This is true of literally everything in the new economy.

Internet? Wait until the moment your "promo" cost ends and your bill goes from $80 to $150, threaten to quit, oh wow magically you can have $80 again and a free mobile phone line.

Any subscription service is like this. I sometimes grab a Blue Apron when it's 65+% off which is anytime I want. My ex used to do this with clothing subscriptions, up to 80% off.

There are laws against things being "always on sale". But now they're just being used to punish lazy customers who don't keep up on their promos. Only lazy or ignorant people pay the "real" price.

Oh hey would you look at that, another billion dollar IPO with no plan for profitability went bankrupt. Weird.

I had T-Mobile starting in ~2003 and it included unlimited tethering.

After they introduced the Netflix included offer I inquired and they offered an "upgrade" that they swore up and down would not change my current service.

After agreeing, I was traveling and tried to tether and boom nothing. Their upgrade that would change nothing got me out of this grandfathered situation. Over time the cost of Netflix resulted in a higher fee for Netflix and ultimately I pay more for less.

Can't trust any company not to do anything in their power to squeeze another dime out of you.

Why accept oral promises when a contract with the term is definitely available? I guess you didn't record the conversation so why not giving the papers a look?

It's a lesson we all have to learn at some point, that was mine.

Recording calls is always tricky because of party consent rules, although telling people you're recording probably puts some guardrails on behavior.

"Your call may be recorded for quality assurance," is ubiquitous when calling the official sales/support number for any US company.

However, every single one of those call centers _also_ instructs their employees to hang up immediately if they are told (or have good reason to suspect) that the _customer_ is recording the conversation. It sounds hypocritical (and it is), but this rule comes from the company's legal department, whose sole job is to shield the company from legal liability.

When I’m recording (usually using the Rev app on iPhone if its not particularly sensitive or legally confidential information) I always start the human conversation with something like “hey so this call is recorded right? Thats what the message told me when I picked up. Just double-checking that we should consider this call to be recorded?”

I figure that it is completely legally unnecessary but it guarantees there’s an understanding between all human participants to expect a recording, which brings it in line with my own personality morality when conversing with an “innocent / relatively powerless human” (my morality exceeds the ethical and legal framework we operate in).

You don't have to tell them. You're dealing with the company, not the individual employee. If the company is recording the call, so can you.

Many states in the US do not allow calls to be recorded unless all parties on the call consent to being recorded. There is no distinction (that I am aware of) between companies and natural persons in those laws. In those states, you can _technically_ record a call without consent, but my guess is that if you try to use it as evidence, you open yourself up to being prosecuted for wire fraud or somesuch.

There are more "one-party consent" states than two-. Notably for HN's crowd California requires all parties be aware: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_call_recording_laws#One...

I am in NY, a one-party state, so I record most important calls for use later.

I can't find an app that lets me record both sides of the conversation on Android. Only my side. When I looked into, it seems that Google has disabled that part of the API that apps cannot record both sides of a conversation.

Does anyone know of a reliable way to record conversations?

I got around this by paying for a VoIP line and running 3cx to utilize it, 3cx can record calls. I've never actually done it - not even to test - because right around the time i got it set up covid hit and the people i used to spend 1-2 hours a day talking to on the phone about tech and other interesting things stopped having to drive to work so my phone usage is now down to maybe 4 hours a month on private calls that no one else would be interested in.

Technically i've been paying for a voip line for 20 years, and shoehorning it into 3cx was mostly to allow my young kid to be able to call his aunt or someone who isn't on our PBX (grandma and grandpa and his siblings are, already).

believe me i was really annoyed when android stopped being able to reliably record calls. Another alternative that i did actually use is a 3 channel breakout connector on my cellphone, a DAC/ADC, PC microphone and headphones. You could tell the OS to "monitor" the microphone, and record mix (remember those days?). Or now-a-days you'd have to use VAC(virtual audio cable) or something to manage the routing. Speaker out goes to mic in on phone, and vice versa, hit record on your PC, and both the remote side and your side will be recorded. I never got too deep into this because it's a huge hassle unless you have a phone just for this; but multi-channel recordings would let you have synchronous audio, for, say, correct transcriptions.

Can't you just put it on speaker?

> You don't have to tell them. You're dealing with the company, not the individual employee. If the company is recording the call, so can you.

The whole point of "this call may be recorded" is to establish consent between both parties. In two-party consent states (caller or recipient), you still have to establish consent to record.

If you're calling from a 1-party consent state to a 1-party consent state, you don't have to tell them, although I don't know how that works legally with call center routing.

If they’ve already told you that they’re recording, hasn’t consent already been established? You don’t need to ask again. It’s not like they’ve gotten consent for themselves to record, but not you.

