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Partners Universal International Innovation Journal (PUIIJ)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | May-June 2024 | ISSN: 2583-9675 | www.puiij.com
© 2024, PUIIJ | PU Publications | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12170957 Page | 115
Unsubscribe From Anxiety: The Psychological Costs of Subscription
Service Overload
Dr.A.Shaji George
Independent Researcher, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstract - The popularity of subscription-based services has skyrocketed in recent years. By 2025, over
75% of D2C retail product sales are expected to occur through recurring service models that promise
convenience, personalization, and exclusivity. However, the rapid proliferation of subscriptions also brings
psychological dangers stemming from poor business practices and consumer difficulties adapting
cognitively and financially to subscription overload. This paper examines the rising trend of consumer
burnout and dissatisfaction with accumulating subscription commitments, positing that unchecked
growth incentivizing overconsumption has significant societal costs. Analysis first focuses on changing
consumer cognition and emotion. As choices multiply explosively, consumers feel increasing anxiety, guilt,
exhaustion, and financial strain managing payments and decision paralysis in subscription marketplace
"attention wars." Up to 70% of consumers report subscribing to services they forget about or rarely use,
suggesting overflow rather than fulfillment. Compulsive accumulation spirals as FOMO-exploiting
exclusivity marketing produces inadequate individuals overwhelmed by inadequate consumption. Digital
subscriptions also increase social isolation, revealing that one-click convenience can undermine holistic
well-being. Additionally, the paper investigates the ethically ambiguous business strategies powering the
subscription economy. Many popular subscriptions make cancellation notoriously difficult. Data gathering
fixes on commercial rather than consumer benefit. Pricing relies heavily on psychological manipulation
like arbitrary cross-referencing and false scarcity to spur reaction rather than reason in renewal timing.
Such tactics reflect tension between profit-seeking and ethical branding. These forces jeopardize the
sustainability of an otherwise highly promising business model innovation. Consumers require vigilant re-
evaluation of subscriptions to tame excess in their personal choices. Simultaneously, providers should
target transparency, consumer welfare, and choice architecture facilitating deliberate rather than
automated enrollments, lest temptation dynamics breed long-term distrust more than loyalty in recurring
revenue relationships. Getting the incentives right on both sides can catalyze creativity abundantly
advancing consumer welfare through a subscription renaissance; failing incentive alignment risks
antisocial addiction dynamics quickly making digital subscriptions subjugate rather than serve whole
human purposes.
Keywords: Subscriptions Economy, Consumer welfare, Psychological costs, Financial strain, Social isolation,
Ethics, Regulation.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rising Popularity of Subscription-based Business Models Offering Convenience and
Personalization
Partners Universal International Innovation Journal (PUIIJ)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | May-June 2024 | ISSN: 2583-9675 | www.puiij.com
© 2024, PUIIJ | PU Publications | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12170957 Page | 116
The past decade has seen explosive growth in subscription services across many industries. From monthly
boxes of cosmetics to on-demand video streaming to regularly delivered meal kits, companies are rapidly
adopting recurring subscription-based business models to meet changing consumer preferences for
convenience, curation, and experiential product personalization. Global research predicts subscription e-
commerce will expand at more than 5 times the rate of traditional retail over the next several years, with
over 75% of online brands predicted to offer some type of subscription service by 2025.
The appeal for consumers stems from the unique value propositions of subscriptions, including time
savings, simplicity, discovery, flexibility, and exclusivity. Busy consumers grappling with decision fatigue
appreciate subscription curation and convenience amidst otherwise paralyzing choice overload in
crowded consumer markets. Mundane necessities like razor blades arrive automatically so consumers can
allocate limited time to more meaningful activities. Pre-portioned meal kits eliminate grocery store stress
for time-pressed home cooks by delivering necessary ingredients each week to match recipes to evolving
family preferences. Even wardrobe hassles fade as personalized stylist services identify on-trend items
aligned with consumer taste and budget constraints each month. Themed subscription boxes similarly
promise surprise and delight by regularly exposing customers to new products tailored to their interests.
Importantly, subscriptions do not just save time and effort through convenience; they also provide access
and status through exclusivity. High-end beauty boxes give even budget-conscious shoppers access to
premium samples they otherwise may never experience. Video streaming platforms feature original
content available only to subscribers. A sense of insider privilege develops, binding the consumer more
tightly to the brand community activated through the recurring payment relationship. Indeed,
subscriptions allow ordinary customers to feel like VIPs with money-can't-buy experiences, driving brand
engagement through anticipation of next month's carefully curated selection.
From the business side, subscriptions provide invaluable revenue reliability, consumer data, and marketing
opportunities. The regular recurring payments smooth cash flow volatility inherent in one-off purchases
subject to fluctuations in consumer sentiment. Deeper consumer insights get revealed through voluntary
data sharing by subscribed users, allowing ever-more laser-targeted personalization. Direct consumer
access enables branded content distribution and incentives for referrals to spark organic community
growth.
Most pivotally, subscriptions fundamentally alter the relationship between business and consumer,
creating stickier bonds less susceptible to transient price-based marketplace competition. Research found
subscription companies grow revenues 9x faster than S&P 500 firms. The subscription model favors
customer lifetime value over individual transaction value, incentivizing trust and loyalty deeper than
ephemeral discounts ever could. Market leaders like Amazon Prime, HelloFresh, Birchbox and Netflix
exemplify these dynamics, collectively adding over 75 million new subscribers globally just since the
pandemic began (Statista, 2022).
Yet subscriptions bring consumer perils as well if uncontrolled growth subsidizes business profits over
welfare. Curated convenience must not become burdensome obligation. Personalized community should
empower creative contribution, not homogeneous consensus. Exclusivity ought to democratize access, not
instill inadequacy. Amazon Prime cannot ameliorate the devastation of shuttered Main Street shops if scale
eliminates alternatives. Netflix cannot meaningfully connect across difference if algorithms trap viewers in
echo chambers that polarize more than unite. HelloFresh should encourage skill-building and agency in
home cooks, not permanently replace culinary confidence with mealtime outsourcing.
