They have switched people to the plan with Copilot in the US too. I just checked and next renewal is set for the $99 plan with Copilot instead of the $69 plan I had been on.
I remember some email from them saying the Copilot was now on my plan, but I don't recall anything saying that this was actually a different, more expansive plan, or that Copilot was just a trial and the plan would switch until I took action, or anything like that.
Here's how to get back to your old plan:
• find the Services & Subscriptions page on your account and select Manage.
• click "Cancel Subscription".
• On the page that brings up there will be an option to switch to a different plan. That should have the "Personal Classic" plan. There's also "Family Classic" for people that want the family plan without Copilot.
Another way that some have reported works is to simply turn off recurring billing. That then sometimes triggers an offer to switch plans that includes the Classic plans.
Thank you. This workflow worked for my US account just fine, though my account just said "Subscriptions" rather "Services & Subscriptions".
My plan renewed back in May at the new rate. Microsoft did not advertise that there was any way to remain with the "Classic" plan. I've also never used the Copilot "features". I'd absolutely sign-on to a class action suit to get some money back. Even if it ends up just enriching the attorneys (which class actions inevitably do) Microsoft needs as much "correction" about this behavior as possible.
In addition to the Classic option that is shown only after hitting "Cancel", they also had a secret "Microsoft 365 Basic" option for $20/year. It includes no Office products, but provides 100 GB of OneDrive. Which is all I needed. So Microsoft is getting $20/year from me that they don't deserve.
Why do I pay them even $20/year? It's insurance against the same kind of BS from Google. I back up my Google Drive to OneDrive.
Just another heads up - I switched to Family Classic and when it renewed it dropped all access to my family members. I wasn't aware it would do that and had a family member unable to use their "full" email account until I had worked it out and was able to re-link them.
They also added more to the 365 Family Manager family premium plan though -- they ended Copilot Pro as that was an add-on that made no sense when people already had to juggle the other two copilots that are finally "settling in".
It should not be normal that companies are trying to fool their customers. I may be wrong, but I feel that dark patterns have gotten worse and have become quite normalised.
I'm well aware that companies are not your friends, and they are only in it to earn as much money as possible etc. But in the ideal world it should never be a consideration to willingly deceive your customers. Then something is wrong that needs fixing.
You can thank Friedman for that with the whole "The social responsibility of business is to increase profits" mindset and the Dodge vs. Ford court case that ruled Ford had to operate his company in the interests of its shareholders above all else.
We need to end shareholder primacy and have stronger antitrust enforcement.
> the Dodge vs. Ford court case that ruled Ford had to operate his company in the interests of its shareholders above all else.
That case is from 1919 and it doesn't say what most people think it says.
The problem there was that Ford was trying to claim he could do whatever he wants because he has the most votes, minority shareholders be damned. In practice what companies do now is that they do whatever they want and come up with some explanation for why it's in the interest of the shareholders, e.g. charitable donations are tax deductions and strengthen the company's brand with customers, instead of explicitly telling the other shareholders to eat sand.
The real problem with modern companies is diffuse ownership. You invest your retirement money in some fund, the fund is the thing that actually elects the board and what the fund wants is to increase profits, and typically short-term profits at that, so they elect a board to do it and that's what happens. It's not because the law requires them to do that, it's because that's the result of that incentive structure. And then all the companies that you own as a shareholder are out there screwing you over by double when you're their customer.
Whereas if you have a company owned and operated by the same people, then they can say "hey wait a minute, this is only going to increase short-term profits by a small amount and it's going to make everyone hate us, maybe we shouldn't do it?" Which is the thing that's missing from large publicly-traded companies.
> stronger antitrust enforcement
This is the other thing that's missing. Even if companies are trying to screw you, if they have a lot of competition then they can't, because you'd just switch to one that isn't. But now try that in a market where there are only two incumbents and they're both content to pick your pocket as long as the other one is doing the same.
Leaving the markets uncontrolled is the problem. Fine the hell of them for acting anti-consumer and they will quickly align themselves with the realities.
Even if you have a great product, you'll still get more money out of people if you apply some dark patterns like this. It's very hard for a company to resist that siren call.
Making new products is very hard. Just look at the innovation output of the tech giants. Compared to the resources they have it’s pretty pathetic. They are simply out of ideas.
I call it Marketing Driven development. Its also responsible for a drop in higher quality software as business people have to justify their jobs and push developers off maintenance tickets that are “low priority” items but still impact enough customers that it should be embarrassing.
Welcome to 2025 - Cyberpunk without the cool aesthetics but all the downsides.
I realised the last time I was in a major city (I live in a village) at night just how close we are, ebikes wizzing around with youngish adults wearing corporate logos all over themselves while using e-cigs, gangs of others waiting outside each restaurant for a pickup.
Straight out the opening of Snowcrash but without the cool car.
We really did invent Torment Nexus from the classic cautionary tale "Don't Create The Torment Nexus".
I love computers, I love programming (and have for 35 years), I really really am coming to detest larger and larger parts of the modern tech scene - consumer tech and the Microsoft/Meta/Googles of the world.
