> I can't wrap my head around why people got so comfortable with allowing companies to charge their credit cards whenever they want, how much they want and how long they want
You’re not alone. There is a race to the bottom on exploiting these deficiencies on careless/unknowing/impulsive customers. But there’s a growing number of opposite people like you and me who are avoiding subscribing because we anticipate the dark patterns, and that’s lost business. By the time the marketing departments will wake up to the reality that people avoid subscriptions even if they want the product, they’ll be faced with an insurmountable reputational barrier for entire cohorts of users they will be desperate to convert.
Tangentially, this is related to a beef I have with Apple. Their IAP system as middleman for purchases (but especially subscriptions) is worth a lot and cheap to maintain. I already trust them much more than a random SaaS (might even sign up for NYT if I’m confident I can cancel with a click later). In other words, they’re providing huge value, BUT they refuse to compete on fair terms. Their obsession with the 30% tax have pushed the market to do business outside of their App Store (which reduces their market share and fragments the UX), and even created massive badwill to the point of upsetting toothful regulators. They could have avoided all the tantrums and fighting, made a shitton of money in the long run, increased their market share, if only they hadn’t been stuck in the last decade first-mover monopolistic mindset.
EDIT: The more I think about, the more I realize how good Apple's (and maybe Google/Android to a lesser extend) position is. They're sitting on low-fraud rate one-click payment access with biometric verification, with a verified customer region, prefilled info, etc. They're a merchant's dream, and yet they're scaring everyone away with their short-sighted greediness and erratic rules of engagement. On the open market, an MOR (Merchant of Record) like Paddle lies at around $1 + 4%. Apple could easily add another 5% on top and people would pay for it, happily. But no, they insist on clinging to the past.
> On the open market, an MOR (Merchant of Record) like Paddle lies at around $1 + 4%. Apple could easily add another 5% on top and people would pay for it, happily.
Apple charges almost every developer 15%, not 30%. The only developers who pay 30% are the ones earning more than a million dollars per year through the App Store, for things that aren’t long-lived subscriptions.
15% isn’t quite as low as you’re suggesting, but Apple are a lot closer to that than to 30% for almost all developers.
Apple are the ones responsible for a lot of this subscription nonsense. They went around (had meetings with top devs) and convinced developers that they should switch to a subscription model. That's about when the narrative of the starving software dev came out as well.
Subscriptions existed before Apple and trying to put the genie back in the bottle is an entirely separate discussion. The point is about how subscriptions could be better for everyone.
You’re not alone. There is a race to the bottom on exploiting these deficiencies on careless/unknowing/impulsive customers. But there’s a growing number of opposite people like you and me who are avoiding subscribing because we anticipate the dark patterns, and that’s lost business. By the time the marketing departments will wake up to the reality that people avoid subscriptions even if they want the product, they’ll be faced with an insurmountable reputational barrier for entire cohorts of users they will be desperate to convert.
Tangentially, this is related to a beef I have with Apple. Their IAP system as middleman for purchases (but especially subscriptions) is worth a lot and cheap to maintain. I already trust them much more than a random SaaS (might even sign up for NYT if I’m confident I can cancel with a click later). In other words, they’re providing huge value, BUT they refuse to compete on fair terms. Their obsession with the 30% tax have pushed the market to do business outside of their App Store (which reduces their market share and fragments the UX), and even created massive badwill to the point of upsetting toothful regulators. They could have avoided all the tantrums and fighting, made a shitton of money in the long run, increased their market share, if only they hadn’t been stuck in the last decade first-mover monopolistic mindset.
EDIT: The more I think about, the more I realize how good Apple's (and maybe Google/Android to a lesser extend) position is. They're sitting on low-fraud rate one-click payment access with biometric verification, with a verified customer region, prefilled info, etc. They're a merchant's dream, and yet they're scaring everyone away with their short-sighted greediness and erratic rules of engagement. On the open market, an MOR (Merchant of Record) like Paddle lies at around $1 + 4%. Apple could easily add another 5% on top and people would pay for it, happily. But no, they insist on clinging to the past.