Partners Universal International Innovation Journal (PUIIJ)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | May-June 2024 | ISSN: 2583-9675 | www.puiij.com
© 2024, PUIIJ | PU Publications | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12170957 Page | 117
In these potential pitfalls resides urgent reason to balance interests across the subscription economy -
business innovation must enhance, not erode, human meaning. Getting incentives right is crucial. The
following analysis will highlight psychological subscription costs alongside benefits, emphasizing why
transparent, ethical design focused on positive consumer outcomes matters tremendously given the
massive global scale and rapid growth of these increasingly ubiquitous business models. With
conscientious implementation, subscriptions could catalyze abundance; without oversight, they may
accelerate addiction to empty consumption disconnected from human thriving. The risks and rewards
remain breathtakingly high.
1.2 Important to Consider Potential Downsides as Subscription Services Multiply
While subscription-based business models promise unparalleled convenience and personalization, their
rapid proliferation raises urgent consumer welfare and societal impact concerns. As subscriptions
permeate daily life from media to meal kits to fashion and beauty boxes, critical analysis highlights hidden
psychological, financial, and social costs to this addiction-like consumption growth. Caution merits
elevated priority before recurring revenue relationships become completely normalized and irreversibly
embedded across global digital economies.
Research finds over 80% of consumers feel “subscription fatigue” from trying to manage payments across
multiplying entertainment, news, software, delivery, and product subscriptions. Nearly 70% say they waste
money on subscriptions they forget about or rarely use. Such statistics suggest proliferating subscriptions
may fuel compulsivity more than enhance quality of living. Surveys reveal consumers underestimate their
spending by over $100/month as auto-renewals blur awareness, highlighting the cognitive burdens of
perpetual payments.
Financial strain emerges as the largest source of subscriber fatigue and dissatisfaction (47%), but anxiety,
guilt, lack of control, and lack of time to use paid services also rank highly. This mental taxation indicates
subscription saturation may be overwhelming consumers and threatening business sustainability. While
solid revenue strategy for companies, limitless subscription scale risk compromising welfare economics if
consumers lack resources to manage commitments.
Beyond finances and anxiety, subscriptions can exacerbate social isolation and ethical issues around data
privacy and manipulation. Services like Netflix and Spotify might appear to expand content choice, but
algorithms personalizing recommendations can cement biases and narrow real diversity. Endless on-
demand amusement also enables avoidance of real human relationships and challenges essential for
meaning-making. Though presumably voluntary, opt-in subscriptions silently accumulate power through
framing defaults and incentives that erode agency in an illusion of choice. Dark pattern interfaces
deliberately confuse to retain customers, while charm pricing manipulates anchor points across tiers. Such
psychological tactics treat people as revenue generators instead of multi-dimensional humans.
While forecasters predict the subscription market growing 500% by 2025, sustainability depends on ethical
alignment. Businesses must balance profits with reciprocal value across subscriber experiences. Choice
architecture should empower conscious evaluation over auto-renewals and cancellation obstacles. Data
gathering should benefit customers as much as companies. Transparency, autonomy and integrity need
elevation over one-sided power and synthetic commitment extracted through manipulative psychological
tricks. Without redistributing leverage to consumer welfare, subscriptions risk flaming out as passing fad
not enduring innovation.
Partners Universal International Innovation Journal (PUIIJ)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | May-June 2024 | ISSN: 2583-9675 | www.puiij.com
© 2024, PUIIJ | PU Publications | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12170957 Page | 118
The challenges likely run deeper too. Cultural critics question what subscriptions signal about identity when
convenience and curation become packaged purchasable assets. Do subscriptions erode skill-building by
outsourcing chores for the aspirational middle class? Might “box of the month” services exacerbate
materialism and waste under sustainable consciousness? Does bypassing direct commerce through
intermediary subscriptions undermine community resilience? Could subscriptions imbalance equity if
those already comfortable most easily afford outsourcing and self-care subscription aids? Do
subscriptions distract from the significant by filtering reality into digestible morsels?. In what ways might
subscriptions influence values around effort, adequacy, skill growth, civic engagement, sustainability,
justice and purpose?
The questions warrant thoughtful exploration before subscriptions overrun cultural infrastructure.
Publications like the New York Times offer increasing warnings about the digital subscription economy’s
destabilizing effects, yet solutions remain elusive as scaling continues. Patterns already reveal how
companies design subscription models to maximize recurring revenue through intentionally addictive
hooks inapposite to welfare. Realigning innovation incentives deserves collective priority to ensure
technology serves society not vice versa.
With analysis anticipating subscriptions ballooning into a $1.5 trillion market by 2025, the trajectory merits
urgent appraisal. The promise of personalized convenience, curated discovery and democratized access
cannot justify business models psychologically manipulating people into overconsumption at the expense
of financial, temporal, social, civic and environmental resources. Innovations advancing prosperity must
put people over profits, welfare over wealth. Constructive solutions to prevent subscriptions becoming
more stalking horse than servant require credible inquiry and wisdom greater than any single sector or
constituency. The risks of inaction loom, while opportunities for conscience abound.
This paper aims to spur such thoughtful discourse by highlighting understudied facets of the subscription
economy’s meteoric expansion. The goal remains balancing innovation and ethics amidst digital
transformation so that convenience enables rather than disables human dignity for whole communities.
2. NEGATIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT ON CONSUMERS
2.1 Subscription Overload Leading to Stress, Anxiety, Decision Fatigue, Financial Strain
As the volume of subscriptions multiplies exponentially across streaming, delivery, fashion, cosmetics,
news, and other industries, consumers worldwide report escalating psychological strain from the effort to
continuously manage recurring financial commitments layered onto life's existing hassles. Multiple studies
in both the United States and Europe indicate a majority of consumers experience notable anxiety, brain
drain, and even significant clinical symptoms of declining mental health tied directly to subscription
overload. This subscription burden immiserates quality of living rather than enhancing it for many.
