that
could fix the underlying problem - without going seriously out of their way
and maybe missing a few targets as a result.

~~~
DonHopkins
The excuse of "our sales people have no way to contact the web developer who's
on vacation, and we don't have a bug tracking system in place" might work for
a dentist's office, but not a company that prides itself in developing online
software and tools for maintaining web sites, and brands its products with the
buzz-word "Cloud".

~~~
pjmlp
When one works for companies of such size, discovers there is a huge
difference between how things should be and how they actually are.

------
edko
Some years ago, I bought a perpetual license for FlashBuilder 4.7. Recently,
it failed to build an Air package because the product, which hasn't been
updated for years, connects to an obsolete time server. To fix the problem, I
followed the directions in Adobe's support site. Right after doing this, it
asked me to re-enter my license key. It rejected it, saying it was no longer
valid. A license that was sold as perpetual, no longer valid!

Their support was completely worthless: after being redirected to five
different support teams that had no clue how to solve my issue, I realized I
was never going to get a solution, and gave up.

My personal lesson learned: never buy or use anything from Adobe ever again.

~~~
tiatia
Email them, ask your money back.

~~~
phaed
Doubt that is going to be any easier to get them to do.

~~~
Nexxxeh
No, but potentially significantly more valuable, depending on how much the
product cost.

------
TheAceOfHearts
I recently tried to subscribe with Adobe. I really only wanted access to two
apps: Illustrator and Photoshop. I have absolutely no use for any of their
other apps, and I hate all their cloud stuff. Unfortunately, that forces you
to buy a $50/mo plan. Regardless, I thought it'd still be worth it, so I was
willing to pay the price. After subscribing I download their Creative Cloud
installer, only to find out it doesn't on case-sensitive file systems on
macOS!

Unsubscribing wasn't that bad, though. They have a bullshit popup where they
force you to give a reason. But afterwards, it seems to have gone fine. We'll
see if any charges show up next month.

Honestly, this is a huge problem with all subscription services. I should be
able to easily unsubscribe from anything without having to jump through a
bunch of hoops. I don't want to have to speak with anyone on the phone, nor
should I be forced to tell you why I'm unsubscribing. This is an area where I
believe we might need a bit more legislation. I've read stories of people
trying to unsubscribe from Comcast and getting immediately passed along to
their retention department.

~~~
KKKKkkkk1
Your comment about a case-sensitive filesystem on macOS made me curious. Are
you using APFS or anything else? What's your motivation to using a custom
filesystem?

~~~
TheAceOfHearts
I'm using case-sensitive HFS+. When I last reinstalled macOS on my laptop it
was one of the options available. I thought about it and thought a case-
sensitive file system was more sensible.

Any problems with case-sensitive file systems must be solved if we want a
smooth migration to APFS, which is case-sensitive. I've already reported or
helped fix a handful of minor bugs related to case-sensitivity.

~~~
Retric
I can't see the advantage to having two files open and Open in the same
directory. Why would you want that?

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
What's the advantage in _not_ being able to have a file called 'Open' in the
same directory as one called 'open'?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...being able to ignore case in filenames?

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Does every language have a meaningful equivalent of "case insensitive" or does
that mean we end up either creating lots of special cases or preventing
certain languages from being used? I'm ready to be convinced otherwise, but it
seems the simplest thing to do is not try to introduce the concept of "case
insensitivity".

------
greenspot
It gets even worse if you need to do subscriptions for your team. The
management console is an utter joke. Adobe owns some of the killer apps of the
creative industry but there are alternatives:

 _Photo editing (Photoshop):_

\- Windows: Gimp, Xara Photo, Affinity Photo, Corel Photo. Paint.net

\- macOS: Pixelmator, Affinity Photo, Gimp

 _Vector editing for digital (Adobe had Fireworks but abandoned it,
Illustrator is rather print and clumsy):_

\- Windows: Affinity Designer, Inkscape

\- macOS: Sketch, Inskape, Affinity Designer

 _Vector editing for print (Adobe Illustrator):_

\- Windows: Inkscape

\- macOS: Inkscape

 _Desktop Publishing (Adobe InDesign):_

\- Windows/macOS: QuarkXPress which is even more expensive

~~~
akeck
Desktop Publishing: Scribus (Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, ...)

~~~
jslabovitz
I'm a typographer and sometime book designer (as well as a programmer). I've
also used InDesign since 1.0, so I'm very familiar with what it does. Having
said that, I'd love to find an alternative -- InDesign has gotten bloated and
awful over the years, not to mention the dreadful subscription policy. (It's
one of the few CC apps for which I _cannot_ buy a standalone/perpetual
license.)

