Subscriptions Are Scamming You

Subscriptions are everywhere: streaming services, software, groceries, even the heating in your car. Companies have convinced us that subscriptions will make our life easier, give us access to way more than we could afford if we had to pay out of pocket for everything. And sure, that might be true, but what they don't want you to know is the real damage that's been done by the subscription economy. This is how subscriptions are poisoning Society.

The subscription pricing model has gained tremendous levels of traction in the digital age. Almost anyone can hop into the online space, create something, and slap on a subscription fee, often in pursuit of easy passive income. That's annoying, but not the primary concern of today's episode. Instead, we'd like to explore some shocking discoveries we've learned about subscriptions and reveal an emerging trend that threatens the very essence of the internet as Humanity's realm of discovery.

As we dive into the murky world of subscriptions, this episode also explores the powerful psychological tactics used by billion-dollar companies to create the perfect subscription loop. With information being heavily restricted by subscription paywalls, you'll learn the potential impacts that lie ahead of our society and what you can do to stall its effects.

Let's hop into the time machine for a bit: how did we get here, a place where every single service and product under the sun requires a monthly fee? Well, subscriptions certainly aren't new nor did they begin with Netflix or Spotify. Subscriptions have existed for centuries. Folks in the 1600s had their own share of the subscription craze. Now, obviously, this was just a matter of convenience. The newspapers realized that they could charge readers for weekly deliveries and, with no internet, it was a no-brainer for most people.

But with the rise of the digital age, things exploded. The early 2000s signaled what was to come, and we saw the rise of streaming platforms like Netflix, which originally started as a DVD rental by mail service, then slowly transitioned into streaming. Then came the next wave: music. We saw the rise of Spotify, Apple Music, and countless others. At that point, other industries began to perk up with keen attention, especially the software companies. Adobe was one of the biggest adopters, launching Adobe Creative Cloud in 2013, which shifted its products away from one-time purchases to a subscription-based model. Instead of paying once to own a product forever, you now need to pay monthly or yearly to access their tools. No options, no negotiations. And while you may not touch the new features, you're still subjected to the new order.

Fast forward to today, and it's not just limited to software or entertainment anymore. Subscriptions have found their way into every corner of our lives. It's actually fascinating how many there are: fitness apps, meditation apps, productivity tools, even car companies like BMW tried experimenting with subscriptions for heated seats in their luxury vehicles. Yes, heated seats.

Now let's dive into how these companies are able to keep you subscribed. This is where things start to get sneaky. Subscriptions rely on something psychologists call the sunk cost fallacy. Once you've paid for something, you're more likely to stick with it because you've already invested money, even if you're not using the service as much as you thought you would. Money and time are often the ultimate barter. It's a lot like how you're able to pay for a college degree, knowing that you're unsatisfied with your major. But what if it's your third year and you've already invested so much? You might as well keep things pushing instead of leaving for the unknown.

Now think about something as mundane in comparison to your college major: Netflix or Amazon Prime. An account for entertainment doesn't really seem like too much of a deal to leave the subscription active. How often do you renew the payment despite the months you weren't watching anything? It's not a coincidence that the sunk cost fallacy is so present. Subscription models are intentionally designed to create habit loops. They want you to incorporate their services into stuff like your daily routine, making them feel absolutely essential.

For example, on Spotify, users get personalized playlists that feel like they know your tastes better than you do. Or, on Netflix, the algorithm tends to recommend new shows the second you've completed a series. These tactics are designed to keep you glued to a platform or app and feel like an extension of your natural behaviors. It's like the service is doing all the thinking for you, and in an eerie way, they don't want you to be aware of them as a product.

And then there's the free trial trick. Almost every subscription service in existence now offers a 7-day, 14-day, or 30-day free trial. It's a foot in the door. As a company with millions in investments, it's no-brainer to take the initial loss on the road to higher acquisitions. These companies know that signing up is a huge barrier to entry—a hassle, even. Yet the allure of free supersedes convenience in our content-loving brains.

At the same time, the struggle of canceling a service, coupled with the fear of missing out on a new trendy show, digital tool, or album, creates another angle towards your inertia. Therefore, you're more likely to stick around longer than you initially intended. The key word here is inertia. Human beings are naturally averse to change, and once we get comfortable with services, despite when they aren't really adding value to our lives, it's extremely difficult to do away with them.