I'm not in the US so I suspect some of it is slightly blunted by generally stronger worker protections but Amazon has had multiple issues here as well and we still have the "gig economy" stuff just the same.
If anything we'd be more likely to open a portal to hell for Argent Energy.
`Meta today announced a strategic partnership with Union Aerospace Corporation - the deal will give Meta access to UAC's energy network powering the next revolution in AI.`
We thought computers were different. That freedom of information would throw off the shackles of the old order and usher in a new era of human flourishing.
Turns out computers weren't different at all, they just hadn't caught the full attention of government and business yet.
I think I became depressed because of this. I used to be so enthusiastic about computers. We had the freedom to do anything we wanted. Now they're locking everything down, destroying everything the word "hacker" ever stood for. I'm watching it happen in real time. It's heart breaking.
Computers are world changing technology. They are so powerful they could defeat police, judges, governments, militaries. Left unchecked, they could wipe out entire segments of the global economy. They could literally reshape the world. The powers that be cannot tolerate it.
Computers are different, because of zero-cost copying. It's much easier to achieve a digital monopoly than with physical-world products. That should also mean that antitrust enforcement should be stronger on software companies, and the scope of enforcement should be broader.
There aren’t enough opportunities to make the profits they need to keep the stock price up in an ethical manner. So they have to use dark patterns. It will keep getting worse with these trillion dollar behemoths having to maintain their growth rates. Ads everywhere. AI will become more and more of a tool for manipulation.
There's no accountability either on a liability - legal, prison - level or a personal duty to make sure you Do The Right Thing (when, of course, you have a family to feed)
Behavior like what some of the tech giants do (and I don't crusade against "big tech" but individual cases are ridiculous) wouldn't be justified if you, like, wrote it down on a piece of paper and showed it to them, but they get away with it because you can just ignore all feedback, you don't have to actually answer support tickets from a distance of potentially hundreds of miles away (if you acted like that to my face, well, you wouldn't dare)
Uber, Airbnb and DoorDash are the primary dark pattern users in the industry.
I am an executive design leader and all hires from these three companies are screened in detail about their honesty level in their designs due to how many issues I have with these companies training their workers to lie.
If you work for them know that it’s a black mark on your record.
I have hired two from these companies who literally opened the interview with “I want to leave X because they literally are lying”
This happened to me in the U.S. too. Family plan went from $99/yr to $129/yr. I was going to just going to resentfully accept this, when I just got annoyed and said, "you know what? we don't use word and excel enough to justify this and there are definitely alternatives." Only when I went to cancel did I find out that they tried to force me onto the $129 "with AI" plan (who actually thinks AI features are worth anything? I've never used them in office or really any MS product) and that the "without AI" plan is still $99.
I decided to cancel anyway because I was still resentful.
Thing is, either $99 or $129 for the Family plan is actually quite reasonable, our family has 5 users. I just don't like giving money to deceitful or disrespectful companies.
If Microsoft had just kept the pricing the same as they had for many years, I almost certainly would have re-subscribed.
The worst part is it literally costs them the same to tack on AI they are just hiking the price in order to generate more revenue. Running Word locally does not cost them more.
My argument is that running the Windows software on the end users machine does not cost them any additional compute. The AI does, they could “eat the cost” easily. Now they are having people cancel their plans.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's in the cloud and not local. Still useless to me.
I use AI all the time when coding (very useful) and ChatGPT in general is also very useful. Never found Windows co-pilot or Office co-pilot useful for anything.
Yes, here's the email. No mention of the $99 no-AI option.
Thank you for being a valued Microsoft 365 subscriber. To reflect the value we’ve added over the past decade, address rising costs, and enable us to continue delivering new innovations, we’re increasing the price of your subscription.
Effective February 14, 2025, the price for Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions will increase from USD 99.99* per year to USD 129.99* per year. To continue with the new price, no action is needed—your payment method on file will be automatically charged. To make changes to your subscription plan or turn off recurring billing, visit your Microsoft account at least two days before your next billing date.
By maintaining your subscription, you’ll enjoy secure cloud storage, advanced security for your data and devices, and cutting-edge AI-powered features, along with all your other subscription benefits. Thank you for choosing Microsoft.
Learn more about how to manage your subscription, including how to cancel and switch your subscription.
* Subscription prices listed do not include any discounts, promotions, or special offers that may be available.
Same email here. My plan renewed in May. Absolutely no advertising that I could keep my "classic" plan. It seemed like the only choice was $129 or the highway.
I just did the steps described in[0] to convert back to the "Classic" plan. Microsoft says my plan will renew in May for $99, but I'm not getting the $15 of the $30 I was forced into paying in May back. I've never used any of the Copilot "features". I'd rather have my renewal discounted by $15 to $30.
As I said in another comment: We need a US class action. It will only enrich the lawyers but it might serve as some type of deterrent to Microsoft. Maybe. Probably not.
Netflix and Spotify also auto bump the prices even for auto-renewal. I believe the issue here is that Microsoft created a new pricing category while keeping the $99 one, but bumped everyone to the new one. That is where it gets sketchy.