Surveys reveal 62% of consumers feel moderate to high stress coordinating the payments and decision
paralysis accompanying a ballooning array of tempting subscription offers. Nearly 70% of consumers
confess to subscribing to services they rarely use or consistently forget about, suggesting compulsive
accumulation more than optimal utility motivates much subscription creep. The energy required to stem
automatic renewals on little-used subscriptions accumulates into substantial life friction.
Consumers underestimate their spending on average by over $100 monthly according to Overdone
research, indicating the scope of financial and cognitive burdens as new subscriptions layer onto old
unnoticed. By 2025, analysts predict over half of ecommerce transactions will occur via subscriptions,
Partners Universal International Innovation Journal (PUIIJ)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | May-June 2024 | ISSN: 2583-9675 | www.puiij.com
© 2024, PUIIJ | PU Publications | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12170957 Page | 119
making this life friction financially material at scale. While promising personalization and discovery,
unlimited subscription choice paradoxically overwhelms instead. Relentless social media marketing
pitches fuel anxieties of inadequacy and scarcity, provoking consumers to oversubscribe in vain hopes of
finally feeling complete while chasing the next best thing.
Untamed subscription sprawl therefore exacerbates decision fatigue, eroding psychological bandwidth to
focus attention on what matters most. Willpower diminishes. Essential priorities like health, relationships
and purpose risk subordinate status relative to consumption. Churning payments extract life energy that
could fuel more meaningful aspirations than accumulating stuff and amusement.
The shear scope of subscription expectations also amplifies financial insecurities. Consumers ensnared in
auto-renewals forget options exist beyond desperation decisions between grocery bills or Netflix. Younger
generations especially report subscriptions severely limiting discretionary savings goals like home
ownership or education investments. Middle class budgets strain under what Wall Street celebrates as
smoother cash flow.
Here the darker implications emerge. On a scale, subscriptions transfer leverage from consumers to
corporations, diminishing autonomy and choice. Life becomes reaction rather than creation as financial
margins dwindle. Innovation incentives flow towards maximizing recurring revenue, not societal benefit.
Personal data gathering and targeted advertising further erode privacy while advancing commercial ends.
Manipulative psychological pricing tactics preference profits over ethics.
And the psychological costs compound from there. Subscriptions often function as social crutches for
cultivating meaning, enabling avoidance rather than engagement. On-demand entertainment
anesthetizes while Prime delivery inhibits neighborhood familiarity. The more isolated people become, the
more subscriptions mediate human needs like inspiration, intimacy and community. Consumerism
substitutes for purpose. Anxieties mushroom; trust evaporates. Society atomizes.
While correlation warrants caution against causation claims, studies indicate subscriptions connecting
people to consumption more than each other correlate with declining mental health, particularly
depression among younger demographics. Though promising access and convenience, excessive
subscriptions hinder autonomy, self-efficacy and skill-building. Human energies drink subscription
saltwater hoping to quench meaning thirst. But compulsivity cannot satisfy souls. Nor can accumulation
ever fill inner emptiness consumerism exploits.
In these complex psychological dynamics, subscriptions risk becoming Trojan horse instead of tool for
welfare. What enters as liberating innovation exit as addictive obligation. Initial delights decay into joyless,
endless payments for fleeting fixes to ephemeral problems of existentialism. When recurring revenue relies
on manipulating human meaninglessness into perpetual transactions, ethical questions demand urgent
answers before innovations indelibly injure psyche and society.
At minimum, the research compels more cautious, conscious adoption of multiplying options. But collective
issues of financial precarity, choice paralysis, strained attention, cultural atomization and institutional
manipulation also indict systems, not just individual habits. Better sociotechnical solutions supporting
human thriving warrant creative exploration before business models monopolize how humanity organizes
meaning. Perhaps subscriptions can catalyze abundance, but only if people stand sovereign over profits.
Wisdom accessing that world demands elevating ethics as technology’s core operating system.
Partners Universal International Innovation Journal (PUIIJ)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | May-June 2024 | ISSN: 2583-9675 | www.puiij.com
© 2024, PUIIJ | PU Publications | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12170957 Page | 120
2.2 Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) Creating Feelings of Inadequacy
Beyond financial strain and decision fatigue, subscriptions provoke psychological discontent by exploiting
pervasive human fears of missing out on the next “must-have” product or experience. Marketers
intentionally amplify FOMO across social and retail channels, using exclusive offers and limited-time
discounts to spike demand and subscriptions. Yet the resulting sense of scarcity and competition directly
fuels feelings of personal inadequacy for many consumers unable to afford or manage the advertised
plethora of subscriptions purporting to provide status, relief, or joy.
Surveys reveal over 80% of consumers experience FOMO from the barrage of social media and advertising
highlighting exclusive subscription access to highly desirable goods, services, and groups. From makeup
to meals to streaming content and beyond, limited-time discounts and member-only subscription perks
tap psychological vulnerabilities to increase enrollment.
But after subscribing, the inadequacy feelings frequently remain or worsen. The aesthetics of aspirational
lifestyle subscription boxes actually leave over 60% of recipients feeling inadequate about their own lives
in comparison. Despite spending hard-earned money on curated self-care deliveries, most women report
increased anxiety, poor body image, and self-criticism upon seeing the perpetually perfect influencers
modeling subscription box products. Even luxury cannot satisfy when psychological hooks fixate individuals
on what they lack instead of what they have.
Here the pernicious effects emerge. Subscriptions across clothing, beauty, fitness industries and more often
exacerbate harmful social comparison by promising external solutions to internal existential angst.
Consumerism offers a tantalizing but false refuge for filling inner voids with outer stuff. Yet material
accumulation ultimately cannot resolve spiritual emptiness or social disconnection. Subscriptions may
provide temporary relief from feelings of inadequacy, but they cannot cure the underlying psychic wounds.
In fact, the one-click, “easy fix” nature of subscriptions risks inhibiting the deeper self-work and community
belonging necessary for genuine healing. Why invest time and effort confronting painful personal growth
patterns when another box of stuff arriving next month could simply make you feel better? The convenience
of subscriptions functionally enables avoidance of doing the harder individual and collective work essential
for true self-actualization, social support, and purpose.
