Today I paid for a subscription to LinkedIn (site, me) for the first time.
I’ve been using LinkedIn for at least 3-4 years now, and never needed any pay features before. But now I’m looking for sales agents for my company, and want access to more search results and increased ability to contact people not in my network. So I upgraded.
It’s the usual payment form, with this at the end:
The two checkboxes are off by default … but you cannot buy the subscription without checking the first one.
In other words, LinkedIn is gaming their payment page to screw people. You cannot subscribe without selecting the option to automatically re-up … and you cannot change the automatic re-up without emailing customer support.
Notice how it’s not even a link to a web form? Not even a link to pop open an email?
This is designed to take unfair advantage of people. It’s designed to make it hard to unsubscribe. It’s designed to maximize revenue for LinkedIn.
In other words, it’s evil.