Summary

• Online and product subscriptions can quickly accumulate and result in hundreds of dollars or more in charges each month.
• Vanessa Wingårdh’s video, “The Subscription Trap”, highlights how companies have used subscriptions to guarantee ongoing revenue at the expense of consumers.

Cleaning House

Just recently, I got a notice that my yearly anti-virus subscription was renewed for (mumble, mumble) dollars and realized that I never did install it on my new mini pc, which is okay since the average user doesn’t really need third-party anti-virus software on Windows 11. That’s probably why anti-virus packages now include things like VPN services and other utilities. My laptop has Windows 11, too, so that subscription is going away.

Then, there was my Hulu / Disney subscription which seemed like a great idea a few months ago but there are so many options for streaming now that it’s incredibly easy to get distracted. Then, I realize that I haven’t even used the service for the past couple of months but I’m still paying $14.74 (with tax) each month.

The yearly Duolingo subscription had to go. It was a great idea but, good intentions aside, the fact is that I’m just not sitting down every day to study languages anymore than I’m going to the gym. Yeah, the gym membership also went away this month. It’s past time to admit that that part of my life is over. There are plenty of walking trails in the area and I have a rowing machine so there’s no reason to pay $30 / month to guilt myself every day for not using it.

The yearly subscriptions are the worst. We tell ourselves we’re saving money by paying for the entire year but we still pay more than we probably would when we have that monthly charge to remind us to cancel when we stop using the service.

For now, I’m good with the $5 / month Pandora subscription which I actually use and through which I’ve discovered a lot of music. The $5 ElevenLabs subscription that I use for generating video voiceovers is well worth it although I really need to get on the stick and make more videos. Sadly, I can’t quite get myself to cancel Amazon Prime either so, between those three, that’s about $250 / year.

On YouTube …

Vanessa Wingårdh’s video, Subscription Scam: We’ve Been Tricked!, reminded me to check through my current subscriptions and I thoroughly recommend taking a few minutes to check it out. She provides a number of examples from other YouTubers who have discovered just how insidious the subscription trap can be and how easy it is to rack up hundreds of dollars in charges or more every year.

Also, I agree with Vanessa – what is the deal with the popularity of the Oura ring? That’s at least $350 for the ring plus $5.99 / month to let a company track your health metrics and feed you information you don’t really need and probably won’t check over the long-term. At least that was my experience with the Fitbit and that was a lot cheaper with no monthly fee.