However, Scribus comes nowhere close to InDesign. Here are several basic
things I require from a page-layout application if it's going to be any kind
of competitor to InDesign:

1\. Work in picas and ems, not inches. (Inches are fine for specifying page
sizes, but beyond that, picas are the standard in typography.)

2\. Be able to zoom arbitrarily. Scribus doesn't seem to support zoom levels
more than 400%, so I can't work with even medium-sized text at all accurately.

3\. Be able to easily set kerning and tracking on arbitrary text. The Scribus
manual caims this is possible, but mucking around with the latest dev version
(1.5.3), I couldn't figure out how to do it. (I did really well at totally
fucking up my layout just by scrolling, through. Scribus is a bit _too_
response in some ways.)

4\. Be able to use OpenType features. Apparently Scribus 1.5.4 will include
some of that. But to a typographer in this century, OpenType is essential, not
optional.

Apologies to the Scribus developers, but being told that it's a capable
publishing app is a bit like a C programmer being told that BASIC should be
just fine for them -- hey, they're both programming languages, right?

And yes, I've attempted to use TeX (and LaTeX, and ConTeXT, and XeLaTeX,
and...) to do high-quality typographical work. It's possible, but the amount
of effort to undo Knuth's poor aesthetic choices (not to mention interface
with archaic architecture) is significant, and frankly, not worth my time.

Grumpy typographer is grumpy.

~~~
akeck
I find the same types of gaps across the OSS photo/graphics/layout stack. For
my avocational use, OSS is great (and money efficient). If I had to make a
living, I'd buy Adobe CS, because I would a) need transferrable skills for in-
house employment, and b) need the refined GUIs and workflows to compete with
everyone else using Adobe CS.

------
apercu
I really hate Adobes subscription model. I completely understand why they are
doing (increase revenue, decrease piracy) but rather than support it I simply
stopped using their products. I had a bit of a work around to get a monthly AI
subscription cancelled, but it wasn't as bad as some of these examples.

That's not an option for many people though.

~~~
jclardy
I don't mind the subscription that much personally, but what I do mind is
their scam of making it seem like a monthly subscription when it is actually
yearly. To cancel they make you pay half of whatever your "leftover"
subscription rate is, so if you are on the $50/mo plan you have to pay
$25/month * however many months are left till your actual yearly renewal date.
This is hidden in their terms and not actually stated anywhere that I saw on
the main sub pages.

This model is fine for companies and large businesses, but for small time
contractors that might only need software for a month or two it is a complete
scam. I missed my renewal date this past year but in the mean time I've
started gathering alternatives for all the software I use from Adobe.

~~~
MarkMc
Their pricing page clearly says "annual plan, paid monthly" [1] which isn't
deceptive. So it's not a scam, it's just expensive.

[1]
[https://creative.adobe.com/plans?sdid=PGRQQLYP&mv=search&s_k...](https://creative.adobe.com/plans?sdid=PGRQQLYP&mv=search&s_kwcid=AL!3085!3!102933539584!b!!g!!adobe%20creative&ef_id=VlaeZgAAATOnigiD:20170108152604:s)

~~~
apercu
The have a pay by month option, it just costs more.

------
bsenftner
I am so sick if this perpetual dark pattern being used by online services. The
following has saved me tons of time: I have setup separate debit cards for my
online subscriptions. When I want to cancel one, I go through their cancel
process once, and then I cancel the debit card used for that subscription, get
a new one from my credit union (same day service with a credit union) and
update my other online subscriptions if that debit card was used with them. My
credit union (First Entertainment, southern California) will issue me as many
debit cards as I want, so I have bad-acting online services all on the same
card, for easy canceling.

~~~
op00to
You do realize that charges to dead cards attached to live accounts can and do
go through, right?

------
EugeneOZ
Update: Adobe made this thread of forum hidden (only visible for registered
users). Bad move, Adobe. Here is public copy:
[https://cdn.rawgit.com/e-oz/79954d0d7fff37b5f3c8d322202721be...](https://cdn.rawgit.com/e-oz/79954d0d7fff37b5f3c8d322202721be/raw/a73a97d821a89fc334ea5f09b09f26f9660b66e1/adobe.html)

~~~
fenomas
Thread shows up normally for me, no login or anything.

