Adobe Pays the Price for Treating Customers Like Cattle
Every tech company aspires to make one of their products so ubiquitous, its name gets verbed. Adobe achieved that feat decades ago with Photoshop. It not only became a household name, but the industry standard for professional creatives.
But since one word not in big tech’s vocabulary is “enough”, Adobe kept pushing to further leverage their indispensability.
A viral post on X by author John A. Douglas offers us a striking example. John downloaded an Adobe free trial, canceled before it expired, but still got billed for a subscription. When he tried to cancel again, Adobe slapped him with an early termination fee for $99.95.
Ordinarily, one billing dispute from a fleeced customer wouldn’t tell us much about a corporation. To err is human, no one at a megacorp is as dumb as everyone at a megacorp, and social media has a way of magnifying edge cases.
But what makes John’s case an exception, to the tune of 1.6 million views and counting, is Adobe’s recent settlement of a federal lawsuit over similar dodgy subscription practices.
The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission accused Adobe of hiding early termination fees. Regulators alleged that the company actively put hurdles in customers’ way when they tried to cancel.
Adobe denied wrongdoing but agreed to pay a $75 million penalty and give away $75 million worth of free services. Despite this slap on the wrist, Adobe’s annual plans still have early termination fees approximating 50 percent of leftover subscription balances.
To understand how we got to the point where big software firms can mug their customers and effectively bribe the feds to avoid admitting fault, it’s helpful to remember how people once bought software.
Read the full post on Substack.
SOULDANCER RETURNS, THE CYCLE CONTINUES
Ten years after winning the first-ever Dragon Award for Best Horror Novel, Souldancer returns with the definitive anniversary edition and an all-new companion novella, The Other Side of Fear.
The Kickstarter launches September 1, featuring early bird rewards and a crowdfunder-exclusive hardcover of the new novella.
Follow the Kickstarter now to be notified the moment limited rewards go live!