Making it hard to cancel subscription makes me not want to resubscribe

The subscription model is sadly something more and more companies move to.

They all have this in common:

• Easy to start the subscription
• Time consuming and complicated to stop subscribing
• Auto renewal
• Cancellation fees
• Angry customers
• Contracts that must be obeyed to the letter by the customers. The companies on the other hand can and will change the terms any time without any punishment. Adobe just removed a vital function for Premiere Pro without a comment. If i stop pay, the software stops working.
• Customers that after all those issues stops the subscription and never comes back as subscribers since they are angry and feel that they have been badly treated.
• For some reason the software deteriorates over time since the money flows in and they has us as subscribers and don´t need to put any effort into bug fixing or improving the application as much as before since it does not matter anymore when the cash flows in no matter what.

I have seen this since the advent of Adobe Creative Cloud and see the same things reported for other applications from other companies as well. Customer service gets worse/hard to get in contact with. Bugs takes long time to fix or are not fixed at all. MAGIX Vegas, formely Sony Vegas, released their subscription model one month ago and i doubt that they will sell any perpetual licences year 2020.

I have a feeling that the subscription model will work for the companies for a while but am pretty sure that the pendulum will swing back at the companies when customers leave due to overly complicated contracs, auto renewals, canellation fees and other "punishments" to the customers when they "dare" to leave. Many of those customers are lost forever and then the cash flow will start to fall.

Today some applications main selling point are "No Subscription".

Take a look at this forum and feel the rage: https://forums.adobe.com/community/creative_cloud/content

Christoph, sorry to read of the issues you describe but I know of nothing more that we can offer to you from a user perspective here in these forums.  Only Acronis can resolve these types of issues / questions and make their account management systems easier to use.

I would recommend submitting Feedback about this using the tool in the GUI, plus would suggest sending a private message to Renata Gubaydullina | Product manager, Acronis True Image about your specific wish to have more time here to evaluate your subscription options when considering renewal.

Wonderful analysis. Excellently put.

Acronis now sells cloud space with a software interface that manages it.

Were Acronis selling software it would make it work with rival clouds. I know, you can work around this, but why should I jump through hoops when other software makers happily support several clouds?

With luck, that is where we will find the silver lining you describe, as competition clobbers the subscription model.

Subscription models are a nightmare for many home users - my first action on installing Windows 10 was to get rid of the attempts by Microsoft to 'sell' me Office 365 via their Store.

I haven't used MS Office since the 2003 version - LibreOffice does all I need from an office suite.

When MS look to turn Windows into a subscription service product then I will switch fully to using Linux as my main OS.

My only reason for having an ATI 2018 subscription is purely because Acronis have gifted this to me as an MVP, but I also have my perpetual licences and have no reliance on using the Cloud other than for testing purposes.  I would not want to have software that would stop all meaningful function 30 days after the end of a subscription period, which ATI subscription will and does do.  I have no other subscription products and no intention to ever have any.

Steve,

Eloquently said.  My feelings exactly.  Purchased Subscriptions and Cloud storage is not entertained in my home.

Just the other day I had a OS disk failure and TI came to my rescue.  I'd still be swearing if I had counted on a perfect cloud retrieval and restore.  In my case, a 100 GB restore was done in about 30 minutes.

Steve F.

I buy most of that description, but there are things where the "rentware" model is less egregious although not welcome.

The cost of Office 365 is a bargain alongside the joke that is Acronis's cloud space.

It was Adobe's move into subscription that killed Acrobat for me. £13 .14 a month?

And I have just taken part in a beta test of a router that wants to charge $7.99 a month, about the cost of Office 365, to protect my network against nasties. 

Pile subscription on subscription and life gets expensive.

Office 365 is the only subscription i am comfortable with since it is often possible to get it at sales. On Black Friday i bought two licenses at the price of one and when entering the code the current subscription just renews and lasts longer. :)

Me too. Always look out for deals.

Now, if Acronis did a bundle with Office 365 I might bite. But with the possibility of creating five accounts, Office 365 would get me 5 TB of storage which makes Acronis look extortionate with its 250 GB chunks. Barely enough for a boot/OS drive, let alone key data.

(this may be the second time I've sent this post)

Will my Acronis TI 2018 Windows Media software on CDs and on USB drives also stop working after my subscription runs out on April 15, 2018?

Rob, if your ATI 2018 Media is for a Subscription version licence, then the media will only be capable of performing the recovery of an existing backup that was created while the software was fully functional.

See KB 60121: Acronis True Image 2018 licensing which has the following statement.

Standard license is unlimited in time. Annual subscription means your license is limited for 1 year. You can renew your subscription and continue using the product.

After your Acronis True Image subscription expires, all product functionality will be blocked until further subscription renewal, however, the backed up data is still accessible:

• For 5 days after subscription expires you can continue making backups to cloud storage.
• During 30 days after subscription expires you can restore data from Cloud Storage. Thirty days after subscription expiration the data in cloud storage is destroyed.
• Local backups remain available for restore.

Thank you for your quick answer, Steve. It is very helpful. The Acronis agent at their chat service offered me $39.95 "deal" on the subscription license for 3 computers, available until March 13, 2018. I saw a price of $79.95 for the standard license with 3 computers, and no cloud storage at the Acronis website. My current subscription ends on April 15, 2018. I am undecided about which choice to make, but I store my TI backups on my own drives, including a 2-disk Synology NAS. If I could get a discount for the $79.95 standard license, I would go in that direction.  

Rob, if you are currently on a subscription licence, then check that this is not on an auto-renewal and then keep an eye out for any discount offers on the perpetual / standard licence.  You should be able to do better than the $79.95 price you've seen.

One other check, if you've had an older perpetual licence, then check what the upgrade price would be based on that licence via your Acronis account.

Thanks, again, Steve. I think, but am not certain, that the deal the Acronis agent. Masood, offered me was $39.95 for a 3-computer standard license, with no storage. I saved the chat, but it is text only. I think I would have to start a new chat, with a new Acronis agent, and find out if the $39.95 deal is for a 3-computer standard license. Masood said the offer was good until March 13, 2018. If it is the standard licence, in other words, a perpetual license, I would buy it. 

Rob, contact a new chat to confirm what kind of license they offer you. The prices for the Standard (perpetual) and the Advanced (subscription) are the same.

I know that Adobe often drop their prices when customers contact them regarding existing soon-to-be-expired subscriptions and get the customers a "great deal" for a renewal to keep the customers on subscriptions. On the other hand Adobe does not even offer perpetual licenses but since you are on a subscription with Acronis it is natural that Acronis gave you an offer for a new subscription unless they state otherwise.

Welcome to the trap of subscriptions! ;)

Yes, Roger. It was confusing to me while I was chatting with Acronis agent, Masood. I had to keep asking him about the standard license price, not the subscription one. When I went to the Acronis website, the prices were higher than the ones he quoted me. I already cancelled my Acronis subscription, via Masood. It runs out on April 15, 2018. I will go back on Acronis chat in the next few days and attempt to get a deal on a 3-computer Acronis TI perpetual license, if it is possible to do so. I do my own storage on my home devices. 

How do I cancel my cloud storage auto renewal?  I've never seen a company that makes it so difficult to cancel a service.

Douglas, open a Support Case direct with Acronis and they will be able to cancel your cloud auto renewal agreement for you.  See the Useful Links section in the forum for 'How to get support?' if needed.