Hacker News: sanswork

New comment by sanswork in "I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA"

sanswork — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:54:36 +0000

Individual contributor(non-managers)

New comment by sanswork in "Book Dedications"

sanswork — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:55:41 +0000

Along similar lines, Tad Williams dedicates each of his Otherland books to his dad but notes his dad doesn't read his books so probably won't know about it. By the 4th book his dad still doesn't know and he mentions something like "I'm thinking of creative ways to let him know like getting all my family in a room and saying 'Everyone that hasn't had a book dedicated to them take three steps forward...oops actually dad...'

New comment by sanswork in "Canada in Technical Recession"

sanswork — Fri, 29 May 2026 23:05:03 +0000

Canada has minimal refining capacity.

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Tue, 19 May 2026 07:22:11 +0000

Nothing you've posted has shown that last claim. Everything I've found has shown it to be a misunderstanding.

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Tue, 19 May 2026 04:26:42 +0000

I'm describing the state from the screen shots on the site you included.

>https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1660907518430699523

This screen shot is too heavily cropped for me to know exactly what the page explained. I'm going to go ahead and assume this was intentional on the part of the x poster. I've been using Adobe subscriptions on an off for several years so before this point and somehow manage to continue to be able to cancel.

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Tue, 19 May 2026 04:23:31 +0000

Then cancel your subscription before its over? I'm not seeing what the problem is here.

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Tue, 19 May 2026 03:50:21 +0000

Your deceptive design link is literally outlining the plan discussed in the rest of this thread.

The first one in your deceptive design was:

Adobe: Unclear yearly subscription terms and cancellation fees "Apparently monthly subscriptions, but you are signed up for a year. Cancelling early results in a 50% of remaining months subscriptions being applied as a cancellation charge."

Then you click through to look at it and the button the user selects says

Annual, Paid Monthly Fee applies if you cancel after 14 days

With an information popup.

Scrolling through the rest all of it is them just selecting this option without reading the details then being upset when the Annual plan is an annual plan.

I have no clue why they decided to settle that lawsuit since they still have the same plan. I'm not a lawyer.

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Tue, 19 May 2026 03:43:12 +0000

The subscription pricing makes it more accessible to consumers where as previously the only people that paid for licenses were companies(and probably only large companies given it was basically always the most popular warez). So they charge less per release but they dramatically increase the possible consumer base and release lumpy revenue based around semi-regular annual releases with constant cash flow. So on a per user basis it is without a doubt cheaper but overall they can still make a lot more money.

>I believe still however, if you pay for a year, cancel, you still get access cut off. Which is absurd.

I've not seen anyone claiming this actually happened but maybe I just missed them? Everyone I've seen has said the opposite.

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Tue, 19 May 2026 02:33:15 +0000

"We will give you access to annual pricing discounts but not require you to pay the full year up front"

It's not complex or dramatic.

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Tue, 19 May 2026 01:13:25 +0000

Why do you feel the need to make up ridiculous numbers?

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Tue, 19 May 2026 01:12:44 +0000

The notification is telling you of the new price. If you don't do anything at that point then it is the price you agreed on.

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Tue, 19 May 2026 01:11:03 +0000

Yes, and if you get an annual plan from adobe and pay up front there is no fee for cancelling. The fee is if you get an annual plan with a monthly payment and cancel early.

I remember when it was like $600 for photoshop for a single version(like 25 years ago so what would that be today?). The subscription pricing is a steal.

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Mon, 18 May 2026 23:42:22 +0000

This isn't true though. Again like with the annual plan people are confusing things. I just looked it up and checked a few reddit posts to confirm and heres what's happening.

If you cancel in the first 14 days they terminate immediately and refund you. After the 14 days the subscription is cancelled and you keep access until the point you paid for. If you signed up for an annual contract you have a cancel fee of 50% of the remaining agreed amount.

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Mon, 18 May 2026 22:00:15 +0000

Why? It's a subscription auto-renew is the default. As for auto-commit why would they change your subscription choices on you without you choosing it?

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Mon, 18 May 2026 21:36:02 +0000

They let you sign up for an annual discount but still pay monthly. The cancelation fee is if you try to end the annual commitment early. If you just sign up monthly(seriously always do this when you see these offers) there is no cancellation fee.

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Mon, 18 May 2026 21:35:01 +0000

Appreciate the suggestion but I'm terrible at editing so I just stick with PS because the cost for a month or two when I need it isn't much and it's really easy to find videos walking through exactly what I need to do. Even a single hour spent trying to translate a tutorial would more than wipe out the savings.

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Mon, 18 May 2026 21:33:25 +0000

Ok so you were on an annual plan to save money and when you cancelled you had to pay an exit fee to account for the annual discount. Seems reasonable to me.

They gave you a months notice of the price increase and you didn't cancel until after it went into effect?

New comment by sanswork in "Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions"

sanswork — Mon, 18 May 2026 21:01:45 +0000

Adobe isn't hard to cancel if you sign up for monthly subscriptions. I do it fairly regularly because I need PS in short bursts.

A lot of people sign up for discounted annual commitments though then complain when they can't cancel before the year is up.

New comment by sanswork in "eBay Rejects GameStop's $56B Takeover as Not Credible"

sanswork — Tue, 12 May 2026 21:41:01 +0000

Yup, you save a few dollars per verification on shipping in exchange for spending tens of thousands on training each employee to verify items. Mind you these are retail employees so turnover is going to be high. Also since they need to be able to verify everything they won't have time to be in store since they'll constantly need to be studying new products. That or you just have them work off checklists for each product in which case the value of the verification isn't great since counterfeiters will just buy those check lists and manufacture to them.

The end result is much much higher cost per verification, and a less trusted quality of verification. But you save a few bucks on shipping.

New comment by sanswork in "GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay"

sanswork — Mon, 04 May 2026 22:45:47 +0000

Tightening your belt is a good thing. No disagreement there but it has a hard limit. You can't just keep tightening the belt and growing profit, at some point you have to start revenue expansion again and from what I've seen Gamestop has no way to do that.

At $2.50 they had massive amounts of debt they couldn't service and a very real chance of going out of business. Then through pure luck they became a meme and were able to extract $10b from investors so of course they are worth more today. There is no growth story though so as meme investors get bored and move on it will move back down to it's asset value unless they find a way to grow again.