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Apple allowed me to increase the cost of my subscription without my consent

07.11.2022

Until now, the company has allowed its developers to raise the price of subscriptions, but only with the consent of the user. Now, according to many media platforms and news blogs, as well as ordinary users, the company has allowed developers to raise prices without the prior consent of users.

According to the developers, the company has started emailing this news to Apple Developer users. The announcement said that developers would now be able to raise the price of subscriptions without the prior consent of users, but they would have to warn users a few days before the price increase. Send a notification in the application, write an email or send a message to a phone number, etc.

The company has also warned developers that if they don’t follow these rules, their apps could be removed from the App Store and even an Apple developer account could face a shadow ban or a simple ban indefinitely, depending on each individual case.

All things considered, this is a good idea because users may not notice this notification and end up paying more than they expected. Do you think this is fair in terms of attitude towards users?

This Apple innovation for Apple Developer Program owners will make it faster and easier for many users of an app or add-on to upgrade to higher-priced subscriptions. But even here everything is not so simple, for this it is necessary to comply with the following requirements and conditions for work:

Subscription price increases must occur no more than once a year.
If the developers decide to increase the annual subscription, then the price should not increase by more than $50 or 50% of the previous price.
Subscriptions for a fixed period must not exceed an increase of more than 5% or $5 from the previous subscription price.

If there is a sent message, the user must first agree to the increase, and then there will be an increase in the price, if the user does not agree, a special offer or refusal to use the application at all can be made.

Apple introduced these changes on its blog, where the company stated that now that users have a subscription, in order to renew it and continue using the application or add-on, they must accept the new terms and renew the subscription at a higher price. If the user does not want to accept the new conditions and does not want to pay, then a refusal to indicate the service in the use of the application using a subscription will be accepted.

Apple also says that such changes could even lead to “unintentional interruption of some services” when users want to accept new subscription terms and renew at a higher price. To prevent such unexpected surprises and errors from taking a lot of time to fix, the company simply removes the mandatory user consent conditions, but left this requirement for certain cases.

This new pricing system of the company gives some convenience and privileges to Apple Developer Login holders in the area of offers of automatic subscription renewal, without time-consuming confirmation and consent, which will help not to interrupt applications and other services where users have signed up for paid subscriptions.