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You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than "free trial" subscription-based apps on the App Store. It is, overwhelmingly, a tool used for scams.

The pattern-

-hide promised functionality behind subscription.

-offer "free trial", often with very short trial periods.

-convert that into a big dollar subscriptions.

They know that most of the people who they ensnare are probably going through a multitude of tools trying to find a solution for some problem (and the fact the tool in question often fails to do what it promised is a feature because it encourages the user to move on quicker), and some subset will fail to cancel the "trial" before it becomes a pay service.

Consenting adults, sure, and personally I have never fallen prey to this, looking at the in-app purchases and just refusing to be baited, but it's enough of a problem that it should embarrass Apple a bit.




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