The subscription model isn't just about keeping you in a loop; it's actually about survival for businesses too. You might have heard about Tupperware, a company that became famous for revolutionizing food storage. They've been around way longer than most of us on the channel have been alive—hello, grandpas and grandmas! For decades, Tupperware was a household name known for its high-quality plastic containers. Nevertheless, Tupperware's once-glorious empire has crumbled, with it filing for bankruptcy in 2024, mainly because it failed to adapt to new business models. Times change, and the climate has to adapt.

Just a decade ago, every business on Earth swore by their data-driven models for whatever it was. Nowadays, it's AI-powered machine learning buzzwords. It's annoying, but in order to survive, you kind of have to get with the times. So would Tupperware have survived if they chose a pretentious subscription-driven model? Perhaps. Maybe a subscription-based reusable container program for eco-conscious customers or a smart Tupperware subscription connected to a mobile app that uses AI to track the freshness and availability of food in your home. I don't know—seriously, anything can be a subscription for most businesses. How shameless are you willing to be for investors? How much are you willing to burn for the promise of an IPO?

The idea of subscriptions is also tied deeply into a concept called economies of scale. This is when a business gets so big there's a negligible cost in producing a new unit of something. For example, Netflix has already spent millions producing and acquiring new content. The cash burn involved in adding a new subscriber is, in many ways, nothing, especially since the reward is a significant increase in profits down to the lowest tiered plan. The more subscribers they have, the better their profit margins. This model is essentially gold for companies; it's the best way to get them guaranteed predictable revenue for months on end.

With this model, businesses have little incentive to make their products better. Their main priority is to keep things good enough for you to look away when the charge hits your account. Think about it for a second: how many times have you seen a new update for a subscription service, and it doesn't actually feel like an improvement? Probably a lot. At this point, heads off to the user interface and product designers of Earth. The steady paycheck from a brand chasing a new and improved look is keeping the lights on for some great people.

So there is a little silver lining. A great example of this terrible practice, though, is the aforementioned Adobe. Prior to Creative Cloud, you could buy Photoshop for a couple hundred bucks. Nowadays, there's a $20 subscription per month for individual access. Sure, there's a 7-day free trial available and some student discounts, but the majority of users won't be enjoying those benefits for too long. Now, the price tag doesn't seem like much for some, but think about it over the span of 3 years. You'll be buying Adobe PS5 with an ultimate edition of a AAA game, plus a new controller.

To wrap things up, even worse, that's just from your pocket for Photoshop alone. Now imagine the plethora of talented artists or design agencies giving them down payments for a suite of tools that would have cost a one-time purchase just a decade ago. While Adobe offers a few tools for free, its signature products are locked behind subscription paywalls, making long-term use unnecessarily expensive. Seriously, I hate Adobe.

Things get more alarming once you realize just how corrupt the system has gotten. Subscriptions are now in areas that will perplex the biggest tech hopefuls of the dot-com boom. Want to read an article on a reputable news site? Paywall. An app to compartmentalize ideas? Paywall. The very fabric of the internet and how we engage with it is at risk. Discovery, learning, and exploration were once key attributes of the space. It used to be a place where information flowed freely, and nowadays, walls are going up, and information is locked behind subscription-based models.

With such a subtle yet powerful shift, it's scary to imagine where things might end up. Information, especially on a vital scale, is becoming increasingly locked within a series of closed fragmented platforms that are only open to those willing to pay. In the early days of the internet, there was a special type of excitement: one where typing a question into Google offered a treasure trove of information from people with unique ideas, perspectives, and philosophies. It was a wide-open library where knowledge flowed freely. Early YouTube reflected that exploratory aura. Every week, it felt like there was some new kid that brought a unique form of creativity to the internet. It was a templateless landscape.

Now that idealistic era is slowly fading, and paywalls are looking like a guilty suspect. One of the most alarming issues with paywalls is how they're able to restrict access to knowledge and even productivity resources. Today, the aforementioned Microsoft 365 and Adobe have services that are heavily limited by paywalls. Although these services do offer some basic functionality for free or through limited free trials, their most popular tools and fully featured services like Photoshop or Word are subscription-based.