My understanding is that intent needs to be established for any recording. If you establish consent and the second party records without consent I'm not sure where that stands but the spirit of the law seems to suggest every party must consent to every recording.

"This call may be recorded..."

They don't specify that it may not be you that records it. They are consenting.

> They don't specify that it may not be you that records it. They are consenting.

My - not a lawyer - understanding of consent laws is they're tied somewhat to privacy expectation laws.

If I tell you I am recording you, your expectation of privacy is lessened. But mine isn't, necessarily, because I control the recording and its potential dissemination.

They aren't telling you that they are recording. The exact phrasing is normally, "This call may be recorded", not "X Corp may be recording this call"

The former can be interpreted as explicit consent to record the call, after all they provided the consent, but you actually haven't.

> They aren't telling you that they are recording

Right but that's less important than telling the other party that anyone might be recorded. Because, again, spirit of the law, it loosens expectations of privacy.

Given there are only two parties on the call, only one needs their consent solicited anyway.

I’ve worked for those call centres and they don’t tell employees to hang up if it’s being recorded by the customer, because the company is already recording everything and trains their staff to operate as such.

“Cool you are recording too, IT will be happy we have an offsite backup” That’s been recorded!

For anyone who might not be aware, this is true for most companies. Any changes to your plan will usually require the removal of any grandfathered features, regardless of what the tier 1 CSR tells you.

> Internet? Wait until the moment your "promo" cost ends and your bill goes from $80 to $150, threaten to quit, oh wow magically you can have $80 again and a free mobile phone line.

Careful though. Companies are catching on to the "threaten to cancel" trick. Last time I tried this with Comcast, the support rep put me on hold, and then instead of sending me over to the "retention" specialist, just canceled my service and asked if I needed anything else. Oops..

There's no need to be worried about it. Don't just threaten, actually switch when a competitor is having a promo and stop worrying about it. I switched internet service between a few providers almost every year for quite a while. It saved a lot of money.

up until 2022 i had 2 options, dialup, or 5mbit DSL. I don't consider hughesnet workable for anything other than email (seriously, 1500ms latency on a good day?)

As siblings comment, this only works if you're not a captive audience.

What kind of Willy Wonka city do you live in that has any sort of reasonable ISP competition? "Just switch" is such a lazy argument, at this point, I don't even take it seriously.

Hasn't ever been an issue. I live in Canada, though, so our competition sucks and all our providers are in collusion with the regulator (CRTC) to fuck over canadians.

That's quite regional. I have my choice of over 20 ISP's offering virtually identical services. That's why pricing is so competitive in NZ.

In the vast majority of America, there is no serious high-speed internet competition.

The they never had the option to threaten to quit and don't apply to this discussion anyways.

All this back-and-forth about promos and cancellations is just the latest form of haggling; there's nothing new under the sun.

> "always on sale"

Lenovo is great at this. Their absurd $3,000+ laptops are conveniently priced near market value after their perpetual 50% off LENOVOJUNE, LENOVOJULY, etc. coupons are applied. You don't even have to do work to use them, they're usually automatically applied at check out.

Talk about cheapening your brand and pandering to people who only buy things "on sale" out of principal. It almost feels insulting to the customer.

This is one thing Apple does right - there are no sales or discounts, it costs what it costs regardless of which US holiday is approaching.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadp/th...

Apple devices go on sale on other platforms (I only look at Amazon, but it must be the same for any other retailer), that's how they differentiate.

As device registration and customer support still goes through Apple, it makes absolutely no difference wherever you buy it, and anyone looking for a lower price will wait for Prime day or any other bigger sales in the year.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/17/24104233/the-m1-macbook-a...

Exactly. When I bought a pair of USB-C AirPods Pro recently they were 70 dollars cheaper from Best Buy vs Apple's website and I was able to add AppleCare with no issue.

They appear to currently be 60 dollars cheaper and have been in a sort of perma sale of varying degrees for the last 6 months (not unlike the Lenovo example).

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sku/6447382.p?skuId=6447382

It’s a marketing tactic way broader than the “new economy”

You know coupons in the newspaper? They serve exactly the same purpose. Some people take time and effort to cut them out every week. Others don’t and pay full price.

It’s a way to make customers who are willing to pay more pay more

Edit: referring to the “always on sale”, not to the cancellation promotions

Only if you can cancel your sub. They are taking money from my account even after 6 years, each month, and I can't cancel it. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40619329#40619770)

Have you disputed the charge? If the bank is refusing to honor your request, that’s both reason to switch banks and to try small claims court to get your money back.

If you're letting the situation go on for 6 years, the problem is you. Call your bank or threaten to sue them, stop being a doormat.

easy to call people names on the internet is it not? what if i did all that?

It might be worth contacting the FTC. It sounds like you are exactly the type of consumer they are suing on behalf of.

