> If someone offered you a magic button that gave you ten dollars now, but carried a high probability of altering your tastes, your routines, and the way you think, would you press it?

This is actually a very interesting question, because I can see someone's answer being different between this question as stated, and the same question but where you would be paying the $10 instead of the button giving you $10:

> If someone offered you a magic button that carried a high probability of altering your tastes, your routines, and the way you think, but it cost $10 to press, would you press it?

Specifically (and somewhat paradoxically), I think more people would say yes to the second question than to the first, because people would start thinking about it as a transaction where the purpose of pressing the button has changed from "receiving money" to "changing myself", even though in both cases it's stated upfront.

Of course, in the context of subscriptions, the purpose is neither of these things (it's to receive the content that subscription is offering), so the first question is definitely more relevant in this situation than the second. It's still interesting to me, though.

Companies who wish for more casual subscribers should support services (such as Apple App Store subscriptions) and anti-dark-pattern laws which reassure the public that unsubscribing will be easy.

Then the complacency and other psychological effects that this article seeks to inoculate users against will be maximized.

I think costco membership has two reasons...

Yes, the people who "subscribe" to costco are more loyal, etc.

But it also excludes. The general public is probably a lot more labor-intensive for costco, and they eliminate that.

I would go a step further, cancel as soon as you subscribe. It's still valid for a month because you've paid for it!

If you ever need to use the service again just re-subscribe (and re-cancel)

In fact, what is stopping you from cancelling all your subscriptions right now? You can always buy back in when you like

A very simple handling:

Buy a domain. Get Proton, or Apple, or any other custom-domain email service.

Setup catch-all incoming mail.

Every merchant receives an email like merchantname@donotwriteto.me

Then you can either sort those out, or if they are malicious and not deleting you from your email lists, you can block the incoming traffic on that email.

This way you still can verify your email, comm stays private and you can have your own peace of mind, but you don't have to keep the spam in your primary inbox.

Privacy.com solved this problem for me. I just sign up for trials with a $1 card, and I sign up for memberships with a unique card number and a “use once” flag.

Kinda' ironic posting a service that promotes two types of casual subscriptions, inbox clutter, and "micro transactions"

One way I've "reset" my subscriptions is by invalidating the credit card they're on so most of them just stop billing. YMMV it's a bit of a blunt tool and not always foolproof, but it's worked for me before.

Same for online feeds like YouTube. Good to occasionally clear out anything that hasn’t delivered good vids in a while

I think generally people have trouble not subscribing casually which could be why so many services are setup the way they are. In US society we give people the Freedom of choice with all of the beautiful and ugly side-effects that comes along for the ride.

Can be extended to social media accounts as well.

The post makes some really great points.

Nowadays I am adopting the "Mom Strategy for Subscriptions (TM)": Eat what is in your plate before asking for more stuff.

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