Now, keep in mind, these are the most popular tools for popular tasks, like graphic design or office work for college-level students and professionals looking to create custom designs of reports. The free versions really won't cut it. Now, if you're a student or a low-income individual who wants to improve your situation by learning a skill, there are more holes in your pockets. Much of the news sources we visit are pretty questionable nowadays. The most prominent and influential media corporations we get our daily news from have subscriptions behind them. Are there free news outlets? Yeah, of course, but with a higher public trust and influence from bigger sources, it's embarrassing to witness the model being adopted at scale. We have The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and more.

A struggling schmuck doesn't even own these papers either—it's billionaires all the way around. Fact check to verifiable information locked behind a monthly fee? That's cool, I guess. Where else can people get their news? That's where anyone on the internet is free to consume unverifiable info from the flood of free disestablished sources. High-quality and reliable information is now considered a luxury. And it's not like there's a huge elephant in the room that's proudly named profit. Every business has to provide value. Even so, when journalists are working primarily to keep the lights on, how sensational will they get when content creators are presenting themselves as the news?

How much do they make for virality over truth? The goal of everything these days is to keep people coming back for more. Aperture isn't immune. Close to a year ago, we made a video highlighting how Aperture is essentially boring compared to the numbers game landscape of today. It's not an easy job to create a brand and maintain integrity in today's landscape. Yet, having said that, it is possible to stay true to your philosophy without becoming an embarrassing caricature of your former self.

There was a time when the internet was best described as the information superhighway, and that's because resources, data, and ideas could flow freely from person to person or site to site. Today, it's like tollgates exist for every two miles. There's a problem with being limited to platforms you're subscribed to. If you're on Disney Plus, you're not consuming Netflix content and vice versa. The same thing is going on with news, research papers, and social media platforms that charge for premium features. Want to be the person at the top of extra replies? Pay for X premium. It's all a vicious cycle. If creators, journalists, or independent developers want to be seen, their best bet is to join a platform with paid subscriptions. In the process, they might lose ownership of their work. Sure, but if content is hidden behind paywalls, fewer people would see it anyway, forcing creators almost to rely on subscriptions a lot more.

Let's talk about subscription fatigue. This is a term that's becoming more relevant as people grow weary of managing subscription fees. At first, these services were seen as a convenient and affordable option over purchasing individual items, but now there's way too many services demanding monthly payments, and it's kind of overwhelming. This is where subscription fatigue sets in: a feeling of being drained by a lot of recurring charges. And when they start to add up, you're paying for hundreds of dollars of things that you only ever use 10% of in a month.

Think about it: one Netflix show is a speck in the entire library. As a diehard Radiohead fan, you know you're not listening to anything else on Spotify, and yet these payments still feel like a need. Many subscriptions also don't offer clear or easy ways to cancel, with dark patterns or tricky interfaces and hidden menus. You're probably backtracking out of the labyrinth at the first sign of confusion. The worst companies tend to require users to call customer service to cancel. I hate them.

Many people deal with gym memberships like Planet Fitness, where cancellations are an entire CIA operation for some users. For others, canceling a membership requires an Academy Award-winning A24-produced script. It could have all been so simple. What happened to the buttons? Premium features are another frustrating aspect of paywalls on free platforms. There's a tendency for the best features to be reserved for those willing to pay extra.

On YouTube, you can watch videos for free, except that YouTube Premium exists for when you'd rather not deal with a constant barrage of ads. That's kind of reasonable, but why would background play and offline downloads be limited to premium? It's like an artificial problem created entirely out of a need to profit from being annoying, and yet it's effective. This pay-to-play model is affecting creators as well. Social media platforms now offer creators an option to hide their best content behind paywalls. On Instagram, there's an exclusive content feature where fans are able to pay for subscriber-only posts. Similarly, YouTube has members, and while this offers a way to make money, there's also limited reach to their content, and this contributes to the overall fragmentation of the internet.

It's also impossible to ignore the constant upselling that goes on. After you've subscribed to a service, you're constantly pushed into a higher tier. First, you're on the basic tier, and then you're bombarded with offers for premium or pro options. Nowadays, YouTube Premium is pitching a higher bitrate version of 1080p exclusively to its paying users. On DoorDash, DashPass offers you free deliveries and exclusive deals. Cool, but the best bang for your buck is actually staring right in your face, and it's an empty pantry.