If they eliminated the $99 one then it might be a nothingburger.
I had to update my credit card details on Dropbox, but the website it so badly designed, I almost just canceled. I'm not sure if its dark patterns or incompetence.
I _suspect_ they switched me from annual billing to monthly while I was updating, but the support chat guy said I was still annual. If it turns out he was wrong, I'm out.
I feel like tech companies are sparing no shenanigans to be able to say people are paying for AI. Shouldn't it sell itself if it is as world changing (in it's current form) as people claim?
The marketing has 100% shifted to the creation of workloads using “Agents”.
Presumably the hyperscalers can begin conflating the number of “agents” created with “boring jobs eliminated” and thus herald the industrial revolution.
But first: Your subscription price is increasing and now includes 5 Agents.
At what point does someone in management step in and kill of the product? 2% should be a pretty clear sign that the product is either price entirely wrong, or just not something that anyone wants to buy.
Are Microsoft just in to deep at this point? They killed one off their flagship brands (Office) in favour of Microsoft 365 Copilot, shouldn't someone be fired for that decision at this point?
I'm looking forward to the books and articles in 10 - 20 years time, attempting to explain what happened internally at Microsoft these past years.
The cost is already sunk and the only alternative to forcibly extracting any profit is to admit they got suckered into the hype and burned billions of dollars for nothing
Sure, but the alternative is not really any better: if the choice is between being the guy who got it wrong vs. being the guy who got it wrong _and_ being the guy who persisted in throwing good money after bad, surely the former is prefereable. As far as I see, the fact that they keep going indicates that they genuinely still believe Copilot could pan out and become profittable in the long run.
I don't even know what Microsoft 365 Copilot means. What idiotic branding. 365 means subscription I believe (you pay 365 days of the year). But Copilot? Huh? That's just a feature
Wait until you hear about Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, which is actually a stripped down version of Microsoft 365 Copilot!
So, if you're a Microsoft 365 Business user, you now get "Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat" for free, which is just a standard web interface for interacting with Copilot (not to be confused with GitHub's Copilot, which is also owned by Microsoft, but I digress).
But, if you pay for an upgrade from M365 Copilot Chat to M365 Copilot-without-the-chat, then you also get an AI button in Microsoft 365 apps (Outlook, Teams, Word...)!
Realistically this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that ever owned or at least considered purchasing an Xbox, or even worse ever had to interact with Azure.
I don't know how it was during the dot-com bubble, but the current AI hype is the biggest "Fake it till you make it" operation I've ever seen.
My only worry is about the huge impact on rank and file employees when they issue the "we are re-aligning our strategic direction/priorities and we are focusing on effective resource utilization" pr statement.
I once bought an Office 2016 license and when I installed it this year on a new laptop, it turned itself into a trimmed down O365. After the first Office update, I got a non-closable ad next to my Excel spreadsheet to upgrade to a full O365. Even more, I was only able to save files to OneDrive and not locally. That was not what I originally paid for!
> I was only able to save files to OneDrive and not locally.
I find this very infuriating, and I've stopped using MS for more than 10 years now. They used to be a proper software company, with their flows, of course, but quite professional in the great scheme of things. But what you're describing goes against everything that I've valued as a computer programmer when I entered this field of work ~20 years ago.
The price went up because the seller was willing to bet enough people would keep paying it to more than offset the people who stop paying it. The addition of a feature no one wants is just marketing to make buyers feel better about having less money.
I feel like a lot of people don't internalize this.
The features don't matter as long as people put up the price for what they require. The job of the salesman/marketing team is to bet on a balance that will net the company money. The features are just the sales pitch that convince you you need the latest and greatest (comparable to a sports car salesman selling you the new v8 model instead of the more economical v6).
Use LibreOffice on Windows. Microsoft Office used to come bundled with Windows, as an office suite. Now it's a subscription product. This is a bad decision; shows how Microsoft can't keep it up together. Even if it had been one-time purchase with LTS updates and everything, just like it used to, one could possible think of buying it. But, $100/year for personal use?? What's so great about MS Office that LibreOffice can't do?? Get LibreOffice, even if you use Windows.
>> What's so great about MS Office that LibreOffice can't do??
> Work with spreadsheets more complicated than two cells.
I use both daily. You're misrepresenting what LibreOffice can do; 99% of the people I see using excel are using the exact same 20% of its capabilities.
Quick-n-Dirty database that they can update during sales meetings and create charts from. You think another spreadsheet can't do that?
The $50 million punishment feels so insubstantial to Microsoft that they probably wouldn't even think twice before doing similar things again or worse. Only things that could threaten the bottom line would actually make companies reconsider.
> The $50 million punishment feels so insubstantial
It's potentially quite a bit more. TFA mentions another two penalties: "three times the total benefits that have been obtained and are reasonably attributable" (~2.5 million customers times $40+ for the difference in subscrptions times three is $300 million), or "30 per cent of the corporation’s adjusted turnover during the breach turnover period" if the preceding can't be reasonably calculated (I'm not going to dig through Microsoft's financial statements, but it's probably substantial.) The greatest of three is taken.
