Scribd

Scribd Inc. owns 3 of the biggest and oldest file and document hosting platforms on the internet: Scribd for documents, SlideShare and Everand.

Scribd gatekeeps documents uploaded by their users, which Scribd does not own and did not create, behind a login wall.

Scribd forces their free trial onto users who want to download documents

Behind that login wall, they push their free trial which requires a credit card in order for a user to download. While they do offer an alternative of uploading 5 documents for a user to download their desired document for free, A) most users are there to download documents, the ratio of uploaders to downloaders is always going to be few-many and B) this option is written in small text and placed at the bottom of the page, implying Scribd's main goal is to push their free trial.

Scribd free trial subscription page that tries to capture users' credit card information. Scribd practices a classic predatory scheme that relies on users forgetting to cancel and getting billed every month.

This is a classic predatory "get your credit card details and hope you forget to cancel so they can charge you" scheme.