Field Notes on Annual Plan Hesitation
If annual plan hesitation is noticed twice, every future purchase must carry an unofficial reference price.
HEARING TRANSCRIPT (PARTIAL)
Re: Annual Plan Hesitation
Proceeding: Internal Review
Date: December 2022
EXAMINER: You were aware that the annual plan represented a cost saving?
WITNESS: Yes. The savings were displayed on the pricing page. The savings were also mentioned in the email that prompted the renewal decision. The savings were not in question.
EXAMINER: And yet you selected the monthly plan.
WITNESS: I selected monthly, yes.
EXAMINER: Can you explain the hesitation?
WITNESS: The hesitation was not about the math. The math was clear. The hesitation was about committing a year's worth of certainty to a service at a time when the price of most things had changed in ways I did not anticipate twelve months ago. Twelve months ago I did not anticipate the price of other things.
EXAMINER: The price of the service had not changed.
WITNESS: The price of the service had not changed. The relationship to committing a lump sum in December had changed. These are different things that arrived together.
EXAMINER: The first time this hesitation occurred?
WITNESS: March. A different service. The annual plan was technically cheaper, and I chose monthly, and I could not fully explain it then either.
EXAMINER: And now?
WITNESS: The first case changed a small decision without being discussed. Then it happened again. After the second time, I noticed that every purchase was now carrying a reference price from before this year, and the reference price was making the current price feel provisional even when the current price was objectively fine.
EXAMINER: Every remembered old price remains legally active as a comparison point until you stop mentioning it.
WITNESS: That is correct.
EXAMINER: Do you intend to stop mentioning it?
WITNESS: I will upgrade to annual in January.
EXAMINER: That was not the question.
WITNESS: No.
Transcript ends. Proceeding continues.