If you still think it's pocket change, the point of fines is not to bankrupt the company, but to lead them to less shitty behavior by disincentivizing the alternative. It takes a persistent effort and time.
or cancel your subscription. you would not continue to patronize a restaurant that intentionally put an extra charge on your bill to make themselves more money. why continue to pay M$ after they deliberately tried to trick you to squeeze out more profit?
This 30 Euro jump in Europe was a kick in the pants for me.
Even though it is still a relatively good deal for a Family Plan (compared to say Google Drive or Dropbox) for OneDrive, I finally dropped my Microsoft 365 Family plan.
The final straw was that the Copilot was completely unhelpful and hallucinated features Office portal does not have.
I got Microsoft's emails, did not want Microsoft's forced imposition of Copilot in my Office subscription (regardless of price), found the classic option mentioned in online forums, and managed to switch to it just before my renewal.
My 89 year old aunt on the other hand got stung for the unwanted forced upgrade. I had to call Microsoft, complained about them unfairly exploiting vulnerable customers, and eventually got a downgrade and the difference refunded.
What really annoys me about this - quite apart from the initial deception/misrepresentation - is I now expect Microsoft to pull similar tricks in future. A real disincentive to sign up to any other 'value-added' services.
Why make subscriptions so full of traps that consumers end up hating you? (Yes, I know, so some GM can hit this quarter's bonus)
That reminds me, having just cancelled Spotify (due to their price rise), Disney+ is next on the list. Maybe Netflix too.
> "Following a detailed investigation, the ACCC alleges that Microsoft deliberately hit this third option, to retain the old plan at the old price, in order to increase the uptake of Copilot and the increased revenue from the Copilot integrated plans," ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.
The product is so good that they need to scam people into buying it.
Have the family plan prepaid for 2 years, mostly for the 1TB OneDrive. The new plans are almost double the cost here, hope this AI bundling dies a painful death by then. Though that doesn't guarantee price cuts I guess.
Looks like Microsoft is taking a page out of the cable companies' playbook. Next up, there will be "discounted" Copilot 365 or whatever: a 2 year contract with the "promotional price" locked in and a penalty fee for cancelling early.
Semi tangential, but I'm amazed there isn't more uproar over what Microsoft is doing with Windows 10 <-> 11 and devices that don't have hardware TPM. Just completely fucking their user base, to what end? A one-time bump in sales for hardware partners?
They have switched people to the plan with Copilot in the US too. I just checked and next renewal is set for the $99 plan with Copilot instead of the $69 plan I had been on.
I remember some email from them saying the Copilot was now on my plan, but I don't recall anything saying that this was actually a different, more expansive plan, or that Copilot was just a trial and the plan would switch until I took action, or anything like that.
Here's how to get back to your old plan:
• find the Services & Subscriptions page on your account and select Manage.
• click "Cancel Subscription".
• On the page that brings up there will be an option to switch to a different plan. That should have the "Personal Classic" plan. There's also "Family Classic" for people that want the family plan without Copilot.
Another way that some have reported works is to simply turn off recurring billing. That then sometimes triggers an offer to switch plans that includes the Classic plans.
I remember this trick. Wanted to go back to family classic, but it wasn't there so I just continued with the cancellation instead.
Thank you. This workflow worked for my US account just fine, though my account just said "Subscriptions" rather "Services & Subscriptions".
My plan renewed back in May at the new rate. Microsoft did not advertise that there was any way to remain with the "Classic" plan. I've also never used the Copilot "features". I'd absolutely sign-on to a class action suit to get some money back. Even if it ends up just enriching the attorneys (which class actions inevitably do) Microsoft needs as much "correction" about this behavior as possible.
Yes, it was infuriating.
In addition to the Classic option that is shown only after hitting "Cancel", they also had a secret "Microsoft 365 Basic" option for $20/year. It includes no Office products, but provides 100 GB of OneDrive. Which is all I needed. So Microsoft is getting $20/year from me that they don't deserve.
Why do I pay them even $20/year? It's insurance against the same kind of BS from Google. I back up my Google Drive to OneDrive.
I tried this and the only options I got were CAD 101 for the family subscription with AI and CAD 109 for the Classic one without AI ! ?
At least they are putting the linkedin product people to good use.
Just another heads up - I switched to Family Classic and when it renewed it dropped all access to my family members. I wasn't aware it would do that and had a family member unable to use their "full" email account until I had worked it out and was able to re-link them.
Thanks, just did this on our family plan.
They also added more to the 365 Family Manager family premium plan though -- they ended Copilot Pro as that was an add-on that made no sense when people already had to juggle the other two copilots that are finally "settling in".
Good move there, at least.
> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nickdc_copilot-pro-is-no-more...
> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nickdc_copilot-pro-is-no-more...
It should not be normal that companies are trying to fool their customers. I may be wrong, but I feel that dark patterns have gotten worse and have become quite normalised.
I'm well aware that companies are not your friends, and they are only in it to earn as much money as possible etc. But in the ideal world it should never be a consideration to willingly deceive your customers. Then something is wrong that needs fixing.