I can only go by the information you provide, and my own experience that banks are responsive if you want to switch out your credit or debit card because it's being abused by someone.

Have you filed a complaint with the FTC and your state's attorney general?

https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/

https://www.naag.org/find-my-ag/

That's why you always sign up for one of these things with something like Revolut, which will give you a new credit card number for each subscription.

I have seen some of the sites not work with these "throwaway" cards - when I supplied my regular card, it worked.

There are two different kinds of Revolut throwaway cards: One that works just one time, and one that works indefinitely, and you need to cancel it manually. The one that you cancel manually works more often, for example in scenarios where they will first make a "test" deduction of $0.00, and then the real deduction.

I had no Revolut back then

For Photoshop specifically (and perhaps other CC programs, but I'm less familiar with them) another problem compared to alternatives is that a great wealth of instructional material (tutorials, paid video courses, etc) are built around Photoshop.

While there are ways to make alternatives more Photoshop-like, there's always going to be unreconcilable differences which bring unwelcome friction when the goal is to learn whatever the material is teaching rather than screw around with keybinds and UI configuration.

More projects that aim to adjust existing FOSS alternatives to more closely clone Photoshop would be of great help here. There used to be GIMPShop[0] that did this for GIMP but it's unfortunately been defunct for a long time now.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMPshop

> you ever want cheaper Adobe subscriptions is to cancel your sub and they’ll send you repeat offers at lower prices up to 60% off

That used to be true at NYTimes and WaPo. But new WaPo management does the reverse:

    - offer to keep at same price? No?
    - offer to re-up at 50% more? No?
    - offer to re-up at 100% more? No?

With the election coming up, they're determined to raise prices, and they know all they need to about you.

> Pro-tip if you ever want cheaper Adobe subscriptions is to cancel your sub and they’ll send you repeat offers at lower prices up to 60% off.

The issue though is this often only works for many subscribers for a small window each year, when the *annual* "renewal" occurs.

The problem with much of the Creative Suite subs, and what the FTC are also suing over, is that it looks and smells like a monthly sub you can cancel at any time, but you often can't - its “annual paid monthly” as the linked article describes.

The big problem is their ridiculous “annual paid monthly” plan - you often can't cancel, or it takes a ridiculous amount of effort to escape “annual paid monthly”. I know plenty of people who needed Creative Suite for one month who fell into the “annual paid monthly” trap assuming it was a typical subscription service.

> "Adobe pushes consumers to its “annual paid monthly” subscription plan, pre-selecting it as a default. Adobe prominently shows the plan’s “monthly” cost during enrollment, but it buries the early termination fee (ETF) and its amount, which is 50 percent of the remaining monthly payments when a consumer cancels in their first year."

If you are stuck in this situation open a chat with support and ask to cancel with the reason "My new employer is paying for my Adobe subscription" to get the cancellation fee waived.

I can't guarantee it still works but it worked for me and at least 3 others I know of

Adobe deserves to get slapped down for this practice and I hope they are forced to change it, but something to try in the meantime

> Pro-tip if you ever want cheaper Adobe subscriptions is to cancel your sub and they’ll send you repeat offers at lower prices up to 60% off

I have found the same to be true with SiriusXM radio as well. You can ask the chat bot to cancel your account when a promo runs out and it will take you back down from $19/mo to like $6/mo. I setup a calendar item so I know when the promo is going to expire and do this. It's a PITA but it only takes 5 minutes.

Their discounted rate is $5/month.

I once called them to stop sending me mailers, and they said they'll stop for two years, I said no, stop forever.

I took my vehicle to a place that sold my information to SiriusXM and they resumed the mailers.

But this time... I just created an account on their website and changed my address to their headquarters and phone number to their phone number. They can spam themselves for all I care!

(I've done this with other businesses that don't respect their potential customers with great success! Often the people I speak with don't seem to recognize it when I give them their company's address or the 800-number that I'm called them at.)

I've only ever used Krita, really. What features am I missing from photoshop? What is that gulf that I do not see?

Krita is geared towards illustrative work versus photo vs editing/product design. While it can do both, it misses or is behind in several areas

1. Photoshop has a much better template and smart referencing system

2. Photoshop has better photo retouching tools in the form of healing or switching working spaces to tune filters.

3. Photoshop has better image manipulation tools like warping and perspective correction

I do really like Krita, and I’ve replaced Photoshop use for illustrative use cases for several studios and individuals with it. So it really depends what you do, but Photoshop just has a lot of little and big things that add up which prevents me switching myself.

Ah... so nothing deficient for artists. Just photographers?

Yes. Photoshop, which is photo and image editing software for photographers, has more features for photographers than Krita, a painting program for artists.

That’s a pretty curt dismissal given that tons of artists paint in photoshop and have for decades.

