How do two well liked companies, deutsche Bahn and adobe, advertise their subscriptions? Badly.
Deutsche Bahn, the fully state-owned railway company, is a well-liked (Trustpilot: 1.2/5) company running most major long-distance railways in Germany. So, it will come as a surprise to many that I have some complaints about them. Today, however, I won’t talk about the numerous delays, cancellations and frankly bad service interactions I had with them in the past. Today is about dark patterns that cost me 500€ for nothing.
I apologise in advance for using mostly German material, as it is the primary language. I thought it wasimportant to use it. Also, DB manages to make the English part even worse by breaking their reference to additional material (see header image). Also, if your sarcasm detector is broken, you might have trouble with some sections.
A dark pattern is a design mechanism to get people to buy, do or allow things they don’t actually want. Examples include: Forced continuity of free trials with paid subscriptions, hiding the true costs of a service, and many, many more.
These are especially prevalent with subscriptions, so it might not come as a surprise that we will look at subscriptions today. At first, let’s look at two other well-liked and respected companies: Adobe and Deutsche Telekom. Both make use of subscriptions: One for an ongoing connection to the internet and one for software. This is how they are advertised on their website.
Adobe labels their subscriptions in the first selection as “yearly subscription” or “monthly subscription”. Telekom advertises their subscription with rebates as X € / Monath and in smaller print (Y € / Monath starting 4. Month)
Both note prices in Currency Per Timeframe: €/month or €/year. Telekom even includes some discounts: 9.95€/month and in smaller font: 43.95€/month starting with the 4th month! Adobe clearly states they are selling a monthly subscription (“Monats-Abo”) or a yearly subscription, but paid monthly. There is no misunderstanding. (Note: Adobe is highly criticised for its subscription practices.)
Based on these examples, let’s see how Deutsche Bahn advertises their BahnCards. A BahnCard is a discount offer; it is not a product or service in itself, but rather allows you to get discounts. They exist on various levels: Normal and Business, 25/50/100, Probe or Normal, first or second class. I’ll limit this to the first class BahnCard 50, as that’s the one I got and the Probe version, which is only valid for 3-month period.
Deutsche Bahn advertises their Bahncards with a fixed price. Deutsche Bahnd does also advertise fixed prices for probe Bahncards or during sales. They do not mention the full price at any point in the sales process.
A Bahncard 50 gives you a 50% discount on regular fares (which are rarely paid by most casual users) and a 25% discount on discounted tickets. After using it for a year, I’d say it is a very bad deal for most casual travellers, but that’s beside the point. I bought mine on sale (50% off), but those are not available at the time of screenshotting.
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