Speaking of dark pattern, I recently resigned my dropbox sub and they have one of the most user hostile flow I've seen in quite a while, at least on a "legitimate" website. Given that they aim mostly for business and big business now, keeping this thing clearly meant to scare or confuse Random Joe felt very surprising to me.
I'm sure they have lots of numbers showing it's worth it, but I can't help notice that companies who know they are good and you need them tend to have a much easier unsub path, frictionless for many. It doesn't inspire huge confidence and very much confirmed my wish to unsubscribe.
I used to use DropBox quite a bit for file sharing directories of photos. I used to be able to upload them, create a shared link for the directory and just email that link - no need to invite specific people as collaborators, and the space used by the folder wouldn't be deducted from the recipient's quota.
They've since employed every dark pattern in the book to make that flow next-to-impossible, without having technically withdrawn it.
Yesterday they emailed me to say "We've noticed you're not using your DropBox account..."
Unsubscription options can just be awful. I remember being subscription to hbr and to unsubscribe the experience was just so awful, I just never want to subscribe to another news paper ever again.
Similarly I was also giving monthly to the mozilla foundation, and when I wanted to leave they had a bunch of patterns in place to try to stop me, it was just awful.
I'm sure they have lots of numbers showing it's worth it, but I can't help notice that companies who know they are good and you need them tend to have a much easier unsub path, frictionless for many. It doesn't inspire huge confidence and very much confirmed my wish to unsubscribe.