It's also three years old...

~~~
EugeneOZ
And still actual.

------
iamvfl
Unfortunately, Adobe is a terrible company these days. I had been using their
products for over a decade, so unsubscribing and vowing never to work with
their software again was not an easy decision for me. It sucks, because I
think their software is great, but the company has completely lost my
business.

------
redleggedfrog
I'm a custom software developer, mostly e-commerce, and over the years I have
been asked numerous times to implement similar schemes.

The most popular is a recurring payments, such as for health supplements, that
you cannot cancel on the web site. Not a broken system, but just no way to do
it. You have to contact them via email. And many of them have a unspoken
policy of not cancelling on the 1st, or maybe even the 2nd, request.

My suggestion is contact your credit card and declare the charge fraud and
stopped.

~~~
slv77
Please don't do this...

The fraud chargeback code is supposed to be reserved for transactions where
the card holder did not participate and are used for training a variety of
systems. Everything from product like FICO Falcon that is used by card issuers
to detect fraudulent transactions to databases that are used to detect
compromised systems. Adding a lot of bad data decreases the performance of
these systems and makes it easier for fraudster to operate.

Correctly disputing the transaction will get the same result and also makes it
easier for supervising banks to identify the problem and either get the
merchant to resolve the issue or take the merchant down. When they are
incorrectly coded as fraud the supervising bank will often go after the
merchant to tighten their fraud systems rather than addressing their behavior
(bad business practices).

------
basicplus2
Sometimes you just have to cancel your credit card and get a new one.

I had to do this with d××× the rip off merchants in Australia who refused to
acknowledge or fix issues with their non functioning wifi broadband service
years ago.

Only THEN did they contact me saying give us money, so I sent a complaint to
the ombudsman and they suddenly said you don't owe us anything and cancelled
the $300 they said I owed.

~~~
falcolas
Canceling your credit card may not always work; there are methods in play
which let companies who provide subscriptions to get your updated card
information and continue to charge you.

In its most innocent form, this is useful when your card naturally expires (or
is reissued), since you don't have to go back and re-setup your CC with dozens
of companies. In its most nefarious, there is no way to stop charges short of
completely shutting down a CC account.

------
EugeneOZ
As an addition: today Adobe sent me email that they are going to increase
price (2x) and there is no way to cancel subscription.

~~~
Oletros
I have a subscription in Spain, I have not received that email and our laws
say that if there is a unilateral change of conditions, they should be told
with a month in advnace and the consumer can cancel if he doesn't agree

~~~
EugeneOZ
Price rise is declared for limited set of countries. Also, "Cancel" button is
not hidden not for all users.

------
Glyptodon
One of several reasons I left my first job out of college is that the boss
made me remove the ability to cancel a subscription from our web application.
I thought it was pure jackassery to make people call and then try to wheel and
deal to keep them on, but it did make a surprisingly real difference to the
bottom line.

No doubt something similar is at play with Adobe. Personally, I'm not sure I'd
be opposed to a law or regulation of some kind that any subscription you can
sign up for from a website you can also cancel from the website.

The whole "let's make it hard to cancel" play is so slimy.

~~~
leesalminen
I can see both sides to the issue.

As a consumer, I loathe any company that makes it difficult to cancel.

As the owner of a business management platform, we've found that more than
half of our cancellations are due to lack of knowledge.

The product is fairly complex and has hundreds (possibly 1,000) settings that
cover just about any customization a business in our niche could want. People
don't want to learn or read documentation, so we offer one on one video calls
with our team to support configuration.

The cancellations come when they forget about the (free) one on one time and
get frustrated with all the configuration.

