this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
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Yup. Don't know why they ask for that if not for shady stuff.
It's because auto-renewal is always turned on by default and they're hoping people forget they signed up.
So, shady stuff.
Oh 100%. One of the many ways corporations try to pull money out of your wallet when you're not looking.
In these sorts of situations, I've sometimes made use of a temporary card using services like privacy.com. Lets you sign up for free trials that require cards without giving them any real card details. That way, if you happen to forget to remove the subscription (or if they are so draconian they make it nearly impossible to do so) the transaction fails to process when they try to charge you.
Sometimes even banks provide temporary/virtual card services for their members, too.
^ My point exactly.
Having worked at a bunch of SaaS products, it's actually not that shady (at least in those cases i've seen). Free users are low value but they can cost a ton in support and commercial effort. Asking for a credit card upfront is just a simple way to filter for people who actually intend to maybe buy the product.
OP's reaction is not a bug, it's the feature.
Sorry, no. The only reason you could possibly want my credit card information is so that you can start collecting rent if I forget to cancel, which is the goal. That is an extremely shady way to collect ~~customers~~ marks.
It's a con. The goal is to collect rent from people who don't actually use the service. It's basically theft.
lmao what a nuanced point of view, you seem to have vast personal experience of this kind of things
OK. For what other reason could you need my credit card information?
Again, it's a filter. You give me card details, that means you seriously want the product and also that you trust me. If i treat you right and give you a great experience you'll be subscribed for years, purchasing add-ons, and recommending me to your friends. That's much more valuable for me than skimming 20 bucks a month because you forgot to unsub.
When it's a big corpo sure they'll do it cause they don't give a shit about their customers or even their reputation. I'm honestly not saying it doesn't happen. But when it's a no-name with a small online product they can't afford that shit. If they put a credit card wall it's most likely because they were getting too many people on the free trial, and were having a hard time telling actual future customers from drive-bys. This solves that.
I don't know if I'm "serious" yet - I am here to test the product/service. I can't determine if I am serious or not until after I have tested it, and neither can you. I should not have to share financial information with you until after I have determined that, so this justification about "seriously" wanting the product is bunk.
You are dipping your hand into my wallet. Just because you haven't pulled your hand back with money in it yet doesn't mean this isn't an attempt at picking my pocket.
Hey man I'm not saying you're wrong, but you're touching on another important thing which is trust. On average, high trust people are just easier to manage, especially when you're a small outfit. It's better for everyone if low trust users bounce away because of the cc wall. They'll come back once the product has some brand recognition or social proof.
You're right of course, the root issue is trust.
If you are a new product/service vendor for me, then there is no trust yet - there hasn't been time for a trust relationship to develop. We don't have a relationship yet, and certainly not enough of one for me to trust you with any of my financial information. By asking for that up front, you are demonstrating that you are not trustworthy. You are identifying yourself as the type of business that tries to collect excessive amounts of information about its clients for no justifiable reason. And even if your intentions are completely above-board in collecting that information, I also have no idea how the information you collect is secured, and since I haven't evaluated the product yet I can't determine whether the risk of sharing financial information with you is worthwhile. My risk-reward analysis is blank on the reward side, which means that I need you to lower my entry risk.
When you make this distinction of "high trust" and "low trust" people, you are actually misusing the term "trust". Trust cannot exist without experience - it is something that develops over time through interaction. I cannot trust you if I have only just met you, it is impossible. I can be naive, and agree to what you ask for without suspicion, but naivety is not the same thing as trust. What you are calling "high trust" people would be more accurately termed "rubes" or "saps".
What you are saying here is that it's convenient for you if people just give you what you ask for without asking too many questions or raising any objections, and you prefer customers who are generally lacking in awareness especially with regard to their own security. Of course that's convenient for you, you don't have to spend any time considering whether there's something wrong with your approach to this.
If you are disrespecting my financial security up front, and you are doing that for the sake of your own convenience, that is a very bad place to start a relationship. You are damaging the potential for trust before we've even got started, because it's "easier" for you.
Jesus Christ man 😂 you're looking for a moral angle but there is no moral angle here. A business has the right to design their transactions however they want, even if that design explicitly excludes people like you.
Some people are easy-going, they are more prone to trust, they want to test a product they don't write an essay about it about it they just put their CC info in, try the thing, and cancel the sub if it's not for them. If they forget to cancel i refund their money cause i need a happy customer more than i need 20 bucks. You don't need to call them rubes just because they're invited to the party and you're not.
Hmm, perhaps I'm not explaining this very well. Morality has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. What I'm trying to describe is how I do risk assessment as a potential new customer, and how that affects creating client relationships for a business.
What I am saying is that you should be considering the risk tolerance of your potential customers. Sharing financial information on the internet is always a high-risk action, especially when you don't have an existing relationship with the person or organization that is collecting that information, where there cannot be trust yet. People who readily take such actions can be accurately described as "rubes" because they don't spend enough time thinking about risk.
I’ve previously been converted off free trials that way. So it can definitely work.
In the tech sector it can also work as free advertising for the company the trial person works at. I'm for example using a tool on the free tier for log aggregation and monitoring which I really like. I've thought of doing a startup sometime within the next year and at that point I already know that tool and will probably look at implementing that as the first option.
Self hosters are a powerful marketing tool.
Yes, it's a classic.
Pre-market fit it makes sense to be 100% free, as you want to gauge whether your product is attractive to people.
Post-market fit you already know the product has traction, so now you want to gauge whether it is attractive enough for people to pay for it.
Maybe they shouldn't offer a free trial then
Or maybe they should keep their free trial and just filter out randos with a credit card wall. It's a simple and cheap way to keep your user base high value. And as attested by the OP's meme, it just works!