I don’t use Adobe products or services (and now would never consider it), nevertheless, this mendacious behavior makes me mad.
An Adobe exec is quoted as describing its hidden pricing strategy as being “a bit like heroin.” The remark was revealed when the government released its unredacted complaint, which accuses the company of deliberately making it hard to cancel a Creative Cloud subscription.
The exec acknowledged customer anger at the way the company made its contractual terms hard to understand, but said that improving this would result in “taking a big business hit” …
I will gladly type in your credit card information, but my system does not have delete mechanisms once information is entered. Thanks for being a life long hostage.
“There is absolutely no way to kill off ETF or talk about it more obviously” in the order flow without “taking a big business hit,” this executive said.
In other words, they’ll make more money if they’re dishonest and lie by omission.
Out of all of my subscriptions, Adobe delivers the most. Your apps are constantly updated, you have access to the best learning and tutorials (for no extra cost… yeah looking at you Final Cut). When someone signs up for an ANNUAL subscription that allows monthly payments and then tries to bail out after they finish their project, they should be glad that they are allowed to just pay a 50% ETF instead of the entire amount they signed a contract for.
Yes Adobe has douchebag execs, so does every corporation. I did not have a problem cancelling Adobe. I knew when to cancel because I have apps like Omnifocus and Fantastical. I canceled Adobe when my year was up and then rejoined when they offered their “Covid Discount”. Since then, every year when my subscription is up, I start the cancellation process. They always match the Covid Discount because they don’t want to lose customers. They play their games, I play mine.
The contractual terms are not hard to understand. It’s right there in the word “Annual”.
I can’t speak for others, and again, I don’t use Adobe products, but in this case, if the information is accurate, the issue is not the subscription per se or the value of Adobe’s apps; it’s the anti-customer approach of making cancelation opaque and complex. Again, I’m assuming the information in the article is accurate; it may not be.
Looking at their pricing page again, the pricing and cancellation process (a) makes sense to me, and (b) reminds me of the financial reasons why I avoid Adobe.
The monthly plan is $90/month, which works out to $1080 per year.
If you commit for a whole year, they’ll give it to you for $720 per year, broken out into 12 monthly payments of $60/each. So you save 33% by signing up for the whole year. But if you try to back out, they want 50% of the remaining balance.
If you pay up front for the whole year, you save a bit more by only paying $660 for the year.
I don’t know how their cancellation process works, but I do know that’s how year-long contracts work. If you want the monthly plan with no cancellation penalties, it’s right there - $90/month. And the options have always been right there on the signup page. Seeing this page brought back memories.
@Bmosbacker, if you are smart enough to use Adobe’s apps, you are plenty smart enough to find and use the cancelation process.
I canceled two years ago but then did not find a better alternative, so I re-subscribed to Adobe’s photo software. Adobe offers real value for the money they charge.
I think there’s a rather large difference between a company deliberately making something complicated and the company not going out of their way to make it easy.
Adobe’s process doesn’t seem obfuscated. The signup flow is pretty clear, and things are all written down. It is a potential surprise, potentially, to people who didn’t read what they were signing up for and who try to cancel a contract early.
As an editorial sort of note, I always wonder what the government thinks is going to come of these investigations. Let’s say they’re not allowed to charge cancellation fees. Fine. What I THINK people think will happen is that Adobe will just eliminate the cancellation fee. And that’s a ridiculous expectation. Much more likely that Adobe would just not offer the discounted monthly option for a year contract.
I’m of the group that didn’t find Adobe’s cancellation processes hidden, surprising or difficult. At least not compared to other companies cancellation processes.
I do wonder about some of these investigations. I’m sure there’s something that Adobe does that’s unsavory or skirting along the edge of the law – it seems that’s the standard for large companies these days.
And I’m 100% behind making corporations responsible for their policies and actions, but the things prosecutors choose to go after don’t seem well thought out. I’m MUCH more concerned with data sharing policies, tracking, and the surprising degree at which companies have massive data leaks than Adobe’s ease of cancellation policies.
I do like to connect dots and see where the lines cross…
Verge story was written by Nilay Patel, who worked at Engadget.
Ryan Block also worked at Engadget.
Ryan Block is married to Veronica Belmont.
Veronica Belmont was a Senior Project Manager at Adobe until October of 2022…
interesting…
unrelated but also interesting is that coincidentally, 10 years ago, Block and Belmont went viral for their torturous phone call of trying to cancel Comcast…
Excellent “connecting of the dots!” I would not have been able to come up with that stunt out of my own memory, but now that you mention it, I do remember how it whipped up the podcasting gang.
I had that experience in trying to cancel my trial of SiriusXM. Never again. When companies pull that stunt, I’ll never again consider their product or service.
It’s even worse once you’ve signed up and then try to cancel. A phone call is required and it takes multiple efforts to convince the Customer Support rep that you really really really really want to cancel.
I love how those customer support people keep giving me my $6/month rate for car and streaming to keep me from cancelling. I always look forward to our yearly chat.
I tried the service and concluded that I would never get my moneys worth out of it. I have Apple Music and listen to podcasts. The only time I found myself wanting to listen SiriusXM was to catch a live MLB baseball game.
