Anti-consumer practices. The gaming and software industries are full of it.
Unity Technologies
Have shown that they have no problem screwing over their business partners. Even though they walked it back, they cannot be trusted to not try it again. You would have to be a fool to start a project in Unity now.
The short version is, they forced me to close my savings/checking account due to $32 in insufficient funds that was reported to Chex Systems by my former bank, and told me that I could reopen them once the report was cleared.
I got the report cleared with proof that it was due to a third party (AOL - who admitted it and got the report removed) that made unauthorized charges to an account I had closed.
When I went back to get my accounts reopened, the manager spoke me like I was the scum of the earth for ever having been reported, even though it wasn’t my fault and I had proof. She told me that I couldn’t open an account at Wells Fargo for 7 years, and said I could come back after that and open accounts.
As if I would ever go near Wells Fargo again after treating me like that over a $32 report that I had proven wasn’t my fault.
Same. My first bank account tin collage was through Wells Fargo. I got burned by all the ridiculous fees. Closed it down and never went back. This was in 2003.
My AC went out in August in Texas. I opened a line of credit through the HVAC company, which was ultimately through Wells Fargo.
When I got the first bill I set it up for auto pay through my checking account and let it pay the same amount over 18 months.
Well about 12 months later I’m trying to buy a new house and just as I’m about to close I get a note from the bank they were going to deny my loan because I failed to pay a bill to Wells Fargo for 9 months.
I called them to figure out what the hell was going on. My bill was due on the 15th of every month. My auto pay was set to pay on the 15th. One week the 15th was a Sunday, so my bank sent the payment on the 13th. They processed that like an extra payment under the same period and for the next 9 months considered every payment I had as late.
I tell them to fix it, and they say they can but it will take 2-3 weeks to process. I’m supposed to close on a house the next morning. They tell me if I just make a payment of $279 right then they could clear it so I could close on my house. I seriously felt like I was being shaken down and there wasn’t anything I could do other than pay them. So fuck Wells Fargo!
It’s weird how a person will believe they have all license to choose to be terrible version of themselves and think everyone else is just holding back. Rapists think this of all humanity. That underneath it all everyone would just be raping each other if they could get away with it. It never occurs to them these thoughts might not even occur to a person or that if it does it doesn’t really appeal. Or that people have other things they find fulfilling that just doesn’t involve hurting other people and just aren’t fixated on shit like this.
Reality is equal part abstraction and physicality, energy and information are two sides to a coin we are currently unable to percieve in full. Also, there are some aspects to reality that will never be able to be understood through the lens of science or math, due to their need for falsifyable truths within a working model. Some truths cannot be proven, and some non-physical aspects of reality cannot be directly observed through lenses or interacted with sensors or broken down into particles. The moment we start examining conciousness and psychadelics seriously as a new avenue of understanding reality our collective understanding of the universe in its totality will skyrocket.
The most recent one: EA. I had disliked them and their practices for quite some time now, but there was a game on sale that I found interesting enough to purchase … it was like 2 Euro or whatever, so no big loss. AFTER the download they wanted me to sign an electronic agreement to basically harvest all of my data and requiring me to be permanently online in a singleplayer offline game at all times so they could monitor me, and if I didn’t agree I wouldn’t be able to play the game. No refund. I uninstalled it and will never purchase anything from them again - that was the last straw, the last ever chance I was willing to give them. And no there was no warning of any kind before the purchase - they deliberately waited until after they had my money to “ask” for that bullshit.
HP. This one is easy. Low hanging fruit. For me, I bought an expensive gaming laptop that arrived defective. I asked for a replacement, they denied and required I send it in for repairs. Waited a month for them to tell me there isn’t a problem. Asked for a refund instead of having it shipped back. They said that’s not how it works, they have to send it back first. So I get it, with the defect still, and call to get a refund. They initially deny a refund due to being outside the refund period and offer a “buy back” credit. I had to spend an hour explaining why that’s not happening and why they’re going to give me a refund or expect to see me in court. Keep in mind, I hadn’t used this laptop more than an hour or two and it’s been shipped around and forth for two months. I did get my refund at least, but the headache was insane and I refuse to even look at HP products.
Adobe: Already said by others. For me, it’s because they charge an insane amount of money for barely-functional software. I used Affinity products instead.
Google: They cancel their services so quickly, it’s more like they’ve blacklisted ME. I refuse to pay for anything they offer in the event it will be discontinued in a year or two. RIP Play Music.
Amazon: Prices increase, service quality decreases, value decreases exponentially. The product I paid for at $79/year was far more superior to whatever Prime costs today. Mostly third party cheap trash. Unfortunately, and most likely by design, there are just a few specific reasons I’m forced to give Amazon money every so often. But at the very least, I’m making the highest conscious effort to avoid them.
I’ll update this if I come up with more.
Edit 1: Netflix: They keep removing quality content and increasing prices. Anti-consumer shit. They are both the reason I stopped pirating and considered starting again.
I wish we could throw the Adobe executives into the sun. They have the worst anti-consumer business model ever for the most bloated, unusable software.
To this day, Adobe CS5 is probably the best all-encompassing software package they’ve ever released. CS6 added a few things, but was buggy AF. Then CC came out and it’s been in eternal-beta since. So many lost files and sometimes even OS-destroying updates.
Google Play Music still stands as the best commercial music app I’ve used, I miss it, and whatever marketing person got them to change the glorious branding of Play Music, Play Movies, and Play Store for YouTube music, Google TV and Play Store should be fired with extreme prejudice.
At even faintly busy times, they have lines waiting to self checkout, because half the self checkouts are closed. And of course, they have only one regular register open with 8 people with full carts in that line.
It’s nuts to me that every Walmart has like 30 checkout lanes and AT MOST there are 4 open and then they have two sides with self checkouts where only 1 side is open.
If it’s anything like superstore in Canada, they need too much babysitting. Even if there is a store specific person able to fix problems to prevent them from happening again, corporate will force push an update that reverts it. Lots of product entries for things not available on that side of the country will return after being removed and all they do is lock up the system because they don’t actually exist. Every little thing requires the human cashier to reset or override something. I ran 8 at a time on my own when they were new but most people couldn’t do that while ensuring nobody notices the problems and get angry. 4 is reasonable for a non-beginner. Any more requires ridiculous micromanaging.
asklemmy
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