Comment on A VPN Company Canceled All Lifetime Subscriptions, Claiming It Didn’t Know About Them

tabular@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

• CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I remember when AT&T had “unlimited” data when the original iPhone came out and severely underestimated how much data people used.

  Today, every cell phone provider has an “unlimited” plan and in the fine print says “up to x GB, after which you will be throttled.”

  That shit should be illegal.

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  • veroxii@aussie.zone ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’ve seen “fair use policy applies”

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• ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  That shouldn’t matter

  If we had the most basic of regulatory practices over businesses in this country, especially the tech industry, this practice simply wouldn’t be allowed. Even the bullshit doublespeak “life of the product” version

  Lifetime means lifetime. If you can’t honor that don’t offer it. If you go back on it you should be harshly penalized.

  Looking at you t mobile, rolling stone magazine, filmora, Dropbox, salesforce, mcafee, etc

  This should also include if you remove features from lifetime subscriptions and make them contingent on paid monthly subscriptions (looking at you adobe, Evernote, and probably plex in 3-5 years)

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  • rottingleaf@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’ve read that laws of most countries have become orders of magnitude more complex since the time when ESG wrote his Perry Mason books.

    One could also think that all of the laws functioning in a country at one moment being possible to grasp for one person in a week are a requirement for Heinlein and Asimov’s visions of good future too.

    Often touching upon the fundamental aspects like this one - a company sells not what it advertises, but it has somewhere in agreement a line that says otherwise.

    While we have enormous amount and volume of active laws that don’t change any fundamental aspects, but function as a minefield for an honest person trying to navigate reality.

    A combinatorial explosion if you will.

    When the legal apparatus as a whole stops functioning as law and becomes yet another power in the society. In some sense having law is a disturbance, and laws becoming so complex that they are not laws again, but something like medieval privileges, with complex interpretations depending on each side’s power, and sometimes inevitable contradictions, just means that the system of society has responded to that disturbance.

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    • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      In this instance at least the regulatory process is simple though

      Say what you mean, mean what you say.

      We can maybe have some nuance over lifetime being the lifetime of the consumer buying it vs the lifetime of the company although that has to be carefully worded to prevent situations like this. But it’s probably somewhat fair that if your company completely fails the product is done. This should be clear that the company has to completely fail, not a “apple sells lifetime subscription and decides the product isn’t viable so they kill it” situation or “subsidiary company of google fails and google could easily partially refund the lifetime subscription fees as the parent company” situation

      But I would argue it’s not as much about legal complexity here but about regulatory capture. There are really two forces on this issue: businesses looking to keep a lack of regulation and continue utilization of vague misleading language, and consumers that would benefit from regulation against said language.

      The businesses are aligned, obviously have vast resources, can influence propaganda on the matter, and can lobby lawmakers directly.

      The consumers are fragmented because of the propaganda and a lack of education on the issue, they don’t have strong representation among lawmakers, they don’t have resources, etc. they are scattered unless someone decides this specific issue is annoying enough to get up in arms about and make some kind of action network over, gathering people and support. While it is a serious problem there are just so many serious problems facing consumers and Americans right now, so why focus on this?

      And thus, our regulatory bodies yet again fail us

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  • taladar@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Lifetime means lifetime

    No, actually that is part of the problem, they shouldn’t even be allowed to advertise ‘Lifetime’ without explicitly stating whose lifetime.

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• theterrasque@infosec.pub ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I’ve seen some saying that “lifetime” refers to product lifetime, which is not expected to be more than X years. So yeah, slimes gonna slime

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• futatorius@lemm.ee ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  In the fine print, “lifetime” is defined as the lifetime of a particular mayfly that has not been all that well-treated.

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• vxx@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I guess Nebula should be meantioned then?

  go.nebula.tv/lifetime?ref=nebulablog

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• Nollij@sopuli.xyz ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  They often tie it to current offerings. So your plan may have unlimited 4G data for life, but won’t include anything faster/newer. So once you want/need 5G, you have to switch to a different plan.

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  • turtlesareneat@discuss.online ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    And even then it’s dependent on the availability of the 4G network or whatever. They’re currently sunsetting 2G and 3G networks, that means a lot of old school devices have to be upgraded or cut off, upgrades come with new contracts.

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