Misleading pricing:

Using the billing period as the header and showing the price for the billing period… except for monthly—which shows 1/4 the price and says “every week” in smaller, gray text.

Punishing non-subscription payments:

Adding a $6.50 (1400%) surcharge for wanting a weekly one-time payment instead of a recurring subscription.

Charging more for longer periods:

Monthly billing, once you remove the dark pattern and convert it to its actual price, is $2. There are 12 months in a year, meaning it would cost $24 to maintain that subscription for a year.

Why is the yearly subscription $29, then?

If you want to verify this for yourself, you’re going to need to clear your cookies and reload an article a lot. They do A/B tests and show different subscription requied modals. This one was the worst.

  • Godort@lemmy.caEnglish
    103·
    3 days ago

    Worked out to yearly prices from the weekly cost, they are:

    7*52 = $362

    0.5*52 = $26

    Or $29

  • Etterra@discuss.onlineEnglish
    8·
    2 days ago

    Oh he didn’t invent the thing and he’s certainly not unique using it. This is like being mad at just one specific bird for pooping on your car.

  • cobysev@lemmy.worldEnglish
    175·
    3 days ago

    I still don’t understand why anyone would ever pay for access to news articles. There are plenty of free and legitimate articles on the Internet, and public access TV still broadcasts news. You never need to pay anyone.

    Honestly, putting a price on access to news just makes me not trust that organization. It feels like a scam, like paying for bottled water when water is one of the most abundant resources in the world.

    Paid subscriptions are only a thing because people bought into it and normalized it instead of boycotting it. That’s why everything is a subscription nowadays and no one can just buy and own a product now. We have to spend our lives paying a regular fee for access to something we never own.

    • Libb@piefed.socialEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      Google offers things for free, see the shitty stuff they’re doing?

      Personally, I’d rather keep on paying for my newspapers and have them not do, or not as much, shitty things. And that’s exactly what I do (plus I like to receive my news in print knowing no one is tracking what I’m reading and how) ;)