Sometimes, I have to confess that I have just "had enough."
There are actually many things I've had enough of, but I have specifically had enough of things that don't actually work unless you spend a king's ransom to have "premium version" of them.
"Way back when," we had something called "Black Hat SEO" which was basically outright deception to get web site listed high up in search engine results, even if they absolutely did not deserve better than to be buried on page 437 of Google results.
These days, I swear we have various forms of "Black Hat Marketing" going on in the world.
I'm not even talking about "Freemium" business models that suddenly and unexpectedly hide something behind a paywall.
No, I'm talking about nonsense like Mrs. Denmarkguy went through earlier today, when she was trying to cancel a recurring subscription payment. Which — at least on the surface — seemed to work perfectly well, except for the minor omitted detail that the cancellation wasn't actually complete until you "confirm" it via an email the company sends out.
Maybe that's even OK... but here's the "black hat" part: The cancellation email is sent from a completely different domain, so it automatically lands in most people's spam folder. And that is a deliberate tactic to keep people from actually canceling.
"But we sent you an email to confirm the cancellation!"
Fact. Not a lie.
But it's an email designed to go astray. They can legitimately say — and document — that they did, in fact, send the email.
Meanwhile, the customer ends up paying for a couple (or more) months of an unwanted product.
But I digress a bit.
The other problem — that actually gave rise to this post — related to some video editing software that wasn't working. Even though it was basically "freeware" included with a product. Somehow, it "miraculously" started working just fine once a $9.99/month subscription was activated.
Whereas I do understand and appreciate these "freemium" models (and their variations) what I do not appreciate is the deception of trying to make people believe that the free sample is actually "all that, and a bag of chips."
Why not just be honest and upfront about saying "Our free version is a limited feature sampler to give you a workable version of our full-line product for minor applications."
But I guess that would actually require integrity.
I have just had
ENOUGH
of that nonsense.
But evidently, it must work to some degree, or they wouldn't be doing it. Right?
I recognize that perhaps my gray hair is showing because this world of virtually everything we do requiring some "$2.99 a month subscription" is annoying me. I'd rather give you more money ONCE, and then own whatever-it-is FOREVER.
And so, we come full circle to that saying from a few years ago, typically attributed to the World Economic Forum: "You'll own nothing and you'll be happy."
Seems like the first half of that equation is gradually becoming reality! As for the "... and you'll be happy" part, I am growing increasingly skeptical, because the deliverable is proving itself to suck...
Thanks for visiting, and have a great Friday!
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Created at 2023-11-02 23:59 PDT
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