You can thank Friedman for that with the whole "The social responsibility of business is to increase profits" mindset and the Dodge vs. Ford court case that ruled Ford had to operate his company in the interests of its shareholders above all else.
We need to end shareholder primacy and have stronger antitrust enforcement.
> the Dodge vs. Ford court case that ruled Ford had to operate his company in the interests of its shareholders above all else.
That case is from 1919 and it doesn't say what most people think it says.
The problem there was that Ford was trying to claim he could do whatever he wants because he has the most votes, minority shareholders be damned. In practice what companies do now is that they do whatever they want and come up with some explanation for why it's in the interest of the shareholders, e.g. charitable donations are tax deductions and strengthen the company's brand with customers, instead of explicitly telling the other shareholders to eat sand.
The real problem with modern companies is diffuse ownership. You invest your retirement money in some fund, the fund is the thing that actually elects the board and what the fund wants is to increase profits, and typically short-term profits at that, so they elect a board to do it and that's what happens. It's not because the law requires them to do that, it's because that's the result of that incentive structure. And then all the companies that you own as a shareholder are out there screwing you over by double when you're their customer.
Whereas if you have a company owned and operated by the same people, then they can say "hey wait a minute, this is only going to increase short-term profits by a small amount and it's going to make everyone hate us, maybe we shouldn't do it?" Which is the thing that's missing from large publicly-traded companies.
> stronger antitrust enforcement
This is the other thing that's missing. Even if companies are trying to screw you, if they have a lot of competition then they can't, because you'd just switch to one that isn't. But now try that in a market where there are only two incumbents and they're both content to pick your pocket as long as the other one is doing the same.
Friedman told people what they wanted to hear.
Unsurprisingly Friedman was lauded and rewarded for this behavior.
Leaving the markets uncontrolled is the problem. Fine the hell of them for acting anti-consumer and they will quickly align themselves with the realities.
Or just lobby harder tbh
Better yet, pursue structural remedies. Break up or shut down bad actors.
The interests of the shareholders doesn't mean extract all profit immediately.
If your product is this bad and no one wants to buy it normally, maybe you should build a new product.
But it's so much more profitable for shareholders to force users to engage with the shitty product
It's much cheaper for execs to buy bundled "it can do everything for less!" junk for the peasants.
That and, they're paying for Excel anyway...
Literally the exact reason we ended up with MS teams instead of slack.
Even if you have a great product, you'll still get more money out of people if you apply some dark patterns like this. It's very hard for a company to resist that siren call.
Making new products is very hard. Just look at the innovation output of the tech giants. Compared to the resources they have it’s pretty pathetic. They are simply out of ideas.
I call it Marketing Driven development. Its also responsible for a drop in higher quality software as business people have to justify their jobs and push developers off maintenance tickets that are “low priority” items but still impact enough customers that it should be embarrassing.
Welcome to 2025 - Cyberpunk without the cool aesthetics but all the downsides.
I realised the last time I was in a major city (I live in a village) at night just how close we are, ebikes wizzing around with youngish adults wearing corporate logos all over themselves while using e-cigs, gangs of others waiting outside each restaurant for a pickup.
Straight out the opening of Snowcrash but without the cool car.
We really did invent Torment Nexus from the classic cautionary tale "Don't Create The Torment Nexus".
I love computers, I love programming (and have for 35 years), I really really am coming to detest larger and larger parts of the modern tech scene - consumer tech and the Microsoft/Meta/Googles of the world.
So when is Johnny Silverhand gonna show up? He's over two years late by now...
The other Cyberpunk. Not that it's any better but we for sure won't have Judy there to save our asses.
The things companies can get away with in America is insane. Amazon really feels like Weyland-Yutani.
I'm not in the US so I suspect some of it is slightly blunted by generally stronger worker protections but Amazon has had multiple issues here as well and we still have the "gig economy" stuff just the same.
It's not a good direction things are trending.
Thank luck we aren’t in the Warhammer 40k universe yet.
If anything we'd be more likely to open a portal to hell for Argent Energy.
`Meta today announced a strategic partnership with Union Aerospace Corporation - the deal will give Meta access to UAC's energy network powering the next revolution in AI.`
We thought computers were different. That freedom of information would throw off the shackles of the old order and usher in a new era of human flourishing.
Turns out computers weren't different at all, they just hadn't caught the full attention of government and business yet.
I think I became depressed because of this. I used to be so enthusiastic about computers. We had the freedom to do anything we wanted. Now they're locking everything down, destroying everything the word "hacker" ever stood for. I'm watching it happen in real time. It's heart breaking.
Computers are world changing technology. They are so powerful they could defeat police, judges, governments, militaries. Left unchecked, they could wipe out entire segments of the global economy. They could literally reshape the world. The powers that be cannot tolerate it.
Computers are different, because of zero-cost copying. It's much easier to achieve a digital monopoly than with physical-world products. That should also mean that antitrust enforcement should be stronger on software companies, and the scope of enforcement should be broader.
