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by hugh-avherald9 hours ago |
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upvoteby easton8 hours ago|
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> and automatically kicking a user off would also probably be bad.

Would it? The only way to access Claude is via a CLI or a GUI.

> $ claude --resume

> No subscription active (expired on 6/1/2026). Reactivate at claude.ai/settings.

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upvoteby Ntrails8 hours ago|
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> automatically kicking a user off would also probably be bad.

No. "Sorry, subscription has expired, please re-up your account" is an extremely reasonable UX.

The whole "free period but we'll auto bill you after" is a shitty dark pattern that mostly exists to extract value from life admin errors. The people who got enough value to justify the cost would've paid anyway.

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upvoteby piokoch6 hours ago|
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Exactly, this is one step from selling older people overpriced pots and rugs.
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upvoteby flaviolivolsi8 hours ago|
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Or you can just add a reminder before the free period expires
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upvoteby yunwal2 hours ago|
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Or they could just not autocharge people, or allow people to decide whether to autorenew or not when they sign up. The fact that they don't do that shows that they're trying to pull one over on people.
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upvoteby recursive5 hours ago|
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You can do that, but that's a dark pattern.
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upvoteby kazinator8 hours ago|
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A $200 bill from some cloud entity that doesn't have my credit card info would cause nothing but enormous laughter.

What is ugly here is the combination of the free trial (not ugly in an of itself), and they way they are trying to recruit qualified users for it from open source.

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upvoteby well_ackshually6 hours ago|
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[flagged]
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upvoteby bonzini6 hours ago|
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To be honest, it's quite likely that someone who applies is already paying $20/month and would save them for 6 months, so the extra shock is only $60. And it's quite easy to set up a calendar event to remember to unsubscribe.

I have had subscriptions renewed unwillingly and it was always clear to me that, as much as I disliked this practice, the expense was always my fault.

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