Misleading pricing:
Using the billing period as the header and showing the price for the billing period… except for monthly—which shows 1/4 the price and says “every week” in smaller, gray text.
Punishing non-subscription payments:
Adding a $6.50 (1400%) surcharge for wanting a weekly one-time payment instead of a recurring subscription.
Charging more for longer periods:
Monthly billing, once you remove the dark pattern and convert it to its actual price, is $2. There are 12 months in a year, meaning it would cost $24 to maintain that subscription for a year.
Why is the yearly subscription $29, then?
If you want to verify this for yourself, you’re going to need to clear your cookies and reload an article a lot. They do A/B tests and show different subscription requied modals. This one was the worst.
Thing is, with a yearly subscription they cannot raise the price for a year. With a monthly subscription they can raise the price whenever. Since it’s Bezos, I expect you’d be paying more in a year when going for the monthly subscription as it’s probably going to be raised after every 3 months. That’s why they made the prices so confusing with the “only 50 cents” as favorite option. They want you to go for the cheapest option be ssue they can profit from that the most. They lure you in with cheap prices, then suck you dry.