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by skybrian9 hours ago |
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upvoteby dec0dedab0de8 hours ago|
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That never works for me. I try to only sign up for things that I can cancel immediately and continue to use for the rest of whatever time period I signed up for.

Instead of potentially getting billed for some trial I forgot about, I would rather pay for a month, immediately cancel, and then repeat every month when I realize it's not working.

Besides helping me keep my expenses under control, it doubles as an evaluation of the company. If they make it difficult to cancel, or do not let me use the rest of my paid time, I know they are not a company I want to do business with.

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upvoteby skybrian8 hours ago|
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That seems like a decent strategy too.
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upvoteby 4 hours ago|
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deleted
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upvoteby 182751429 hours ago|
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  OSS maintainer: I'd like to cancel my subscription!

  Claude: Thank you for prolonging your subscription for another year. I'll take the required steps.

  OSS maintainer: No, I said CANCEL!

  Claude: You are absolutely right! Thank you for your two year subscription.
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upvoteby japhyr9 hours ago|
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You're absolutely right that some individuals will be able to sign up for this program, and remember to cancel at the end of the six months. However, when companies choose to implement a policy like this they're acting on well-established statistics. They know that a meaningful percentage of people will forget to cancel, and the company will end up with increased revenue. There might be a bit of good will here, but in the end a program like this with these clearly-spelled-out terms is not much more than marketing.

This feels especially ugly to me because maintainers of large open source projects will feel pressure to keep using tools that let them work in an AI-assisted world. This really feels like it will make life harder for open source maintainers in the end, rather than easier. That's the opposite of what a meaningful open source campaign should look like.

At the very least, it puts maintainers right back in the position of having to beg giant companies for handouts.

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upvoteby skybrian8 hours ago|
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It seems like the average payoff is not so relevant if you have good reason to believe you can do better than average. Also, I'm not so sure Anthropic would profit from this particular offer in the average case.

I recently downgraded from Opus to Sonnet because it's 40% cheaper and it needs a bit more guidance but seems doable. There will likely be better deals.

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upvoteby ashtonshears9 hours ago|
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Dont accept this subscription dark pattern
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upvoteby skybrian9 hours ago|
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I got a cheap Washington Post subscription for years by threatening to cancel every year.

It may or may not be worth playing their game depending on whether you use the product or not, but there are opportunities for people who do play.

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upvoteby NewJazz9 hours ago|
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Someone in my hoa association recently failed to pay their dues. Why? Because they were in the hospital for several weeks.
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upvoteby lkbm7 hours ago|
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What % of the time do you think that failure mode comes up?
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upvoteby NewJazz6 hours ago|
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Non-zero.
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upvoteby wat100009 hours ago|
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It should be a reason to criticize them, though. They're tricking people in order to make more money. They know it, you know it, we all know it. They could easily not do this, or if they want to make the argument that it's helpful not to have your subscription suddenly lapse at the end of the period, they could make it an option to have your subscription auto-renew as paid.
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