A fair amount of companies makes their subscription cancellation actively hostile in an effort to not get people to do it. To give an example, though you can subscribe online, the NYT requires you to call during only certain hours to a customer service line where you get badgered and questioned like you’re trying to cancel a cable subscription.

If the US mandated that you need to provide equivalent means of subscription and unsubscription with equal ease of use that would be one thing, but we do not live in that world.

This is exactly the example that's been on my mind. Had I known how horrible NYT's unsubscription process is, I would have never subscribed in the first place. I'm sure they extracted an extra month or two out of me because of the friction they introduce, so in management's eyes that's probably a win. I will never use NYT again in the future, but I think a big label letting users know an app isn't using iCloud payments could go a long way to cautioning users about a user-hostile experience.

Even if a developer makes subscriptions easy to manage today, without tie-in to Apple's infrastructure, they could change that process on a whim.

Similar opinion for XM... Would never sign up again without a generated card number that is only good for a single charge. I only wanted to cancel one radio of 3 I had at the time. By the third 40+m wait after mysteriously "disconnected" after they couldn't talk me out of it, I cancelled the whole thing.

Don't get me started on XM. Starting the second year after I bought a car they were calling me several times a week. It took a few years of "No" and blocking any number in my area code that isn't in my contacts (my phone number is not local) for it to stop. Then I brought my car to the dealership to have some recall handled, and the calls have started again....

I wonder if you'd get put on a block list if you answer the call but play a train horn into the phone every time instead of talking

That sounds like it would primarily impact the low-paid worker on the other end of the line rather than alter company policy.

Instead I suggest playing back a pre-recorded sales pitch for a relevant trade union: The workers won’t suffer from bleeding ears and the bosses might actually care.

Just tried this. I had to talk to a support staff on the website, and they made one attempt to offer me a lower rate for a year (which I declined).

In my opinion, it should be as easy to unsubscribe as it is to subscribe. I interpret anything else as consumer-hostile. It's very strange coming from NY Times ... I know they find it hard to finance journalism nowadays, but dark patterns are never the answer.

This used to be the case with NYTimes, several years ago. But, I think it has improved. Same horrible experience, a few years ago. Then, I resubbed after a couple years. A few months ago, NYTimes ran an article on "dark patterns." So, I attempted to unsub -- it was much easier.

But, that is only the NYTimes. My guess is that the original hypothesis holds true for others; I doubt JFax has improved.

I just checked my NYT account I can cancel from the website? I only have a digital subscription however.

This might depend on the state in which you live:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/companies-mu...

This makes the practice even more egregious as you know the website has the ability to allow cancellations they just choose not to enable it for people living in other states.

I live in Texas and can cancel from the website.

Huh, I was just able to cancel my digital introductory subscription ($4/month) w/o talking to anyone. This must be a recent change. I've canceled several times in the past and had to talk with someone, either voice or via online chat.

I think it is a recent change if you are in California. I used to have subscriptions to Economist and NYTimes. Both we very hard to manage and cancel.

The exception to their statements above is if you use Apple Pay however

I had to cancel a debit card to get rid of WSJ.

It's a law in california at least. If you log onto NYT in california you can cancel online I believe. Outside of california if you have no issue burning a bridge, you can issue a chargeback and most services will ban your account.

It seems theoretically possible for Apple to reject an app with a hostile cancellation policy without requiring that they use Apple as a payment processor.

This 100%. As an Android user if I have the option to pay for a subscription with Google Pay (even for extra) I will do it to avoid the dreaded "You can only call to cancel" interaction where someone will spend the next 10 minutes trying to talk me out of it.

Third-party payment providers who I don't select, not being answerable to me as a platform holder, are incentivized to make it hard for me to cancel. Apple doesn't do that. I have better things to worry about than to track this stuff down and I desperately want to think about fewer stupid things in my life. Subscription management is solved and stupid.

Perhaps look at it this way: I'm pretty OK with paying 30% to not pay 200% and, kinda more importantly, not to feel upset and angry later for forgetting a dark-patterned subscription dinging me again. If that's an edge case, y'all are wrong.

Maybe Apple can straitjacket them properly. "You must use XYZ API in iOS/MacOS and you must support one-click cancellation via a standard process." But I think the dark-pattern farmers who are angry about this would be angry about that, too.

>If that's an edge case, y'all are wrong.

I don't want to pay an extra 30%, and have that 30% taken away from the devs who actually deserve the money, because _some_ might make it hard to cancel.

Most would likely just have a Paypal button same as 90% of websites if that makes you feel better.

Devs "deserving the money" is a curious statement. I don't deserve dark patterns and stress in exchange for a subscription, do I?

And it doesn't make me feel better, because that's exactly the hellworld we have outside of iOS, but thanks!

Apple can still enforce in their rules the ability to cancel from one place

If that's all they'd done from the beginning this ruling would not have happened.

Apple wants to control the access to a very significant portion of the user base?

Fine, but then they'll act like a lawmaker-light and in many (western) societies that means you get some burdens and responsibilities piled upon you by the original lawmakers.

> Maybe Apple can straitjacket them properly. "You must use XYZ API in iOS/MacOS and you must support one-click cancellation via a standard process." But I think the dark-pattern farmers who are angry about this would be angry about that, too.

Im not sure Apple want's to do that. By not restricting the 3rd party payments there is more of a case for using Apple's payment processor so you can cancel easier.