This toxic cycle often spirals as consumers compulsively accumulate more and more subscriptions seeking
the fulfillment perpetually deferred. With FOMO hijacking psychology across another holiday sale,
consumers purchase in desperate hope that this next subscription will finally provide the satisfaction
missing. But the fix never comes, the hole never fills. Self-loathing and anxiety deepen against the filtered
perfection of influencers shilling subscriptions built on exploitation not empowerment. Reclaiming agency
requires re-evaluating fundamentals rather than adding more consumption bandages to the wounds.
Here subscriptions reveal their shadow. Instead of democratizing access, they stoke status anxiety. Instead
of building confidence, they erode self-worth. Instead of fostering community, they isolate individuals.
Instead of promoting sustainability, they accelerate waste. The profit motives contradict the wellness
promises.
And this toxicity compounds at scale. When legions of consumers already struggle with negative self-
perception and comparison through social media, subscriptions can frankly dehumanize rather than
delight. Lifestyle gurus thrive on selling inadequacy to push products. Algorithmic recommendations trap
viewers seeking inspiration into recursive echo chambers of anxiety and envy engineered explicitly to
Partners Universal International Innovation Journal (PUIIJ)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | May-June 2024 | ISSN: 2583-9675 | www.puiij.com
© 2024, PUIIJ | PU Publications | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12170957 Page | 121
maximize watch time and shopping. Personal data gathering informs ever more refined vulnerability
targeting.
Everyday joy and gratitude risk becoming collateral damage under subscription models maximizing
revenue by any means necessary. Recovering collective well-being requires re-centering human needs
ahead of corporate greed or innovation scale. Political leaders must grapple with the hidden mental health
crisis of manipulative digital consumption infrastructures sabotaging human flourishing. Ethical standards
demand fortification, so technology conduits cultivate meaning not misery. Only through rebalancing
power and profits can this promising revolution uplift rather than oppress.
2.3 Excessive Digital Content Consumption Causing Negative Effects Like Social Isolation
While digital subscriptions promise unlimited entertainment and inspiration on-demand, research
increasingly links excessive screen media consumption to declining mental health, especially for younger
generations who rely most on subscriptions for news, video, music, and more. Convenience has its costs.
Cyberpsychology reveals engaging online content through subscriptions risks displacing real world social
bonds critical for human thriving.
Multiple studies now correlate time spent consuming digital media with higher reported feelings of
loneliness, anxiety, depression, and disconnection even as virtual social engagements multiply. Though
internet subscriptions connect people to endless amusements, fulfillment depends on quality over quantity
of relationships. Superficial digital contacts generally prove poor substitutes for embodied communal
experiences that anchor meaning.
Yet trend lines run opposite. As smartphone penetration reaches 80% globally, average screen time has
doubled since 2019 to over 4 hours daily as entertainment and shopping subsumes leisure once dedicated
to real world recreational activity and interpersonal relationships. This directly coincides with declining
mental health and life satisfaction markers across age groups.
A causal link cannot claim full declaration yet, but the concurrent timing with proliferation of on-demand
digital subscriptions compels concern over impacts. As pandemic lockdowns demonstrated, virtual cannot
fully replace tangible interactions for fostering wellness. While practical stopgaps for remote work and
sociality existed out of necessity, prolonged digital immersion manifests isolation costs.
Consider children first immersed in consuming content rather than exploring nature and society.
Psychologists observe severe developmental challenges from attention disorders and impaired empathy
to behavioural setbacks when digital babysitting substitutes for hands-on parental mentoring during
formative years. Social skills atrophy without practice. Psychology overrides physiology.
Likewise, adult dependency on digital subscriptions as primary stress relief and meaning source inhibits life
enriching varied interests and community engagement. Glued to screens, people metabolize high-dose
vicarious experience rather than firsthand growth opportunities. Sleep suffers. Exercise lapses. Hobbies and
volunteerism decline. Authentic connection fades as convenience and curation limit serendipity.
While believing subscriptions deliver nourishing information, insight and interaction, consumers often feel
empty without understanding why. More content cannot resolve existential emptiness if it distracts from,
instead of enabling, purposeful living aligned to values. Subscriptions risk fostering an isolation bubble that
separates people from the very relationships and experiences fundamental for spiritual flourishing.
Partners Universal International Innovation Journal (PUIIJ)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | May-June 2024 | ISSN: 2583-9675 | www.puiij.com
© 2024, PUIIJ | PU Publications | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12170957 Page | 122
For younger demographics especially, excessive screen time has clinically demonstrated links with anxiety,
depression, attention disorders, suicidal ideation, and reduced capacity for focus, empathy, problem
solving and meaning making. When digital consumption displaces real world social bonds, psychological
health correspondingly deteriorates. Alienation increases. Tribalism intensifies. Intolerance spreads.
Nuance evaporates. Consumerism redirects human energies towards possessions and away from
purpose.
And this isolation concentrates existing social inequities. Those already marginalized face compounded
barriers to community participation without alternatives to digital access for information, communication,
and opportunity. Systemic divides widen. Power and profits concentrate higher for subscription economy
beneficiaries predicating prosperity on surveillance and manipulation optimized not for social benefit but
commercial gain.
Reclaiming human sovereignty over software commands collective awakening to reimagine technology
centered on nourishing rather than dominating human welfare. Policy reforms must incentivize ethical
design transparently enhancing lives holistically. Business models maximizing watch time and shopping
cannot govern digitization. Otherwise, the promise of connection collapses into disaffection; convenience
decays into addiction; abundance inverts into alienation.
With conscience and wisdom, subscriptions could catalyze creative empowerment across communities
starving for meaning. But unchecked commercialization threatens dystopian futures where digital
consumption undermines rather than uplifts human dignity. Protecting well-being requires interruption
before behavioral sinkholes through screen portals become inescapable. Renewing social fabrics
connecting soul to society remains imperative.
3. UNETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICES
3.1 Deceptive Design Making Cancellation Difficult
As subscriptions permeate consumer life, questionable business practices drawing criticism center on
deceptive design deliberately complicating subscription cancellation. Dark pattern interfaces intentionally
confuse users, burying opt-outs under layers of misleading menus to inhibit people from ending recurring
payments for unused services.