> and have become quite normalised.
Enforcement agencies are asleep at the switch. Without any pressure to constrain them then these major corporations will stop at nothing.
> it should never be a consideration to willingly deceive your customers.
They don't see it that way. They just see it as a new profit stream that they're daring enough to capture.
There aren’t enough opportunities to make the profits they need to keep the stock price up in an ethical manner. So they have to use dark patterns. It will keep getting worse with these trillion dollar behemoths having to maintain their growth rates. Ads everywhere. AI will become more and more of a tool for manipulation.
There's no accountability either on a liability - legal, prison - level or a personal duty to make sure you Do The Right Thing (when, of course, you have a family to feed)
Behavior like what some of the tech giants do (and I don't crusade against "big tech" but individual cases are ridiculous) wouldn't be justified if you, like, wrote it down on a piece of paper and showed it to them, but they get away with it because you can just ignore all feedback, you don't have to actually answer support tickets from a distance of potentially hundreds of miles away (if you acted like that to my face, well, you wouldn't dare)
Some are worse than others; some legitimately just do not care how much evil they're pumping out into the world (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651178)
Uber, Airbnb and DoorDash are the primary dark pattern users in the industry.
I am an executive design leader and all hires from these three companies are screened in detail about their honesty level in their designs due to how many issues I have with these companies training their workers to lie.
If you work for them know that it’s a black mark on your record.
I have hired two from these companies who literally opened the interview with “I want to leave X because they literally are lying”
What are examples of their lies?
This happened to me in the U.S. too. Family plan went from $99/yr to $129/yr. I was going to just going to resentfully accept this, when I just got annoyed and said, "you know what? we don't use word and excel enough to justify this and there are definitely alternatives." Only when I went to cancel did I find out that they tried to force me onto the $129 "with AI" plan (who actually thinks AI features are worth anything? I've never used them in office or really any MS product) and that the "without AI" plan is still $99.
I decided to cancel anyway because I was still resentful.
Thing is, either $99 or $129 for the Family plan is actually quite reasonable, our family has 5 users. I just don't like giving money to deceitful or disrespectful companies.
If Microsoft had just kept the pricing the same as they had for many years, I almost certainly would have re-subscribed.
The worst part is it literally costs them the same to tack on AI they are just hiking the price in order to generate more revenue. Running Word locally does not cost them more.
Actually I doubt that's true. There is a cost to running AI in the cloud (I assume its not run locally).
My argument is that running the Windows software on the end users machine does not cost them any additional compute. The AI does, they could “eat the cost” easily. Now they are having people cancel their plans.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's in the cloud and not local. Still useless to me.
I use AI all the time when coding (very useful) and ChatGPT in general is also very useful. Never found Windows co-pilot or Office co-pilot useful for anything.
> Family plan went from $99/yr to $129/yr.
How did you find out it was $30 more? Did they email you?
Yes, here's the email. No mention of the $99 no-AI option.
Thank you for being a valued Microsoft 365 subscriber. To reflect the value we’ve added over the past decade, address rising costs, and enable us to continue delivering new innovations, we’re increasing the price of your subscription.
Effective February 14, 2025, the price for Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions will increase from USD 99.99* per year to USD 129.99* per year. To continue with the new price, no action is needed—your payment method on file will be automatically charged. To make changes to your subscription plan or turn off recurring billing, visit your Microsoft account at least two days before your next billing date.
By maintaining your subscription, you’ll enjoy secure cloud storage, advanced security for your data and devices, and cutting-edge AI-powered features, along with all your other subscription benefits. Thank you for choosing Microsoft.
Learn more about how to manage your subscription, including how to cancel and switch your subscription.
* Subscription prices listed do not include any discounts, promotions, or special offers that may be available.
Same email here. My plan renewed in May. Absolutely no advertising that I could keep my "classic" plan. It seemed like the only choice was $129 or the highway.
I just did the steps described in[0] to convert back to the "Classic" plan. Microsoft says my plan will renew in May for $99, but I'm not getting the $15 of the $30 I was forced into paying in May back. I've never used any of the Copilot "features". I'd rather have my renewal discounted by $15 to $30.
As I said in another comment: We need a US class action. It will only enrich the lawyers but it might serve as some type of deterrent to Microsoft. Maybe. Probably not.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45722444
Netflix and Spotify also auto bump the prices even for auto-renewal. I believe the issue here is that Microsoft created a new pricing category while keeping the $99 one, but bumped everyone to the new one. That is where it gets sketchy.
If they eliminated the $99 one then it might be a nothingburger.
Might be class action worthy.
I had to update my credit card details on Dropbox, but the website it so badly designed, I almost just canceled. I'm not sure if its dark patterns or incompetence.
I _suspect_ they switched me from annual billing to monthly while I was updating, but the support chat guy said I was still annual. If it turns out he was wrong, I'm out.
I suspect Dropbox doesn't care about b2c customers anymore... only b2b
I feel like tech companies are sparing no shenanigans to be able to say people are paying for AI. Shouldn't it sell itself if it is as world changing (in it's current form) as people claim?
https://www.perspectives.plus/p/microsoft-365-copilot-commer...