These systems are primarily designed to squeeze money out of you, and they're pretty shameless about it. Interestingly enough, once you're where they want you to be, it's like they disappear. Prior to using Spotify Premium, every five business days there was a new email offering three months of premium for the small price of your banking details. Now that you're in, they hide. They don't want to be seen or remembered as a business in your inbox. Their only aim is to exist as an obscure charge to your bank account.

Well, the internet once thrived on creativity and user-centric design in its early days. It's moved from a place where the best experiences were created for users to a commercialized space. Priorities have shifted fully. Instead of making it a better place for users, companies are laser-focused on maximizing profits at all costs. The shift is sometimes referred to as an edification, a term coined by tech critic and writer Cory Doctorow. It describes how platforms over time tend to degrade in quality for the average user. This happens because companies, in the pursuit of higher profit, slowly but surely tend to make the experience much, much worse.

Things get more frustrating and manipulative. At the heart of this behavior, you'll find companies that offer subscription services. Businesses lock more features behind paywalls or introduce new and convoluted ways to keep users paying without offering any extra value. It's getting much worse, and we're suffering for it. The entire tech industry serves as a backbone of the internet, and many monopolies exist across the board. These companies have one top priority, and it's not the users. It's down to the investors and advertisers.

Here's a quick dive into how tech companies work nowadays. First, some ambitious team meets with a Peter Thiel or Elon Musk-type venture capitalist and the kit is marketable for Silicon Valley—the next Zuckerberg. Even few million dollars are invested into the idea, and some high-profile connections are tapped. Interviews with major platforms like CNBC are arranged—maybe a Forbes article, definitely worth throwing in for good measure. As the hype snowballs, demand grows, and more money is poured into marketing and expansion. Influencers and content creators swear it's the next big thing, and they're probably sounding super convincing.

For the most marketable and popular apps, the expansion feels endless. New regions are unlocked, new users are hooked, and every potential corner of the market is tapped. But by now, the millions of dollars have been sunk into this venture, and the company might not have even made a single cent of profit. The goal isn't immediate returns; it's growth. And with this burning pile of cash, competition is easily outpaced, either by being bought out or squashed.

So why does this have to happen? Venture capitalists and investors play it simple: grow the company, dominate the market, and aim for the promised land of going public. Inflate the company's valuation and get those shares sold to make a killing. The actual success of the business is somebody else's problem. The examples of subscription-based companies that follow this template are endless. We've seen many over the years. Another success, besides Spotify and Netflix, is Dropbox, a file hosting service. Meanwhile, we've seen the failure of companies like WeWork, a startup with millions in investments that promised subscription-based co-working spaces and communal living. There's also the short-lived short-form streaming platform Quibi and the ambitious $300 million new subscription product from CNN, CNN+, which was shut down just a month after its launch.

Launching a business and getting investments is by no means a bad idea. But here's the issue: the internet of today is so profit-focused that it's difficult to imagine any genuine innovation without money involved. Investors are extremely short-sighted, and company founders need money to keep the lights on. Nobody wants to take on heavy risks. It's just not the subscription models that are dealing with this; you'll find it in every industry.

For example, when Marvel was set to explore some new creative directions for its Marvel Cinematic Universe, it began to struggle. What was the solution? Bring back tried and tested successes like Robert Downey Jr. and the Russo brothers. Does your voice matter to internet companies? Not really. Sure, there's campaigns and moments where they leave encouraging comments on TikToks and send goodies to a few fans once in a while, as long as the cameras are rolling. The regular day-to-day customer doesn't really get that sort of special treatment, though.

One example of the internet's degradation is in customer support. As companies continue to expand their subscription models, there's little effort or care being expressed for the actual customer. Take a quick look at major platforms like Amazon, Netflix, Adobe, and Spotify. Even EA, a gaming company—yes, Electronic Arts, the bane of every gamer's existence. We've seen countless moments where the company's customer support has been very unhelpful, especially in relation to hacks and account linking. Despite this, they are notorious for their highly criticized subscriptions, from battle passes in games like Apex Legends and Battlefield 2042.

