I heard a catchy song recently. It was a fist-pumping 80s rock ballad of sorts. Not the sort of thing I’d normally listen to, but this one had a catch: it was produced by AI.
A music-loving relative of mine had penned the lyrics years ago. And while he normally performs his own music in a band, on this occasion he’d passed the content to a generative AI app. The result was impressive, and I’m really not sure if I’d have known it was computer-generated had I not been told beforehand.
Intrigued, I had to give it a go…
Free credit where it’s due
A quick sign-up process granted me limited free credits, refreshed daily, plus a one-time-only batch of introductory credits. As a dabbler, my interest in the service fell firmly into definition of a curiosity-driven sign-up. I was here only to experiment, so the free tier was all I needed.
Or so I thought. After burning through my initial batch of credits, I was of course hooked. Appropriate for a song-generation app, I suppose. And I thought to myself: well, there’s no harm in looking to see how much it costs. The standard subscription was priced at less than £10 per month. Very tempting.
Slow the tempo
Hold on a second. The desire for credits wasn’t quite outweighed by the need for caution. Before willingly handing over my bank card details to this company, I wanted to be sure it was safe to do so. Who are they? Where are they? And, most importantly of all, how well do they fare in reviews?
The answer to that last question is where it all fell apart. The company’s score on Trustpilot was more rock bottom than rock ‘n’ roll. Pity.
Their sub-two-star score was reason enough to put my wallet back in my pocket. But I wanted to find out just why an ostensibly high-quality service was rated so poorly.
A chorus of problems
A number of recurring themes appeared in the bad reviews. Perhaps the most common complaint revolved around cancellation difficulty.
That problem alone is a deal-breaker. But compounding the situation were numerous reports of people being locked out of their accounts, or otherwise unable to access the services they were paying for.
By this point, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that customer service is another much-slated aspect of the experience. Several reviewers mention month-long waits for unhelpful responses, often leading to outright ghosting.
Deception as standard?
Although disappointed by the awful reviews, I can’t say I was surprised. The company in question is by no means a sinner among saints. Scores in the red are all too common not only for generative AI apps, but subscription services in general.
Outright scams exist, of course, but what is more common are subscription traps. Unwitting customers can easily find themselves legally locked into contracts that are only detailed in the small print.
Even when the exit is available, it’s rarely signposted. So-called dark patterns make it intentionally difficult to navigate through the unsubscription process on a web page. Many customers go to extremes such as cancelling their credit cards or otherwise blocking payments via their bank. And remember: nobody accidentally designs such a confusing interface.
Some AI services are also criticised for alleged model-switching. Customers are sometimes blown away by the results during their trial period. After eagerly signing up, the technological magic suddenly evaporates and the generated content plummets in quality. Whether this is really due to deceptive model-switching, or perhaps throttling or even user perception is unclear. But the dissatisfaction is real.
A systematic problem
Nobody sat in a boardroom and said “let’s be evil!” (followed by a collective cackle of approval). There’s very real pressure to reduce churn and increase revenue. And the deceptive practices mentioned above do achieve that. Those numbers please investors.
Would-be customers like me are essentially invisible. It’s a lot harder to put a number on potential lost revenue from people who never spent a penny in the first place.
And yet it would be myopic to ignore the reputational damage from scathing reviews and horror story complaints on Trustpilot and social media – negatively skewed as they may be. There are surely many others like myself who love the technological innovations, but are pushed away by underhand business practices. These companies can generate art and music and videos in seconds… but can they generate trust?