This is my hope as well. This ruling explicitly pushed back against the attacks on App Store review and other Store policies - and as such they can still leverage that into a requirement to implement some API that allows one click control of recurring subscriptions.

Another edge case here. For now I trust apple with my credit cards (a lot) more than a bunch of smarmy payment processors (somehow I magically get subscribed to a bunch of things when I use the latter)

Why on earth wouldn't you be able to use Apple to pay (with the normal 2-3% transaction fee)?

Does Apple not support paying in arbitrary websites like Google Pay?

Two separate things at play here. Parent is saying they trust Apple to manage their payment options, and since third parties have to go through Apple they don't have to trust a bunch of individual companies to do things right.

Apple Pay is one of those payment options, but if you have to trust a bunch of third parties to properly manage your information the specific form of payment doesn't matter much.

Yes they do support that.

Developers can use payment methods that don't require credit card data to touch their servers (eg. Stripe, PayPal, Shopify).

I mean everyone's assuming that non-IAP subscriptions are going to be 30% cheaper but I don't really buy it. If the market has proven that someone will pay $10 for a thing, suddenly offering it for $7 seems like a bad business move.

Most likely Apple subs will increase in price. This was the case for Netflix/Spotify for a while until Apple banned the practice (7.99 direct, 9.99 via IAP.)

It’s still the case for Youtube Premium and Dropbox for example.

> If the market has proven that someone will pay $10 for a thing, suddenly offering it for $7 seems like a bad business move.

The mobile app payment market hasn't been competitive for a decade, so Apple has never had to compete with companies that are more efficient than they are, and can offer the same or better service for less than a 30% cut.

No the problem here is that a business wants X money, to sell thru Apple (and similar) they have to add 30% to what they want, whereas other payment platforms offer a much lower cut.

However Apple does vet apps and focus on security somewhat (altho Google's project 0 seems to do a better job at finding bugs for Apple), however 30% is far too much even for what Apple are offering their customers.

In an ideal world, Apple customers need to be told: "you will be charged extra buying through Apple to help pay for the protections/quality that our platform offers you".

However, Apple explicitly disallows both telling users that they're being charged more and why, and that they could get it cheaper elsewhere.

Regardless of whether Apple are still allowed to charge x%, the first step it to get Apple to allow developers to tell the customer about other payment options and for Apple to explain to their customers why it costs more, then customers can make the decision for themselves.

It’s a good move if you want to get more business than the people still charging $10. It’s very much an equilibrium between profit and competition.

Many apps already have non-Apple-taxed pricing. So they can just keep price consistency without losing 30%.

Which apps do this?

YouTube Music / Premium does this if I'm not wrong

Huh, I was under the impression that the App Store guidelines didn’t let you do that, but maybe that doesn’t apply if you’re Google.

Do you really think that the digital purchase cost would be 30% lower if you bought it directly through the vendor? The edge case would be that buying directly though the vendor would actually be 30% less.

What makes you so sure it would be 30%? Somewhere a middleman gets their cut. Why wouldn't bigCorp just make you use their payment system at the same price without allowing purchases via Apple at all?

You think that you’ll get a 30% discount by subscribing via an external website? More likely they’ll give you a small discount to entice you and pocket the difference.

Wouldn't it be better if that money went to the actual creator instead of a greedy middleman though? Apple will be fine. They have more money than they know what to do with. Literally. Steve Jobs even asked Warren Buffett WTF to do with their hoard, and that was over 10 years ago now.

Truthfully, aren’t the only developers who are really affected by this decision mega-corporations anyways? Epic had $5B in revenues in 2020. Should I feel indignant which greedy mega corp gets more money? Apple already lowered the commission to 15% for small developers (under $1M annually) where the additional income really matters.

Apple's refusal to allow alternative payment methods is (and has been) the issue. They can take 99% for all I care, but their smug refusal to allow alternative payment methods all but confirms that it's a ripoff.

You think the people who move to their own payment systems are going to drop their prices by 30%, when instead they could keep them the same and make 30% more revenue?

I am also more than ok to pay that premium for the benefit of centralized subscription management. an additional instance of the “edge case”.

That 30% covers a lot more than just processing payments.

I assume by that you mean the developer tools to create apps in the first place.

Apple is free to not make developer tools anymore, that's their choice. Nobody is forcing them to. They do it b/c apps make the iPhone better. In fact an iPhone without apps is pretty useless.

So you are saying they have to? Otherwise the iPhone would be useless.

You're assuming that the Epics of the world will actually lower their rates the 30%. Epic could just as easily keep the same prices, but now make that extra. That's the issue I have with Epic's arguments. They might lower the rates by a percent to entice people over to their system, but over time pull the cable company routine and just up the rates each time it renews or new version.

It’s almost impossible to analyze Epic’s rates “objectively”. Fortnite is free, but you can pay for in-game currency (V-Bucks) with which you buy cosmetics. You can buy V-Bucks directly (discounted in large amounts), get them through a monthly subscription slightly cheaper, or get a limited amount by playing (more if you buy a season pass which also includes cosmetics). BTW: Cosmetics are EXTREMELY overpriced, because you pay for “exclusivity” (think like USD 20+ for a fully accessorized skin with no effects beyond cosmetic). Even though Epic can claim it lowered the cost of V-Bucks in its store, you can only used them to pay for a small daily selection of arbitrarily overpriced cosmetics that Epic puts in its in-game store… so how much is a V-Buck worth? Nobody knows, and Epic can tweak it by making skins more or less detailed, or by giving away more or less V-Bucks to players and subscribers.