Positive practices

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Positive practices are pro-consumer business approaches that prioritize the interests, rights, and well-being of customers. They are designed to empower consumers, offer fairness, transparency, and value:

• Transparency

Clearly disclosing pricing, terms, conditions, and product information upfront.

• Fair value

Offering products/services at reasonable prices that match the value provided.

• Consumer control and choice

Giving customers genuine options, easy cancellation, ownership rights, and repair ability.

• Longevity and durability

Designing products to last and be repairable, reducing waste and repeat costs.

• Respectful support

Providing accessible, helpful, and fair customer service to resolve issues.

Examples

Common Positive Practices

Practice	Description
One-Time Purchase	Offering a product or service for a single payment with no recurring fees for core functionality
Right to Repair	Designing products to be repairable, and making parts, tools, manuals and software accessible
Transparent Pricing	Clearly displaying the full price (including all mandatory fees/taxes) upfront in advertising or early during checkout
Fair Return Policy	Offering easy returns, exchanges, or refunds within a reasonable timeframe
Clear Cancellation Policy	Making it simple and straightforward for consumers to cancel subscriptions without hoops
Ownership Model	Ensuring consumers own what they purchase, including the ability to use, modify, resell, or transfer the product freely
Honest Marketing	Providing accurate information about products.
Proactive Customer Support	Offering readily available support to identify and resolve issues efficiently.

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One-time purchase vs. subscription plan

Subscription plans are usually cost-efficient in the short term, benefiting consumers who are unsure on a product and want to try it out. Many modern services exist exclusively under a subscription model and operate sensibly. One-time purchases are typically designed to operate cleanly and effectively for an extended period of time.

Considerations for subscription plans

• Does this service update frequently or at least within the subscription timeframe?
• How long will I be needing this service, and will it be compatible with me for that amount of time?

Considerations for one-time purchases

• Will I need this for more than a single month (or subscription period)?
• How soon will this product become redundant or outdated? Is it an annual subscription in disguise?

Offline product vs. online services for digital goods

Services that run exclusively online innately allow the company to have more control over how their product operates and are received. This form of control can lead to changes in the product that can improve it, but can otherwise also introduce a myriad of issues such as incompatibility and the removal of functionality. Digital goods that are completely operational offline allow the consumer to decide how long those goods will be used. As long as the downloaded product can be stored and correctly rendered, it has no expiration.

Considersations for online services

• Is this product made for online connectivity and interaction?
  • Example: Online social games such as World of Warcraft
• Is this product more secure online?
• How likely am I to maintain an internet connection to this service?
• Can this service alter itself into an incompatible state? Can this service remove functionality that I need?
• Is this service distributed from a centralized organization?
  • If so, is there legislation and effective enforcement in said organization's location that protects me from malicious practices with my data?

Considerations for offline products

• Will I be able to effectively download and store this?
• Does it have any dependencies, and can those dependencies become redundant?
  • Example: Products designed for a limited set of operating systems that may become outdated

Source availability

Oftentimes companies will not provide or actively obscure details about how a product works. This exacerbates the potential pitfalls mentioned above, but when information is provided it can eliminate many of them.

Considerations for physical goods

• Does the product provide schematics?
• Are parts available?
  • This helps product longevity by making repair easier, regardless of who performs the repair.
• Are there anti-repair measures in place?

Considerations for digital goods

• Is the source code available?
  • This can allow patches if unwanted updates are pushed or support is dropped.
• Are there DRM measures in place?