Even after putting their thumb on the scale, the numbers are still dismal. Not even a 2% conversion rate.
The marketing has 100% shifted to the creation of workloads using “Agents”.
Presumably the hyperscalers can begin conflating the number of “agents” created with “boring jobs eliminated” and thus herald the industrial revolution.
But first: Your subscription price is increasing and now includes 5 Agents.
At what point does someone in management step in and kill of the product? 2% should be a pretty clear sign that the product is either price entirely wrong, or just not something that anyone wants to buy.
Are Microsoft just in to deep at this point? They killed one off their flagship brands (Office) in favour of Microsoft 365 Copilot, shouldn't someone be fired for that decision at this point?
I'm looking forward to the books and articles in 10 - 20 years time, attempting to explain what happened internally at Microsoft these past years.
The cost is already sunk and the only alternative to forcibly extracting any profit is to admit they got suckered into the hype and burned billions of dollars for nothing
Sure, but the alternative is not really any better: if the choice is between being the guy who got it wrong vs. being the guy who got it wrong _and_ being the guy who persisted in throwing good money after bad, surely the former is prefereable. As far as I see, the fact that they keep going indicates that they genuinely still believe Copilot could pan out and become profittable in the long run.
> Are Microsoft just in to deep at this point?
Investment-wise, none of the large companies invested in AI can afford the bubble to pop.
They're just going to ride the tiger out.
I don't even know what Microsoft 365 Copilot means. What idiotic branding. 365 means subscription I believe (you pay 365 days of the year). But Copilot? Huh? That's just a feature
Wait until you hear about Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, which is actually a stripped down version of Microsoft 365 Copilot!
So, if you're a Microsoft 365 Business user, you now get "Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat" for free, which is just a standard web interface for interacting with Copilot (not to be confused with GitHub's Copilot, which is also owned by Microsoft, but I digress).
But, if you pay for an upgrade from M365 Copilot Chat to M365 Copilot-without-the-chat, then you also get an AI button in Microsoft 365 apps (Outlook, Teams, Word...)!
Realistically this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that ever owned or at least considered purchasing an Xbox, or even worse ever had to interact with Azure.
Rebranding Office as Copilot was an easy, sleazy way to gain millions of locked-in paid subscribers.
I don't know how it was during the dot-com bubble, but the current AI hype is the biggest "Fake it till you make it" operation I've ever seen.
My only worry is about the huge impact on rank and file employees when they issue the "we are re-aligning our strategic direction/priorities and we are focusing on effective resource utilization" pr statement.
Atlassian yanked core Jira Service Manager features into their premium plan which, you guessed it, includes AI.
For our company of >30 people this amounted to a ~$7k/mo increase.
Shhh - We aren't supposed to point out that the 4 Emperors of the Apocalypse are naked.
I once bought an Office 2016 license and when I installed it this year on a new laptop, it turned itself into a trimmed down O365. After the first Office update, I got a non-closable ad next to my Excel spreadsheet to upgrade to a full O365. Even more, I was only able to save files to OneDrive and not locally. That was not what I originally paid for!
It's fraud. Plain and simple.
Software as a Service is fraud
> I was only able to save files to OneDrive and not locally.
I find this very infuriating, and I've stopped using MS for more than 10 years now. They used to be a proper software company, with their flows, of course, but quite professional in the great scheme of things. But what you're describing goes against everything that I've valued as a computer programmer when I entered this field of work ~20 years ago.
Google is doing exactly the same thing. Our monthly rates for Workspace went up because of the AI crap we didn't ask for.
The price went up because the seller was willing to bet enough people would keep paying it to more than offset the people who stop paying it. The addition of a feature no one wants is just marketing to make buyers feel better about having less money.
I feel like a lot of people don't internalize this.
The features don't matter as long as people put up the price for what they require. The job of the salesman/marketing team is to bet on a balance that will net the company money. The features are just the sales pitch that convince you you need the latest and greatest (comparable to a sports car salesman selling you the new v8 model instead of the more economical v6).
Use LibreOffice on Windows. Microsoft Office used to come bundled with Windows, as an office suite. Now it's a subscription product. This is a bad decision; shows how Microsoft can't keep it up together. Even if it had been one-time purchase with LTS updates and everything, just like it used to, one could possible think of buying it. But, $100/year for personal use?? What's so great about MS Office that LibreOffice can't do?? Get LibreOffice, even if you use Windows.
> Microsoft Office used to come bundled with Windows, as an office suite.
Never was. You probably got it installed by friendly it guy or the store was just installing pirated versions.
> Now it's a subscription product.
There is also pay once version. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-...
> But, $100/year for personal use??
The subscription comes with 1TB of OneDrive storage. Look up how much 1TB of storage costs usually
> What's so great about MS Office that LibreOffice can't do??
Work with spreadsheets more complicated than two cells.
>> What's so great about MS Office that LibreOffice can't do??
> Work with spreadsheets more complicated than two cells.