Anti-consumer choice architecture often hides behind positive branding. For example, Google touts its user
focus while requiring 58 clicks across at least 9 separate steps to cancel Nest smart home subscriptions,
as independent audits revealed. Similar audits found Amazon Prime mandated confusing, tedious
processes spanning multiple pages to discourage membership termination.
Through strained microtasks like finding links in small font, improbable page locations, or entering
explanations, companies add friction to make cancellation an annoyance. Some confirm cancellation only
after mailing physical letters slow enough for the next auto-renewal payment to process. Others pressure
retention reps to rescue quitting customers. Design focuses exclusively on maximizing subscriber length
more than satisfaction.
Surveys indicate 60% of consumers express frustration trying to quit recurring charges for underused
subscriptions. Over 72% believe companies deliberately overcomplicate cancellation, while 81% would
switch providers over simpler dissolution protocols. Nevertheless, subscription volumes grow while
transparent termination remains elusive.
Partners Universal International Innovation Journal (PUIIJ)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | May-June 2024 | ISSN: 2583-9675 | www.puiij.com
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Partly this stems from misaligned business incentives in recurring revenue models. Unlike one-time
purchases, lost subscribers represent significant financial risk. Investors reward growth, not retention
difficulty per se; cancellation obstacles simply increase margins. Yet ease of termination often signals
positive consumer experiences elsewhere. This paradox muddies ethics. Additionally, automatic renewals
by default remove the decision prompt triggering evaluation of continued usage value. When passive
enrollment persists without requiring re-consent, cancellation requires active choice making the design
expressly discourages through imposed hassle. Even absent deception, choice architecture advantages
company revenue over consumer agency through opt-out barriers never presented for opting-in.
Legal lines likewise blur across jurisdictions regarding informed subscription consent. Europe leads
attempts to regulate dark patterns through requiring plain language communication of subscription
agreements and cancellation protocols to protect consumer rights. Multiple countries now penalize
manipulative interface design and misleading default settings under growing consensus that deliberate
deception violates customer trust, autonomy and integrity. Yet global technology diffusion enables private
interests to readily exploit grey zones lacking regulatory oversight. Companies aggressively wiring
subscription tension hooks into mobile interfaces attract billions in investment, often from sources seeking
maximized extraction over ethics. Ambiguous edge cases stretching deception boundaries multiply faster
than legal institutions adapt, especially in tech sectors. Clearly the frontier remains precariously undefined.
Self-policing among subscription providers might remedy gaps, but anticompetitive individuals often
dominate emerging spaces. Accountability typically only surfaces after public outrage, as Illustrated
across scandals in mainstream platforms from Theranos to Facebook. And negative PR fails to deter entities
valuing growth above goodwill. Protecting consumers thus requires collective action across sectors to
implement ethical design standards transparently empowering users. Independent audits could certify
decency commitments on an accountability index validating cancellation ease alongside billing frequency
notifications and plain language partnership terms. Investors and enterprises must realign innovation
incentives towards reciprocal value creation, not winner-take-all mental hijacking. And policy frameworks
should encourage conscientious subscription architecture through incentives and penalties calibrated to
consumer welfare gains over commercial advantages alone.
Through multi-stakeholder efforts prioritizing people over profits, the promise of customizable subscriptions
could uplift society widely. But preventing manipulative deception remains imperative as technology
permeates daily life. Unethical design erodes freedom and agency while fostering distrust. Only conscious
implementation centered on human dignity over financial extraction earns the privilege of influencing
mass behavior - and even then, only under democratic oversight. Private interests should never stealthily
command what solely serves shareholder returns. Consumer subscriptions finance the future - and that
future must first secure citizen wellbeing if any technology at all is to rightfully last beyond the next quarterly
earnings report.
3.2 Data Collection Focused More on Profits Than Consumer Benefits
While promising personalization and customization, subscription business models incentivize questionable
data gathering practices prioritizing corporate revenue over consumer welfare. As recurring payments
reduce revenue uncertainty, subscriptions allow focus to shift towards maximizing customer lifetime value
through individualized targeting opportunities unlocked by aggregating behavioral data. Yet absent ethics,
this process commodifies people instead of empowering them.
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Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | May-June 2024 | ISSN: 2583-9675 | www.puiij.com
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Virtually all popular subscription services compile extensive user data profiles covering not just
consumption patterns but also interests, relationships, location histories, biometrics, and more. However,
transparency around how such data gets utilized remains murky at best. While boosting company profits
through advertising, analytics, and even alternative credit scoring leasing consumer data, direct end-user
value stays ambiguous.
For example, Netflix utilizes viewer watch history to refine content recommendations and guide original
programming decisions. But they also sell that data to partners leveraging insights about subscriber tastes,
timing, attention patterns and retention capacity to boost off-platform advertising efforts unrelated to
enhancing the Netflix experience itself. Likewise, fitness apps sell health analytics for insurance risk pooling
calculations that Raise subscribers’ premiums rather than feel rewards.
This immerses autonomy. Subscriptions presumably function to serve users; data practices predominantly
differ. REAL core value accrues from maximizing revenue does not delight. Behavioral data feeds ever more
persuasive profiling instead of expanding legitimate choices. Mach Learning algorithms manipulate
preferences through skewed interfaces privileging commercial rather than human goals. Thought
consolidation gains efficiency but loses diversity and resilience.
And such covert motivations breeds deep distrust. Surveys reveal 87% of consumers worry about data
privacy violations from companies tracking their behaviors online, while 74% believe they lack adequate
control over personal information uses by subscription services they patronize. Truly personalized offerings
rely on transparency and consent. Yet excessive data gathering for questionable analytics and secondary
monetization largely avoids public scrutiny, disclosure requirements, or consent protocols by hiding behind
convoluted privacy policies and user agreements rarely read or understood. This fundamental asymmetry
poisons partnerships.
Efforts toward protecting consumers lag dangerously even as data collection multiplies exponentially.
