cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/12700714

On mobile, it prompts you to either "get the app" or "open app" with no way to click past. Screenshot won't upload.

This is worse from several months ago https://lemmy.today/post/8935690

crosspost from: https://lemmy.world/post/10321573

i've never been on this site before -- that is to say, you don't even get like a couple free words

what a joke

cross-posted from: https://feddit.it/post/3381833

Exciting news for who? Only the site owner is excited that a free resource now requires a subscription

"Yay! Now I have to pay another subscription! I'm so excited! Let's celebrate with them!" - nobody

Bit of a rant here, but I am currently subscribed to a game development related Patreon because I wanted to follow the development of a project that was interesting to me. The reason I covered the name is that the developer is doing a fantastic job with the project, posting regularly and providing interesting and informative posts, but the main advantage of Patreon is simply that he also provides builds which I was interested in checking out.

Patreon rebilled at the beginning of the month and I thought "Fine I guess, but I don't really want to pay $6 a month to get test builds of this game" and tried to cancel, assuming it would simply not rebill next month, but instead of cancelling rebilling, Patreon says I will immediately lose access to everything I can currently see on Patreon and new posts for this month, even though it billed me for this month literally three days ago.

There is no technical reason they can't just cancel rebilling and allow me to access this subscription until the end of the month, but they are clearly hoping I'll be scared to lose access to what I've paid for and will forget about cancelling later in the month, which would be the better time to do it, since I would benefit from access to more posts and development builds. There are a few other subscriptions I've used in the past that remove access to everything the instant you cancel, but even Amazon lets me continue free trials of Prime until the end of the trial period when I cancel it.

There are presumably no laws against this, or it was mentioned in some legal bullshit I ignored when signing up, but I do think that there should be a law that forces providers of subscription services to allow users to access their subscription for the entire period for which they have paid, regardless of whether they cancel their subscription if no refund is due.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/3078732

cross-posted from: https://radiation.party/post/118334

[ comments | sourced from HackerNews ]

Welcome to the Internet of Stings, an occasional series in which we report on connected devices that are abruptly bricked or rendered considerably more costly due to the actions of their vendors.

Today's tale concerns the Miku Baby Monitor, a $400 device aimed at parents who want to check up on their precious poppet from the comfort of their smartphone.

Spend the cash and you'll get a camera that will also monitor breathing, room temperature, humidity, and provide some two-way communication to reassure the baby that its parent or guardian has taken a break from YouTube or Candy Crush to check that all is well.

The upfront cost was steep, but what price can one put on the reassurance of a breathing waveform and being able to bring up some live video while you're out and about? Apparently, $9.99 a month.

I don't know if it has a subscription per se, but holy crap/crab

cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/3190681

You've seen Louis's rant about how difficult it is to cancel gym memberships. But I think he's mad at the wrong thing here, or at least not at the main wrong thing.

The worse issues, as I see them, are:

The main issues are:

1. Why does a gym require membership/subscription in the first place? Ok sure, fixed expenses and stuff, but that's the case of every business ever, and my grocery store doesn't require me to sign up for membership to buy bread.

Where I live (Europe), gyms, swimming pools and other such establishments are walk-in. You come, pay an entry fee and leave whenever. Memberships and tickets for multiple entries are offered, but it's just to save money if you want it and are a regular anyway. So there's a steep discount coming with those. Businesses need go actually earn your membership money.

I kept seeing people joking about gym memberships in US TV shows and comedies, and just had to shake my head.

Not that people aren't trying to bring this subscription/membership rot here. One large local gym/wellness chain now requires membership and a phone app to enter. The membership itself is free (presumably you pay with your data in some way) and there are still just single entrance fees, but fuck that.

2. I'd say it's good manners to accept cancellation of a contract by the same method as the sign-up. But in absence of good manners by businesses, laws should exist to enforce exactly this.

As far as I know, Europe-wide laws require cancellation of contracts to be easily available, at least using the same way as you can sign up.

So if the laws don't demand this, and businesses don't respect this simplest, basic logic, then there's something fundamentally more wrong than just "making it difficult to cancel".

And overall, it also just shows how far can things get when subscriptions are just accepted as normal thing. It always gets worse and worse, unless the law intervenes (if it does). That's why it's pretty much best to avoid subscription services and memberships whenever there's an alternative available. Sure, exceptions apply, but always think what the situation with your service will be in 10 years.

Louis getting pissed off by gym memberships is very entertaining. And he is right!

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/tech/t/433816

BMW has made a U-turn on a controversial subscription service that saw drivers pay a fee to activate the heated seats fitted to their car.

//

How nice of them. But I'll bet my tyres that even worse subscriptions will come from all sides, and we won't need to wait long. These tiny wins against corporate nickle and diming only make sense, when we keep fighting them. More often than not, people get tired of complaining about the same thing over and over, until it just gets fully normalised.

In other words, don't buy cars with subscription seats, don't buy shitty subscriptions and try to not support companies that push that kind of shit.

Sorry for being a downer and not celebrating, but that's the point.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/gaming/t/408797

USD "per year" prices:
The Essential plan is increasing from $60 to $80.
Extra increasing from $100 to $135.
Premium increasing from $120 to $160.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/2944272

Smaller subscription deals and the underperformance of certain titles have had a severe impact on Devolver and TinyBuild, says stockbroking firm Goodbody.

Both companies floated at the peak of the games business in 2021 and have seen their share prices plummet over the past two years. Devolver has seen its share price drop 92% since its peak in January 2022, while TinyBuild's has fallen 95%

"We have seen from Devolver and TinyBuild that subscription is under pressure at the moment," says Patrick O'Donnell, technology and video gaming analyst at Goodbody.

"The cheques coming from Sony and Microsoft are just not as big as they were. And that creates problems if you're concentrated on that side of the market.

"TinyBuild, of all of them, was most exposed. Devolver was exposed, but not quite as much."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/3882090

Reader would work for like 90% of people, but no, everyone needs Standard or Pro because reasons.

"Subscribed" (subscribed and right after unsubscribed) to Game Pass because of a deal for 1$. When my subscription was closing in, got this in a new tab called "recommendations". It says:

Continue playing

Time to renew your subscription.

When I removed this notification, the whole tab disappeared.