The Subscription Maze: One Click to Join, Twenty to Leave
Illustration by Gemini. [1] Ninette K. Mwarania [i] One Friday evening after a long work week, Mary signed up for a seven-day free trial to stream a television series everyone was talking about. She made a mental note to cancel before the week was up, but life got in the way, and she forgot. Eight days later, her bank account was debited KES 9,800 for a full year's subscription. There was no reminder from the platform beforehand. She logged in to cancel, expecting it to be as quick as signing up had been. Instead, she was funneled through menu after menu, repeated confirmation prompts and offers designed to make her stay. It took her less than a minute to sign up and over twenty, spread across several days, to get her money back. Mary's experience is not an outlier. It is fast becoming a norm for digital platforms users. At the 9th Meeting of the UNCTAD Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Consumer Protection Law and Policy held in Gen...