I use both daily. You're misrepresenting what LibreOffice can do; 99% of the people I see using excel are using the exact same 20% of its capabilities.
Quick-n-Dirty database that they can update during sales meetings and create charts from. You think another spreadsheet can't do that?
Excel
At consumer-level, I believe LibreCalc should be enough. But yes, if you're in an org doing Excel-fu, you'd already get licensed access.
The $50 million punishment feels so insubstantial to Microsoft that they probably wouldn't even think twice before doing similar things again or worse. Only things that could threaten the bottom line would actually make companies reconsider.
> The $50 million punishment feels so insubstantial
It's potentially quite a bit more. TFA mentions another two penalties: "three times the total benefits that have been obtained and are reasonably attributable" (~2.5 million customers times $40+ for the difference in subscrptions times three is $300 million), or "30 per cent of the corporation’s adjusted turnover during the breach turnover period" if the preceding can't be reasonably calculated (I'm not going to dig through Microsoft's financial statements, but it's probably substantial.) The greatest of three is taken.
If you still think it's pocket change, the point of fines is not to bankrupt the company, but to lead them to less shitty behavior by disincentivizing the alternative. It takes a persistent effort and time.
No expert, but these fines are usually exponential. Usually they start with a slap on the wrist of $100,000s, then climb to the millions.
That the opening figure is so high it's clear that if MS ever do it again the fine will be in the billions.
So you might even say it's actually a moderately strong statement by the Australian government that they're not playing around.
You can still do the same now. Go to cancellation and be offered a package without AI.
or cancel your subscription. you would not continue to patronize a restaurant that intentionally put an extra charge on your bill to make themselves more money. why continue to pay M$ after they deliberately tried to trick you to squeeze out more profit?
This 30 Euro jump in Europe was a kick in the pants for me.
Even though it is still a relatively good deal for a Family Plan (compared to say Google Drive or Dropbox) for OneDrive, I finally dropped my Microsoft 365 Family plan.
The final straw was that the Copilot was completely unhelpful and hallucinated features Office portal does not have.
I am in the UK.
I got Microsoft's emails, did not want Microsoft's forced imposition of Copilot in my Office subscription (regardless of price), found the classic option mentioned in online forums, and managed to switch to it just before my renewal.
My 89 year old aunt on the other hand got stung for the unwanted forced upgrade. I had to call Microsoft, complained about them unfairly exploiting vulnerable customers, and eventually got a downgrade and the difference refunded.
What really annoys me about this - quite apart from the initial deception/misrepresentation - is I now expect Microsoft to pull similar tricks in future. A real disincentive to sign up to any other 'value-added' services.
Why make subscriptions so full of traps that consumers end up hating you? (Yes, I know, so some GM can hit this quarter's bonus)
That reminds me, having just cancelled Spotify (due to their price rise), Disney+ is next on the list. Maybe Netflix too.
> "Following a detailed investigation, the ACCC alleges that Microsoft deliberately hit this third option, to retain the old plan at the old price, in order to increase the uptake of Copilot and the increased revenue from the Copilot integrated plans," ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.
The product is so good that they need to scam people into buying it.
Have the family plan prepaid for 2 years, mostly for the 1TB OneDrive. The new plans are almost double the cost here, hope this AI bundling dies a painful death by then. Though that doesn't guarantee price cuts I guess.
Looks like Microsoft is taking a page out of the cable companies' playbook. Next up, there will be "discounted" Copilot 365 or whatever: a 2 year contract with the "promotional price" locked in and a penalty fee for cancelling early.
Did anyone else look at the submission headline and think that was an oddly specific number of subscriptions?
So Microsoft can change the terms of a contract between you and it without your approval? That's ...odd.
Pretty sure Microsoft is going to try and get a settlement. The evidence is very clear.
Awesome that the ACCC, Australia's consumer watchdog, is taking this up.
It's really shitty that companies believe they can pull these stunts and get away with it.
The ACCC is actually quite switched on to any misleading conduct.
They have gone after Airbnb / Airlines / Hotel Booking / Concert Tickets - for misleading conduct.
Especially business that use drip pricing (adding compulsory hidden fees later) or misleading prices like in the Microsoft case.
Anything sneaky - they're normally right on to it.
I recently learned this, but the reason Steam offers 2-hour no-questions-asked full refunds was partially because of a lawsuit by the ACCC
So... How's Libre Office these days?
Works really well! Switched over to them earlier this year, dropped Microsoft suite entirely, and it works just fine.
works well enough for me!
Huh, I just noticed I had also been switched. Nice, just switched back. F*ck off with the AI bullshit already, Microsoft.
Semi tangential, but I'm amazed there isn't more uproar over what Microsoft is doing with Windows 10 <-> 11 and devices that don't have hardware TPM. Just completely fucking their user base, to what end? A one-time bump in sales for hardware partners?
They have been screwing over their user base for a long time though incrementally.
Things were pretty good for like a decade, from Windows 7 through most of 10!
It is strange that MS added third option but lied that there was not. They could just not include it, could they?
Every bad day for Microsoft is another great day for Linux.
You have choices. Make them.