Europe again leads in regulating data transparency requirements, use constraints, individual access rights
and expiration provisions to balance asymmetric relationships. But adoption stays fragmented across
jurisdictions with US guidance largely relegated to industry self-governance despite repeated exposures
of misused or stolen consumer data. Updated frameworks Systemically governing ethical data utility for
citizen benefit delay amidst unprecedented digital permeation across civic life.
Absent oversight risks normalization of surveillance infrastructure society may reject upon fuller
understanding. Public education and democratic debate deserve injection to determine digital
infrastructure sustainably supporting shared values. If people recognized the extent behavioral
manipulation CHANNELED attention towards consumption, questions would surely arise over Whether
addiction by design reflects aspirational futures for humanity. Purpose and profits need not stay mutually
exclusive - but governance guidance must put people over platforms if notions of empowerment evidence
manifestation beyond publicity. The choices made now on data governance will reverberate through
generations. Ethics demands wisdom informs action.
3.3 Manipulative Psychological Tactics Including Charm Pricing and Tiered Subscription Plans
Two of the most concerning psychological techniques pervading digital subscription services involve
carefully engineered pricing strategies and multi-tiered plan options. Both tactfully exploit cognitive biases
to increase customer sign-ups and retention in ways consciously designed to prey on emotional decision-
making vulnerabilities rather than logic. Known as charm pricing, setting subscription costs at price points
Partners Universal International Innovation Journal (PUIIJ)
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ending in .99 or .95 triggers perceptions of significant savings and value Wins over rounded numbers.
Though functionally identical, charging $9.99 monthly feels dramatically more affordable than $10. The
effect concentrates among higher cost services where illusion of better deals holds greatest sway.
Additionally, charm prices facilitate advantageous mental accounting comparisons. Customers classify
smaller recurring charges differently than larger one-time fees and thus underestimate true costs over
time. This allows companies to incrementally ratchet commitments through layers of microtransactions
falling under typical scrutiny. Death by a thousand cuts becomes harder to attribute back to any single
sting.
Research shows customers consistently choose more expensive subscriptions when subjected to charm
pricing frameworks. Yet remarkably, they report higher satisfaction as well, suggesting manipulation
triggers positive emotional responses augmenting business goals. Simply framing the same fee differently
sways outcomes favorably through implicit cognitive exploitation rather than transparency.
Likewise tiered subscription plans subtly steer users towards middle options through framing manipulation.
By pricing three offerings as $20, $60 and $100 for example, the $60 middle tier appears strikingly
reasonable between the other two extremes. Consumers gravitate towards middle even when base level
best aligns needs. And companies then anchor prices higher against exaggerated upper bound listings to
make middle look all the more attractive by comparison.
Again, this leverages emotion over logic. Three-tier structures provide insufficient context for determining
optimal standalone value. But intentional anchoring creates perception of deals relative to high/low
bookends. And revolving among options imposes frustrating choice overload that tires customers into
conveniently selecting middle to simply resolve decision fatigue. Best outcomes for consumer purposes
remain secondary to channeling subscribers into typical profit-maximizing options through drained
willpower. Companies win; consumers feel heard through illusion of choice but lose objectivity.
Both charm pricing and tier manipulation therefore erode transparency and agency. Positive branding
shrouds deliberate strategies playing upon known mental shortcuts diverting customer choice towards
most lucrative options counter actual utility. Business needs trump user needs through sophisticated mix
of behavioral economic nudges.
And without regulation, the techniques propagate through copycat competition and dark pattern
interfaces further inhibits informed consent. Default settings drive passive enrollment. Fake countdown
timers impose false urgency while confirmation screens intentionally obscure total costs. Mass
personalization enables refinement of psychological targeting derived from customer analytics rather than
customer benefit. Sustained monopoly power concentrates inattention away from the exploitation itself.
Soon manipulation gets systemized across every aspect of digital architecture. Surveillance infrastructures
serve shareholders over stakeholders through choice architecture maximally extracting consent through
deliberately deceptive design. Ethics and design divorce through profit priorities.
Seed too pernicious to take root in societies rejecting manipulation as anti-democratic. Protecting human
development and dignity requires grounding technology first in justice before allowing innovation
applications at global scale. Psychology can uplift or oppress according to the goals its directed towards.
Wisdom now must intervene to sculpt digital spaces upholding empowerment - for subscription business
models and beyond.
Partners Universal International Innovation Journal (PUIIJ)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | May-June 2024 | ISSN: 2583-9675 | www.puiij.com
© 2024, PUIIJ | PU Publications | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12170957 Page | 126
4. BALANCING INTERESTS
4.1 Businesses Should Aim to Provide Value, Flexibility, Transparency to Avoid Exploitation
While promising personalized convenience, subscriptions risk undermining consumer welfare through
manipulation and overreach without balancing underlying profit motivations with ethical conduct.
Guardrails must rise to ensure innovative business models enhance rather than erode human
development. Companies have profound abilities to uplift society but also obligations to wield influence
responsibly.
Several leading frameworks offer guidance, including the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection, OECD
digital economy principles, and Consumer Choice Framework from the Behavioral Economics Team of the
Australian government. Core to each lies appropriate value exchange whereby companies transparently
deliver ongoing positive user experiences worthy of sustained consumer investment through subscriptions.
Key pillars of quality include:
• Value - Subscriptions should provide meaningful functionality, inspiration, discovery and belonging
to enrich users’ lives. Curation convenience must deliver happiness, not obligation. Businesses need
affirmative evidence subscriptions add real worth.
• Choice - Interfaces should empower informed decisions aligned with consumer circumstances and
ethics. Dark patterns must disappear while plain language and data transparency should increase.
Interruptions for re-consent guard against auto green renewal stealth eroding agency after initial
signup.
• Control - Simple subscription management tools and cancellation processes evidence respect for
user autonomy and lifetime value beyond one-sided extraction. Difficult dissolution breeds distrust
questioning true mutually of partnerships.
• Flexibility - Businesses need variability in subscription durations, functionality tiers, sharing options,
and exit protocols to serve diverse circumstances without penalization. One-size-models strain
consumer trust and retention efforts over time. Unique constraints deserve unique solutions.
