Subscriptions can make users feel trapped, much like Admiral Ackbar, who got to the second Death Star and discovered its shields still fully operational and several Star Destroyers poised to ambush.
Lucasfilm
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Lucasfilm
Subscriptions can make users feel trapped, much like Admiral Ackbar, who got to the second Death Star and discovered its shields still fully operational and several Star Destroyers poised to ambush.
Lucasfilm
Over the past two decades, there’s been a sort of tectonic economic shift happening under our feet. More and more companies have switched from selling goods one by one to selling services, available as a subscription. These days everything from razor blades to meal kits to car washes have become subscriptions. But all that convenience has also come with a dark side – some companies have designed their offerings to be as easy as possible to sign up for and also as difficult as possible to cancel. Many consumers are now paying for way more subscriptions than they even know about.
On today’s show, we discover how we all fell into this subscription trap – who is winning and who is losing in this brave new subscription based world – and what both the government and the free market are doing to try and fix it.
This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Jeff Guo. It was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money‘s executive producer.
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Music: Source Audio – “Dizzy Doctor,” “Brooklyn Rhythm,” and “Jazz Club Beat.”
