From streaming services to exercise apps to dating site memberships, have you lost count of how many paid subscriptions you've signed up for?
If so, you're far from alone.
Research commissioned by ING Australia earlier this year found that on average, Australians are spending $1,261 a year on "unused subscriptions and forgotten outgoings".
Often, this is no accident. While signing up (free trial included!) can be a breeze, sometimes cancelling these subscriptions can be a confusing or borderline impossible process.
Calls have been growing for the government to step in to help stop Australians getting caught in a so-called subscription trap — and change may be on the way.
A multi-billion-dollar industry
Dr Louise Grimmer, a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Tasmania, says subscriptions have long been a feature of Australians' lives.
"We used to get our milk delivered — that was a subscription — also newspapers and magazines … but it's really exploded over the last decade," Grimmer tells ABC RN's Life Matters.
Grimmer says the "subscription economy" now has a global value of more than US$275 billion ($410 billion), a figure that's continuing to grow.
She says many local and international companies are "seeing that it's really powerful for them to try and lock in a continuing relationship with customers".
As well as subscriptions for digital products, like Netflix or the new and controversial Twitter Blue, there's now subscriptions for a range of physical products from pet food to toilet paper to clothing.
"We're seeing it now being rolled out across almost any kind of product or service that you can think of," Grimmer says.
'Dark patterns'
More Australians are finding themselves stuck in a subscription for much longer than they first expected.
"It's huge. In our research, we found that 76 per cent of Australians — so three out of four of us — have lost money because of an issue getting out of a subscription," says Erin Turner, the CEO of the Consumer Policy Research Centre.
"Some great businesses use subscriptions to give us value and give us things we want. But the issue comes when businesses try to use design to trick or trap us," she says.
Turner and other consumer advocates cite a list of 'dark patterns' that companies use.
"Dark patterns are essentially manipulative website designs. It's when a business uses its knowledge about human psychology and website design to get you to do what it wants, instead of what's good for you," she says.
Turner says the subscription trap is itself a dark pattern — whenever companies consciously make online subscriptions difficult to cancel, especially after reeling in users with a free trial.
But, crucially, she says businesses don't just use one dark pattern to lock us in, "they're layering them and they're making it much harder than it should be for us to get out".
She lists other dark patterns like "nagging or redirecting", where users are moved away from the task they want to complete.
Then there's the "confirm shaming" dark pattern where a user is shamed or guilted into choosing something in the company's interest.
"So if you go to cancel, you may have to click a button that says 'yes, I want to give up all of the value you give me' … [Companies can] introduce a lot of judgement into the process," Turner explains.
There's also the "false hierarchy" dark pattern, where, for example, there might be a large flashing button, saying 'keep my membership', but the cancellation button is tiny or practically hidden.
"[So] there's a point where it tips over into clearly unfair," Turner says.
The Amazon example
Consumer advocates have long pointed to Amazon — specifically its offshoot Amazon Prime — as an example of a particularly difficult subscription trap.
"Their unsubscription practices are notoriously bad," Turner says.
And it's been taken to task for this overseas.
Consumer groups complained to EU regulators about Amazon. So in 2022, the company changed so that EU customers could "unsubscribe from Amazon Prime with just two clicks, using a prominent and clear cancel button".
Not so in Australia — where it's still a more convoluted, multi-step process.
"They're using the old EU difficult-to-unsubscribe process [in Australia], even though it was found to be unfair … because we don't have the laws and protections here," Turner says.
An Amazon spokesperson told ABC RN that "customer transparency and trust are top priorities for us. By design we make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up for or cancel their Prime membership".
"We continually listen to customer feedback and look for ways to improve the customer experience."
Consumer law
So why are companies allowed to do this in Australia?
"Our consumer law just has a big gap," Turner says.
She says there are protections from misleading and deceptive conduct, or "laws stopping companies from lying to you".
There's also protections from unconscionable conduct, which prevents companies from doing "something so outrageous that it's morally reprehensible".
But there's nothing in between — so there's a huge grey area.
"[While] most other countries, like the EU, UK, Singapore, the US … have laws that stop companies using their power against us. I think that's what Australia needs."
Clamping down on unfair trading practices
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been calling on the government to clamp down on "unfair trading practices", including subscription traps, across industries.
"We have found [examples] where it's extremely easy and promoted to subscribe. But then either, there is absolutely no email connected in order to cancel, or the website does not allow it," ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb recently told ABC RN's Saturday Extra.
And she said there are examples where a phone number is provided for cancellation but, "sometimes the services don't have an Australian representative or it never gets answered".
While the terms and conditions may say you can cancel, "it's business practice — the way they operate — they don't resource, they create friction so that you can't cancel. And that's what we're looking for a law change about".
"We want a general unfair trading practices prohibition, which can capture these sorts of ways businesses engage with us … [when] the business practice deprives us from being able to exercise those rights that we should have."
Hotel California
The federal government is aware of the problem, with assistant minister for competition Andrew Leigh flagging it numerous times.
"Digital subscriptions are like the online equivalent of Hotel California. It feels like you can check out, but you can never leave," he said in a statement.
"The competition watchdog has shone a spotlight on these kinds of dark patterns and dodgy practices and the Albanese government is currently consulting on the best way to stop them … Being big isn't a licence to trick your customers," he said.
"Two specific proposals we're considering are a ban on unfair trading practices and platform-specific regulation."
'Which ones are you actually using?'
In the meantime, Grimmer has some tips for consumers.
"Conduct an audit … Make a list of all [your subscriptions], and then go through your credit card statement."
She adds that as some subscriptions are annual, consumers will need to go back over the year.
"If you add up what you're spending [annually], you might fall off your chair. And this is when you need to think about which ones are you actually using?"
Then try to cancel the unused ones, fighting the dark patterns along the way.
Grimmer also recommends creating a special email address specifically for subscriptions, so they're easier to track, and always making informed choices when signing up for new subscriptions.
"[For example], is there an alternative? Is there a free tool that I can access online where I don't have to sign up?"
She has one final warning: "Be aware of the insidious nature of the subscription economy in our lives."
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