Now, when dealing with customer support from popular companies, you'd expect that their billions of dollars would afford them the best support specialists, right? The answer to that is a resounding no. You're going to be funneled into an endless loop of chatbots, automated phone systems, and outsourced customer support teams with no context about your issue. Many companies will pass you between departments or worse, between machines. This constant back and forth leaves users frustrated and without a real solution to their issue. It's all thanks to a race to cut costs and maximize revenue. Companies have now fully outsourced their support systems, and some have replaced them entirely with AI-powered bots. It's efficient for their bottom line, but paying customers are often left with subpar experiences, especially when dealing with hefty monthly fees and redundant updates. Support just isn't what it used to be; it's now another victim of the unification process where profit comes before user experience.

Platform silos are already a growing problem with the internet. With the dominance of platforms like Amazon, we're witnessing tightly controlled ecosystems where you're only presented with content that fits your subscription needs. With the dominance of platforms like Amazon, we're witnessing tightly controlled ecosystems where you're only presented with content that fits your subscription package. Amazon Prime is a prime example. With a subscription, there's no need to engage with new storefronts or platforms. Instead, you have access to tons of benefits that will keep you engaged. Meanwhile, Amazon is burning through piles of cash to keep you on Prime.

It has Twitch, which, as a platform, is literally unprofitable. The cost of running the servers and other charges makes it a bust for most organizations. For Amazon, it's a marketing tool that's worth its weight in popularity and influence. Twitch Prime is an important part of the web of control, and it needs subscribers to feel a lot like this stuff is free, although users are actually paying.

Other platforms have tried using the Twitch method for years. We saw Mixer, Facebook Gaming, and YouTube Live attempting to put up a decent fight. Amazon just has way more to gain from the success of Twitch, especially with the relevance of Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary that powers the platform. So if you're a live streamer with unconventional ideas that don't fit into the mold of Twitch, where do you go? Find an alternative platform, most likely. But that's not really easy either. New platforms usually come with a fair share of restrictive rules, and users are going to be unwilling to leave, especially with existing subscriptions.

These monopolistic practices stifle discovery and innovation, creating an internet where a select few platforms are able to dictate what most people can see, share, and engage with. Our current shift towards edification means that users are no longer a priority on the internet. Instead, users have become the product, and they are milked for every penny possible. Subscription fees, upselling tactics, and data-driven marketing strategies are the new keys to success.

What's worse is that companies can't attempt to go back to the way things used to be. Everywhere is cutthroat, and if you show a sign of slowing down with the acquisition meta, you're going to lose big. To illustrate how brutal and profit-focused the space has become, let's take a look at Blizzard Entertainment, the publishers behind World of Warcraft and Overwatch. In 2010, during the release of StarCraft II, a game that took years of development and millions of dollars in resources, Blizzard brought in a surprising amount of money from it. But not as much as you might think. Despite StarCraft II's high budget and passionate fan base, Blizzard actually made more from selling a $15 in-game horse in World of Warcraft than the entire revenue of StarCraft II at launch.

Imagine for a second, as a lover of artistic integrity and value, the losses are probably worth it in exchange for a profound gaming experience. To investors, though, you're nothing but a joker. After witnessing the sort of market for microtransactions, the gaming industry has only continued to hammer on live subscription models and cosmetics. Companies tend to milk the things that they can bring in frequent revenue to them. Investing in long-term user-focused innovation is a waste of time. With that shift, the user inevitably suffers. We can see that in the current state of many industries, popular and successful on the outside, but on the inside, millions of dollars are burned to make more money. A money trail that tells no stories, helps no lives, and inspires nobody, leading back to the emptiness it all began with: subscriptions.

For all their conveniences, we pause in uncomfortable irony in which we criticize them, yet we actively participate in the system and continue to perpetuate its existence. From streaming services to software, the people who criticize the subscription trap are often those who sign up for multiple monthly subscription plans. So how is it that we can beat the exploitative model when they thrive precisely because we buy into it? Take a moment to consider how people justify their subscriptions. You'll often hear, "I hate how everything has a monthly fee now," and yet we eagerly sign up for Amazon Prime or Netflix.

These services thrive not just because the companies push them, but also because we've convinced ourselves that they're really necessary, which is kind of what they want. This moral dilemma arises from the reality that, for many people, these subscriptions provide some legitimate value. The real tension exists in the fact that we know we're being taken advantage of in some ways. We've got auto-renewals, upselling, price hikes, and more. We also feel dependent on these services. They're so embedded in our daily lives that cancelling feels more of a burden than tolerating the financial drain. It's a cycle of reliance.

