Welcome to Subscription Hell.

Here you will be greeted with open arms and offered nothing but a humble, free trial.

You’re curious and think this might help you with work so you sign up for another tool, use it for a few days and then completely forget about it.

You’ve lost track of how many subscriptions you’ve signed up to by now and you can’t be bothered to cancel them because, “It’s only a $10 charge.”

So, you forget and go on with your life, until eventually, you begin to wonder where all your money is disappearing to each month.

You try being a responsible adult and look through your bank statements and as expected, you find a mountain of charges.

None of these companies have reminded you about your subscriptions and have happily, very quietly must I say, collected your cheque without any reminder prompting you to consider whether or not you still need their services—because what company in their right mind would ever do that?

Right?

Anyway, you decide you want to make a change, so you start trying to cancel all the subscriptions you no longer need and requesting refunds. However, as soon as you start this long and treacherous journey, you’re met with AI chat bots who guide you to their help page that’s been littered with dozens of FAQs that won’t get you any closer to your refund or cancellation.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity of chatting to the bot, you’re connected to someone name Gurpeet who is probably somewhere out in India, or maybe the Philippines because, cheap labour, of course.

Gurpeet takes five minutes to write ten-word response and it feels like it’s his first time using a keyboard. He drills you with dozens of stupid questions, until you finally make it clear YOU DO NOT WANT THEIR SERVICE.

It makes you happy to feel like you’re finally making progress, so you quickly run off to the kitchen to grab a drink. However, on your return you realise your hotspot connected to your computer has disconnected.

You frantically reconnect hoping you didn’t lose Gurpeet. When your finally back online you see a new message.

“Looks like you may have stepped away and no longer need our help.”

Chat ended.

You’re frustrated, but you don’t give up.

It takes another thirty minutes to take down the bot and get another chance at the boss level against Gurpeet. This time you win, and your first refund begins processing.

You’re exhausted but you realise this is just the start. You look ahead and you can see offers to extend your subscription the moment you try cancel, cancel buttons hidden in the deepest parts of the site known to man, and every other dark pattern imaginable.

They haven’t made it easy down here, but you know you’ve got this, so you continue on your journey to reclaiming your dignity from these corporate leaches and take your $40 refund to buy some Satoshi’s.

It all adds up.