Summary: the pressure to grow every quarter (especially public markets but even for early stage SaaS companies) has led to SaaS companies implementing business & product practices that are anti-customer.

I feel like the financialization of SaaS (i.e. every VC-backed SaaS company is measured against the path to $100M+ ARR / public market comps from the very beginning) has created a norm of business practices that are directly opposed to customer preferences.

Here are some I've experienced (as a customer and being involved in early stage SaaS).

Billing

* 12 month contracts with no early cancellation. I paid one vendor $30K for an annual deal that produced wrong information and they sent my account into collections rather than having a customer success manager talk to me about what was wrong. I've seen this on contracts as small as $250 / month. If the product isn't meeting the customer's needs, the customer should have the right to walk away (sure, have 60 / 90 day notice).

Interoperability

* Forcing customers to pay for the highest tier of your product to get API access * Creating "marketplace" programs that charge other vendors who want to integrate with your product (which means they have to pass the cost to mutual customers... who are in effect paying to get their data back)

Product

* Creating friction in the product to show higher usage metrics (i.e. having to log in to get data vs. automated export reports) * Price increases that come without corresponding increases in features (@Salesforce)