Title: Paywalling and Other Shady Marketing Techniques

Today, companies find excuses to grab more money from consumers, and this money-grab scams are getting more outrageous by the day.

Paywalling is a predominant technique used by companies to force people to upgrade their subscription and/or pay them more money to get access to basic stuff. It’s really possible for them to offer said products/features for no additional charge, but they entice customers into paying more anyway.

Paywalling features that require computing power or human resources is one thing. But locking features behind paywalls solely to squeeze more money out of customers is a different story.

Here are a few examples tech companies misuse this technique:

1. Google Pixel’s Paywalling

Take Google’s Pixel Photo Boost as an example. This feature, which operates entirely on the cloud and requires no additional hardware, is exclusive to the Pixel 8 Pro and higher models. It’s not available on older Pixel devices, even though they’re fully capable of supporting it. This decision seems less about technical limitations and more about pushing users to buy higher-end devices.

2. Spotify’s Comic “Freemium” Service

Spotify’s free plan is ad-supported, and it’s reasonable for it to have some limitations. But Spotify takes it further with restrictions that feel more like coercion than a fair trade-off.

For instance, free users can’t freely navigate between songs. The back (previous) button is disabled, and users can’t manage their playlists or queues. (they’ve enabled the back button recently) You can’t add songs to the queue, and viewing the queue is also off-limits. These restrictions seem less about maintaining a “free” experience and more about forcing users to subscribe to the premium plan. It’s a textbook example of a company prioritizing profits over user experience.

3. Proton’s Dark Web Monitoring Gimmick

Proton is often lauded by the privacy and open-source community for its ethical practices. But Proton’s approach to “Dark Web Monitoring” in its password manager, Proton Pass, raises eyebrows.

This feature scans for breaches involving your user IDs and passwords, then alerts you if your credentials have been leaked. However, while they notify you of a breach and reveal the source domain, the actual details of the breach are blurred. To see the full details, you’re required to pay for the premium plan.

Proton’s decision to show partial breach details — and lock the rest behind a paywall — feels like a classic “dark pattern” tactic, especially disappointing from a company that’s built its reputation on transparency and privacy.

4. Not Just Tech

BMW, one fine day, saw it fit to jump in on the Subscription bandwagon. It introduced “Heated Seats” for an \$18 a month subscription!

This pricks more as you’ve already paid for the hardware, but the software to provide the service is locked behind a paywall, and a very pricey one at that. What’s more- they already had a a slew of features ready in the paywall pipeline ready to be implemented.

People Vs BMW. Score People. After immediate backlash, BMW rescinded this tragedy! (Source: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/7/23863258/bmw-cancel-heated-seat-subscription-microtransaction)

These examples highlight a growing trend of companies using manipulative tactics to push users into paying more. Software-based features, essential usability functions, and privacy safeguards are being locked behind paywalls not for technical reasons, but for sheer greed Customers deserve better.