The way we handle cancellations is to follow the "don't be a dick" policy.
When a customer requests cancellation (a single email to their acct manager)
we remind them about all the resources they still have available and offer to
chat with them to see if there's a workable solution for them. If we don't
hear back within 1 day, we process the cancellation and refund.

~~~
lamontcg
You're still kind of being a dick to anyone that really does want to cancel.
The flip side to the "half" of the customers that you can retain with this
policy is the other half of the customers that just want to end their
subscription and would be better served by a webpage and not having to get
past a customer support script to do it.

------
stevewillows
In 2008 I was doing some contract work for a print shop that was still using
CS2. For most work, it was fine.

As a graphic designer, I'm shackled to Adobe's line. However, I've avoided
moving to CC. I did a trial and found that most of the new 'features' didn't
benefit my workflow. Illustrator was significantly slower, Photoshop was
alright, and InDesign is always the same.

The deeper issue is that the suite itself is sloppy. It's never been great --
but we've grown to love it (Stockholm syndrome...)

Inconsistent hotkeys across applications, odd behaviors (e.g. OSX users
cmd+tabbing from photoshop to Chrome.) It feels like Adobe never really
improves their products, but merely adds a few tweaks, a handful of moderately
useful features, then slaps a new version number on it.

For me, its not worth moving from a paid-for product to a subscription model.
I'm not alone in this either. The $50/m isn't a bad price, but I personally
feel that Adobe needs to take a step back and focus on how their applications
interact with each other and also how the user interacts between each
application.

This doesn't even account for the somewhat sketchy 'difficult / impossible to
unsubscribe' issues, user info leaks, etc.

------
jpalomaki
It is convenient to have a service where you can generate "virtual credit
cards" and set monthly or all-time spending limits to each of them separately
and close the cards when you need.

In Finland we have Aktia Wallet[1], but probably similar services exist in
other markets as well.

[1] [https://aktiawallet.fi/web/](https://aktiawallet.fi/web/)

------
rabboRubble
A bit late to the game, but the consumer side risks of the subscription model
got me a-thinking.

My main credit card offers a one time temporary credit card number for use
when I want to buy something from a dodgy website. I log into the credit card
company website, hit a couple of buttons, and generate a random CC number with
an expiration date one month out.

This works great for a one time purchase, but rather badly for a subscription
purchase. I guess what I would do is, when wanting to cancel the subscription
is to change my billing credit card from my "real" credit card to one time
credit card number with a short expiry date. The one time card number will be
dead within 1 month after such a change.

------
username223
This is why you should never sign up for automatic billing. I had an issue
with Verizon some years ago, and was glad I had taken the time to explicitly
pay my bill every month. I told a customer service person to cancel my account
at the end of my contract. When this didn't happen, and I kept receiving
bills, I spent some time trying to navigate customer retention (i.e. "customer
disservice") without much luck. Fortunately, I had made sure to never enable
auto-billing, so I simply stopped paying, and they eventually took a hint and
cancelled my service.

I'm glad I have a pre-"Cloud" version of Lightroom, so I don't have to deal
with this nonsense.

~~~
infosample
Make sure they don't put it on your credit report.

------
automatwon
Can confirm. Happened to me.

Recently made it to the cancellation page. They offered two options: pay a
penalty for canceling early, or get two months free.

Took the two months free and signed some agreements. Wish me luck!

~~~
unsignedint
When I had 4 month remaining, I have called in and basically gave me same
deal. Basically they didn't charge me four two months. After two more charges,
when I hit my anniversary month, I have canceled my subscription. I don't
think they made me sign agreements though.

------
cwyers
Mods, can someone please change the thread title? I am pretty sure this
violates site guidelines on titles.

------
CyberDildonics
Taking a more bird's eye view, this is what happens when to buy something you
have to give over the information that lets anyone take money from you.

Things like this would probably be better served in many ways, such as putting
money on a temporary credit card.

------
hendry
I had a poor experience was cancelling Adobe Premiere Pro. Let this be a wake
up call to Adobe. Make it easy for your customers to come and go.

Treat your customers with contempt and well, the bitter taste in my mouth will
take years to clear.

------
anabis
Contact your credit card company, and stop payment. If you tried unsubscribing
multiple times in good faith, then that should be enough. Softbank of Japan
tried pulling this fiasco years back, and the above tactic was used by
subscribers.

------
cdevs
Maybe the answer is being able to control is via the payment processor like
this subscription supports Apple payment subscribe /opt out or whoever and
that middle man can kill off the account.

------
edblarney
There needs to be some sane solution in between Sketch and
Photoshop/Illustrator. The former is a little too simple, the later becoming
byzantine and crazy expensive.

~~~
xvaier
Affinity Designer and Photo are excellent products, I would argue that
affinity designer is much easier to work with than Illustrator.

------
beezischillin
What happens if you buy a years' worth of pre-paid subscription to CC? Will
they also slap a charge on you if you decide not to renew it after a year?

------
alphabettsy
I refuse to ever pay for their products again because of this. I shouldn't
have to call the phone number to unsubscribe from a web product.

------
wineisfine
Nice way of punishing paying users ;)

This is the reason to support Pixelmator and Sketch.

------
keknaut
Pro Tip: use PayPal account for any Adobe subscriptions. If you suddenly want
to cancel Adobe subscription cancel it in PayPal. Very easy

------
akjainaj
Can't you just... call your bank and tell them to reject any payment requests
from Adobe? It puzzles me to see so many people in that thread saying they've
been charged for months and can't stop it... if that happens to you, your
problem might be something else...

~~~
tomassre
I tried to do this for my gym. After many back and forth calls with the bank
and them telling me they just have to dispute the charge and do something
else. Went in person to the bank (WF) and she said there was nothing they
could (probably means will) do and I have to get a new credit card).