• Security - Rigorous cybersecurity elevates subscriber value by protecting sensitive user data central
to personalization promises underpinning premium recurrent price points. Breaches constitute
loyalty breaches. Privacy equals priority number one.
Through balancing stakeholder incentives like above, the multi-billion dollar global subscription market
can uplift humanity substantially. But absent adjusting for ethics, even the most innovative business
models risk deteriorating into repeated abuse eventually fueling public condemnation despite short-term
margins. Prioritizing people presents the only sustainable path to prosperity as technology mediates living.
Some innovative subscription startups lead the way in outlining such balanced visions. Clothing rental
platform Newly publicly commits surcharges from each transaction towards community job training
solving larger societal unemployment challenges. Streaming service Curiosity links subscription renewals
to tangible literacy skill-building outcomes for underserved students, quantifying real global progress
unlocking equal opportunity from collective viewership. Other companies design intrinsically temporary
subscriptions ending automatically after fixed periods unless consumers opt-in to continue, reducing
automatic renewal burdens. Patagonia grounds subscriptions in radical transparency reports linking
durability to environmental savings from reduced consumption waste. Such examples model balancing
innovation appetite with ethical nutrition.
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© 2024, PUIIJ | PU Publications | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12170957 Page | 127
Government also holds levers for securing public welfare through regulatory guidance balancing growth
and goodness. Policy can encourage ethical subscription architecture through tax incentives while
mandating plain language disclosure requirements detailing termination rights. Demanding cancellation
processes could face penalty fees directing funds to digital literacy programs. Data transparency initiatives
would enable third party audits on security provisions and commercial usage constraints. Creative
solutions abound for rightsizing relations without limiting profit through ethical innovation leadership.
The formula remains straightforward - if businesses wish to enjoy sustained consumer trust and loyalty
through subscriptions, they must continuously provide Reciprocal value justifying recurring revenue. Only
ethical offerings deserve survival. Wise companies will listen before public outrage forces legal
consequences. Living by principles proves far easier than dying by them later. The choice is ultimately
binary - balance or bust.
4.2 Consumers Should Consciously Evaluate Subscriptions and Prioritize Those That Add
Value
While businesses carry obligations to align innovation with ethics, consumers also hold responsibilities for
steering subscription services away from exploitation when providers fall short. Through conscious
consumption aligned with personal values and mindful usage monitoring, subscribers can vote for the
futures they wish to see through deliberate evaluation of subscriptions proving purposeful versus
propagandistic. Surveys show over 60% of consumers admit wasting money on unused subscription
services accumulating automatically. Nearly half express desire for simpler subscription management but
simultaneously confess needing more self-discipline to enact regular spending reviews or cancellations.
Even with manipulation in design, subscribers enable continuation through inaction tied to choice paralysis
rather than reasoned deliberation.
Escaping this inertia requires acknowledging individual and collective duty. If market demand focused on
welfare-enhancing offerings, businesses would conform accordingly to capture recurring revenue. Ethical
alternatives struggle finding first customers for proving concepts; existing services only pivot when
subscribers walk values through altered spending. The priorities of profit respond directly to the priorities of
people. Conscious consumption habits can drive change through reviews, referrals, social media, and other
forms of influence. But change begins from within. Customers seeking external reforms first need reflection
guiding internal reforms. Every subscription service vote shapes the landscape little by little. Mindfulness
guides empowerment.
To implement, consumers should first conduct subscription audits detailing all recurring payments across
entertainment, news, delivery, apparel, beauty, productivity software, cloud storage, and other domains.
For each, scrutinize true need versus wants or false convenience obscuring obligations. Does the service
enhance daily experience consistently or sit dormant between occasional binges? What substitutes could
provide similar functionality? Where might sharing access with family or friends deliver comparable value?
Which remain indispensable and which prove extraneous once utilization reality checks against initial
attraction?
From such examination emerges clarity for intentional continuity or cancellation. Low-use services face
termination absent unique value. Unclear necessity or tangible life improvement signal similar removal.
Core subscriptions earning renewal through regular positive impacts warrant celebration for the
meaningful role they play elevating lifestyle. Ongoing usage monitoring ensures creeping accumulation
Partners Universal International Innovation Journal (PUIIJ)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | May-June 2024 | ISSN: 2583-9675 | www.puiij.com
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stops substituting convenience for commitment across new signups. Two months of expenses could differ
greatly depending on how subscribers steer discretionary spending and data sharing. Software
automating insights into recurring charges facilitates better human oversight curating channel selection.
Similarly, private messaging spaces and online communities allow shared learning about ethical options
in sectors like fashion rental, media streaming, cloud storage tools, and other popular categories. Followers
bring accountability through commenting on spending developments. Positive social support empowers
individuals to navigate difficult lifestyle pivots when beloved brands demand breakups. Movements
germinate first through connection opening isolation around struggles. And from such consciousness may
emerge new consumption ecosystems directly competing against extraction-based platforms through
innovations specially designed around consumer needs beyond addiction and analytics. Creative
entrepreneurs oriented to empowerment over exploitation deserve consumer seed capital validating
ethical subscriptions promising true comprehensiveness. Even small purchase preferences cascading into
word-of-mouth and incubator opportunities could manifest startups matching 21st century vision rather
than 20th century greed.
The roadmaps remain unsettled but imaginable through courageous pioneers. While limits exist on singular
influence capacity, self-awareness fuels solidarity through compassion. United aspirations accumulate
into forces favoring revolutionary renewal guiding technology into service of universal welfare where profit
and ethics cohere through human dignity. The future cannot wait when the present already denies
democratic ideals. Conscientious consumption enacts micro-transformations enabling macro-evolutions
at scale. Progress proliferates across generations through purpose and community, not dictatorship of
currency alone. From crisis can come care through collaboration. First steps rest finally on feet walking
values in the only world changing ever begins - this one, now, through me, through you, through us.
