Abusing autoship

I recently discovered a trick which one can use to save money while shopping online. If a store offers a lower price for a product when “autoship” is enabled, purchase the item with autoship, then cancel autoship after the item arrives. I don't know of any store that charges any kind of penalty at that point. Of course, one needs to actually cancel autoship when the item arrives; forgetfulness can be costly.

Is it dishonest? Yes, it is. But the dark patterns that motivate people to choose autoship (for example, making autoship the default) are even more slimy, especially when one considers how many customers these platforms have. I've known people who have enabled autoship accidentally, and I'm sure many, many others do. I consider this trick a reasonable way of fighting back.

#Tech #TechTips