Yes, 'Murka does refer to the USA, and whether or not it is legal, depends entirely on what state you live in. My home state, Iowa for ex,, not only is it legal, but commissions are deemed "discretionary" compensation and do not HAVE to be paid at all. TX guarantees a min wage, as does CA. Newsflash...anyone on a commission (where min wage is the alternative and only because of state laws mandating such) that draws min wage for 2 consecutive pay periods because the commissions were insufficient to exceed that? Will not be employed for a 3rd pay period.
Fine, we'll go down that road for a moment. What kind of business are you working for (apparently for 35 years) in "sales" that does this? And more importantly, why are you still there if its so bad that it makes you start making overarching statements regarding how shitty 'Murkan inbred low-road Capitalism" has been for you? Kinda seems like anyone with half the intelligence of a rock would try to find something else if the job has been that bad.
Hell, with my job, I work only 6 months out of the year in a job that, while my specific employer did, some employers in the field don't even require a high school education, yet I made almost 60K last year. The ceiling for the field is in the 200-300k a year range and it only requires you take a few individual (and usually company paid for) classes and obtain a license.
So don't tell me you don't have options. And more importantly, don't try to use your career decisions (especially as they seem to be pretty poor decisions if you are as bad off as you are trying to allude to yet choosing to remain) to justify your supposed morally-superior views and claims of some kind of malevolent behavior on the part of the dev for charging you (I assume you are a Patron because if you aren't paying him and still feel like you are entitled to complaints of this magnitude, that's a whole other level of stupidity I can't even begin to understand).
But getting away from the point, if you truly have been working in a job that is pure-commission for 35 years and its still so low paying, despite your years of service, that you have to be so consciously aware of your commissions amount during any two week period so as to avoid losing your job at week 3...sir, I believe staying there might be a mark of clinically certifiable insanity. I urge you to seek help.
That is, of course, unless you have intentionally made it seem like your employment is much worse than it actually is in an effort to add some kind of weight to your ill-conceived argument that this dev is somehow behaving in some kind of morally dubious manner by charging voluntary Patrons for a service that they are under no obligation to continue subscribing to and can in fact choose to cancel anytime if they feel wronged or led astray.
Please tell me if any of this is out of place and how, so I can be further educated on the issue from our resident champion of the moral high-road.