I find the business model of hoping people forget to cancel your service disgusting. I wouldn’t trust software from anyone happy to make money in that way.

They are hoping you will forget and feel bad about it and blame yourself for the wasted funds. But, really this practice should hardly be legal. It’s borderline.

@futurebird Kinda feels like every platform is getting overrun by charlatans and grifters. Everyone is trying to become a digital landlord. Other day I tried to use an app that turns links into QR codes; It didn't do that. It actually made a QR code that linked to their platform which redirects to your link, and they'd break the link after 30 days if you didn't pay.

Charlatans and grifters, I tell you.

@futurebird I bought an introductory offer for a month of car washes for the price of one car wash

I had a very clean car for a month.

Then I checked my Visa account a few months later ... yeah, every month I was paying. My fault.

But there was never an email confirming that I had bought a recurring monthly plan. Lots of offers to bring in family members and friends.

Sneaky and underhanded (and my own stupidity).

Let's see if they actually cancel it.

@futurebird I find it amazing that iOS has this capability built-in but it’s only supported through the “Shortcuts” app.

Edit: link
https://mashtips.com/video-to-gif-iphone/

@rhempel

I hope they do, but really just because tech and credit card companies have made it easier to make "subscriptions" to things that no person should have to subscribe to doesn't mean that it's good practice to have the ability to offer such contracts be so easy.

At this point I'd be happy to see a ball of red tape thrown at the entire "industry" -- along with the "pay in installments" people.

They aren't contributing to value or commerce just fishing for cash.

@rhempel

Don't we all have an aunt or uncle who we have had to go over their bills with clearing out all these parasites?

@bk1e

These instructions are for an older iOS, or and I've been finding this more often, just a generated guess as to what such instruction might look like.

This like most useful things has been removed.

@futurebird The instructions are outdated (2020) but the functionality still works with the latest iOS. I used it last month.

@bk1e

I think they are trying to phase out the shortcut app? When you click on it it just takes you to the applications list, unless you re-download it from the cloud. IDK what happens if you never had it.

@bk1e

OK I found it and I'm so mad this whole automation things is hidden. It's like "if this then that" back when it was good.

What the heck why is it buried.

@futurebird @bk1e Shortcuts is kinda an odd duck. On one hand it’s simple and a somewhat determined user can do useful things with it. I just made one for myself this past week.
And
It is rather opaque, it’s not very clear about what to do to get the results you want. So most users open it, poke around then close it again because they’re not sure what to do. Which is exactly what I did till finally getting somewhere last week.
Without a clear outcome to aim for the app isn’t super good at “discovery” which tends to push it out of the limelight.