Photoshop is a great painting app that rivals krita for painting. That it does other things well or originated for just photo editing doesn’t take away from that.

I think you misread the parent. He didn't say Photoshop is bad for painting. He said Krita is bad for photo edition.

I don't believe he misread. I believe he felt like the reply to the other users post was needlessly curt or snarky, which I'd agree with.

This and the unified user interface - most Adobe products have the same look and feel, and it happens to be a good one.

I get the impression from my friends in the animation industry that Toon Boom’s animation suite pretty much dominates the industry. Flash hung on a while but TB has so many features designed for the particular craft of assembling a small army of people who collaborate on making a moving and talking drawing.

I keep on thinking of ditching ~25y of specializing in Illustrator for TB lately but I really just do not feel like paying $1k/y for a subscription to it. They have cheaper subscriptions but one of the ways they differentiate them is by limiting the effects, and “constantly pushing the limits of Illustrator’s effect system” is one of the reasons I want to move on from it.

Toon Boom’s domination really is very regional. But that’s one reason I list flash as having competitors.

In Canada, you’ll find a lot of the larger shops use toon boom and the smaller shops use Flash/Animate.

When you move out to Asia, the balance changes quite a bit the other way but you also see a lot more players in the form of OpenToonz etc entering. Especially on the anime front.

god it's like there's actual multiple viable options, is that even legal any more. My animation friends are all in the LA scene; they all started out in Flash cartoons in the 00s and some of 'em kept on using it for a pretty long time but it seems to have pretty much vanished.

I really gotta make some time to grind on tutorials for Toon Boom or this copy of Moho 14 I have on my computer and see if I actually want to animate again once I get over the hump of "how does this giant toolkit even work".

Davinci Resolve is miles better than Premiere. I don't do a lot of compositing, but I know more and more people are starting to use it over After Effects as well.

Resolve is better than Premiere on its own (hence why I list premiere as having competition) but the Fusion compositing is not a comparison for After Effects, but rather for something like Nuke.

While After Effects does some compositing (and it’s decent at it but poor in comparison to Nuke/Fusion), its’ stronghold is motion graphics. There’s very little other than Cavalry to compete with it.

And with that comes the benefit of Premiere: live updates to my edit when using After Effects.

I don't think there's such a huge gulf between Krita and Photoshop for digital artists. I do work with it professionally all the time, mostly dealing with texture work for CG.

Digital artists is a pretty wide term.

But if we’re limiting it to stuff like illustrations and texturing, it’s very capable. I’ve introduced it in several areas specifically for that.

however for other things like photo retouching and product design, Photoshop has a pretty wide moat at the moment

Is that a pro-tip? I mean, I wouldn't give them a penny more for having this attitude towards customers in first place. The real pro-tip at least for me would be to pay once for a product that I can use without being enslaved to a for-life subscription. It really really pisses me off how most commercial software is offered today. F** all that.

The really pro-tip would be “try paying for an imaginary alternative I just made up!”?

After Effects competition is the furthest away I feel. Everything else I could get by but nothing has the same toolset as AE

> Photoshop is perhaps the easiest to replace

I wish

This used to work for me. Then this year I tried it again, and they only offered me 2 options:

1. Get 50% off for 3 months

2. Get access to only Photoshop for the same price

You can also sometimes get it very cheap via random country specific deals. They had one last year for Latvian students. Excecpt it had zero checks in place to ensure you actually were a student. I think I paid something like $4 for a year of Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Premier, Adobe Stock, etc.

Of course it goes without saying, if you do this use a burner card. They dont ask for/check for a valid address or anything like that so when it comes to the stupidly complex to cancel renewal process you just walk away and let their threats go to an empty inbox.

I've got zero issue with anyone pirating their software at this point, Adobe deserves it for the crap they've pulled over the last few years.

Want Amazon Prime and can wait? The free trial will come around again. Or the reduced one.

You are spot on about Adobe's products not having adequate alternatives. I see a lot of new artists online saying to use Affinity or Gimp, but they do not compare. Even Blender lovers, myself included, who have embraced the open source alternative would be shocked to see what features they are missing compared to the top tier tools like Maya.

I'm curious why certain categories of software receive little to no competition, while others see a lot. I feel that Silicon Valley's focus on social media oriented smartphone apps has drained a lot of the talent and capital that could have been working on alternatives to Microsoft Office, Adobe's suite, Maya's 3D, etc.

Procreate is an excellent example of a young team coming in and dominating the tablet art tool market. For a measly $12 you own procreate forever, and it is easily the most functional art tool on the iPad. I don't know why we haven't seen similar attempts at Adobe's dominance anywhere else.

It's almost like if you have tens of millions of dollars to invest in your product yearly, you can afford to maintain and build more features.