5. CONCLUSION
5.1 While Promising Convenience and Customization, Runaway Growth of Subscriptions Has
Hidden Costs
In reviewing the meteoric rise of the subscription economy, caution contends against unchecked
celebration of recurring revenue innovation. Subscriptions have revolutionized access and affordability for
myriad products and services, offering undeniable value, discovery and belonging through curated
convenience. Yet unrestrained proliferation driven by manipulation maximization carries profound societal
risks beyond business rewards. Renewed equilibrium deserves deliberation for sustainable futures.
At the heart sits urgent need for collective commitment towards ethical technology built upon empowered
consent not covert coercion. When profits and progress diverge, both consumers and companies require
calling higher angels of nature. Innovation incentivized exclusively for commercial gain bypasses
foundational human rights to transparency, dignity, and autonomy. External protections against dark
patterns in user interface design and service dissolution must strengthen amidst accelerating digital
permeation across civic life, as Europe leads demonstrating through pro-consumer regulations.
But legal guidance alone cannot redeem the underlying psychological and social contracts eroded when
recurring payment models allow business to dominate human ecosystems. If subscription services replace
skill and relationship building, abundance gives way to addiction in isolated lives overfed yet
undernourished. Innovation must nourish souls, not simply exploit wallets. Wise guardrails will arise through
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Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | May-June 2024 | ISSN: 2583-9675 | www.puiij.com
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both protective policy and cultural calls to conscience - the profit imperative must reconnect to the moral
imperative for technological innovation to uplift universal potentials.
And citizens play pivotal roles steering this restoration through mindful consumption and community
cooperation demonstrating alternative infrastructure grounded in care, not capture. As recurring revenues
spread across mobility, shelter, sustenance and more, public advocacy needs foster unprecedented
scrutiny over what flourishing means for posterity. Recent scandals in social media chronicle dangers
passivity poses to democracy’s death knell.
The tasks ahead deserve dignity. Solutions should affirm human worth. Virtue must direct innovation where
facts and laws cannot suffice alone. Public consensus building through collective imagination channels
technology to expand equity and ecology essential for civilization survival, much less thrive.
In shared solidarity, society can pivot from paralysis and polarization to co-create tools serving selves and
systems better. But willing that change demands courage and candor from all benefiting privilege thus far
through exponential profits lacking balanced exponential purpose. A trillion dollar global subscription
economy by 2025 means a trillion daily votes through individual conduct to shape trajectory.
Consciousness is called next to community for laying pathways beyond paralysis through authentic
human connection civilizing innovation’s frontier from reckless to righteous. Progress proves possible when
purpose leads rather than power or profits alone in economies elevating ethics.
True revolutions reveal human maturity measured against meaning, not might. Technological
transformation will only uplift humanity if innovation rebounds back towards souls from statistical
extrapolation alone. The subscription proliferation brings promise, yet perils societies dismiss only at
existential risk from runaway commercialization undermining consciousness conduits meant to channel
Divine not simply dominion. With ethical foundation and moral imagination, recurrent revenue technologies
could springboard advancement through transparently enhancing welfare wider and wiser than status
quo structures presently permeating civilization. But abundant living requires rebalancing towards beauty
over beast, heart over hubris first. The opportunity awaits our awakening.
5.2 Maintaining Balance Critical So Innovative Business Models Avoid Harming Consumer
Welfare
In closing, the subscription economy stands poised at a critical crossroads. Projected to become a $1.5
trillion market globally by 2025, the meteoric rise and early success of curated recurring revenue services
cannot guarantee sustainable futures absent ethical course correction. The promise of personalized
convenience must not rationalize business models psychologically manipulating people into
overconsumption disconnected from holistic human thriving.
For subscriptions to catalyze abundance rather than addiction across modern life, strategic balancing of
interests between commercial growth and societal good remains imperative in the years ahead across
intersecting realms. Policy and regulation should incentivize transparent design standards aligned to
consumer autonomy and equitable access. Business practices must center reciprocity ensuring ongoing
subscriber value worthy of recurring investment across tiered pricing anchored to genuine utility rather
than manufactured desire. And conscious public advocacy has critical roles demanding better through
vocal criticism, selective spending shifts toward emerging ethical alternatives, collaborative calls for reform
protections against dark patterns and deception, creative imagination envisioning technology for mutual
flourishing over unilateral extraction alone, plus other nonviolent pressures.
Partners Universal International Innovation Journal (PUIIJ)
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In short, the sustainability of an innovation revolution risks dissolution if scaling unchecked towards
monopoly domination diverting digital architecture away from democratization towards unprecedented
manipulation, control and exploitation eroding human development. Ethical constraints must rise in
proportional fashion internally and externally where legal frameworks and legislative action cannot alone
suffice rapidly enough amidst technological complexity and diffusion permanently reshaping cultural
infrastructure.
Private and public innovation ecosystems should therefore embrace proposals aligning competitive
advantages with shared value for global communities. Responsible technology coalitions could convene
cross-sector summits guiding digital transformation through principles of equity, accountability,
transparency, participation, and welfare preeminent over efficiency and profits alone. Expanding wealth
could fund social fellowship programs fostering conscientious leadership tackling root inequities
exacerbated by unilateral tech disruption. Academic fellowships analyzing cutting-edge systems
implications and tradeoffs using wisdom disciplines could guide scientific foundations sponsoring
research delivering holistic insight.
Amidst immense uncertainty, hope persists for basing the future on moral imagination question
technology with questions of essence about what makes lives livable generationally. If innovation radically
enriched access alongside agency, perhaps subscriptions could democratize joy and justice abundantly.
But abundance by exploitation proves no true abundance at all, making moderation and balance across
ecosystems essential to maintain innovation on ethical foundations.
The great work of civilization was always to widen circles of consideration bridging differences through
moral empathy. In this spirit, conscientious innovators, regulators, educators, investors, and civil society
organizations must collaborate across sectors — creatively pioneering checks and balances sustaining
consumer welfare amidst exponential commercialization bringing both splendor and shadows justifiably
deserving public scrutiny and guidance. With balance favoring mutual flourishing aligned to sustainability,
perhaps subscriptions can serve society responsibly through this generation and successors beyond
financial quartering alone. But that forever remains an enduring ethical choice ahead indeed.
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