Companies are aware that they've built something we can't easily live without, and that's why the subscription model works so well. It's a trap, but it's a trap we walk into willingly. Things get murkier when we look at how some people navigate the subscription fatigue through piracy. In many ways, the people who oppose subscriptions turn to piracy as a way to avoid paying for content they feel should be freely available or priced better. From movies to video games to music, entire industries have been impacted by piracy. This has quickly elevated its status as a great market response to digital monopolies and wall-off content.

Yet piracy presents its own set of moral dilemmas. On one hand, it feels like a solid way to fight against what many see as pure corporate greed. Why pay a subscription fee for content that used to be free or at least more accessible? On the other hand, piracy often takes revenue away from much smaller creators who rely on the very platforms that people want to avoid. In the context of movies, independent films, or indie games, piracy hurts the very people who are struggling under the weight of a subscription-based ecosystem run by major corporations.

The dilemma is clear: by pirating, you probably feel like you're rejecting an unfair system, but you could be harming creators who are just trying to make a living. Piracy, therefore, isn't a solution, but rather a symptom of frustration from living in a subscription-based society. Is your win worth a loss for many others? It's important to recognize that not every company or creator is rolling in profits thanks to their subscription models. Many of them are actually trapped in the same system they uphold.

For some businesses, offering a subscription is no longer a luxury or an option; it's a matter of survival. Like with the gaming industry example earlier, season passes and battle passes have become an almost mandatory aspect of modern multiplayer games. Without them, developers simply can't afford to sustain their games post-launch. It's not just games either. Many creators and companies are stuck in this dilemma. Patreon and other similar platforms are now lifelines for creators.

Despite this, the push for monthly subscriptions puts on additional pressure for their audience. As much as we might want to support our favorite creators, the constant demand for recurring payments from multiple platforms can feel overwhelming. It's a vicious cycle, really—creators need to charge monthly fees to survive, but the more they charge, the more people feel the fatigue of too many subscriptions.

The realities of capitalism exist at the root of all of it. In a free market, businesses are often incentivized to pursue profits wherever they can, and subscriptions offer a steady and reliable source of income. But it's not all about companies making money; survival is an increasingly important factor in such a competitive market. The subscription model allows companies to project future earnings, keep investors happy, and maintain cash flow in ways that traditional one-time purchases don't.

As a result of this status quo, capitalism has driven companies to exploit the subscription model in ways that aren't always fair to consumers. Many businesses don't need to charge exorbitant fees to stay afloat. Take Amazon Prime, for example, where users are usually offered discounts if they decide to cancel their subscription. Some of these discounts are pretty huge, so it makes you wonder why the initial price was set, especially if the company won't be bothered by a price reduction.

The irony here is that while capitalism promotes competition, the subscription model often leads to monopolistic behavior. Once a company locks you into its ecosystem, leaving becomes very difficult. Companies aren't actually competing to provide the best service possible. Instead, they're trying to trap you in a system that's hard to escape.

So, subscriptions aren't inherently evil. As we've explored throughout this episode, it's safe to say that they're simply a symptom of a larger, more systemic issue—one rooted in the structures of capitalism, convenience culture, and our own complicity. We live in a world that's increasingly driven by recurring payments, where access to information and other valuable needs are locked behind paywalls. In turn, we as consumers have normalized this because we've been conditioned to believe that this is just how things are.

Now here's something to take away from all this: it does not have to be that way. There are better alternatives out there. For instance, by supporting open-source software like Affinity or Blender for visual artists, there can be a little less reliance on subscription-based platforms. You can also back creators directly through their own off-platform projects or via platforms like Patreon. Although it's not a perfect solution, it's a conscious effort that can be a catalyst for more permanent changes in regulation when the time comes.

These models offer more control and transparency than the endless loops of subscription fatigue. The key takeaway here isn't to swear off subscriptions altogether. Many services do provide real value, and not every company is out to exploit its users. Instead, we owe it to ourselves to become more conscious consumers, to push for better forms of support that don't rely on endless cycles of payments.

By advocating for change and creating awareness instead of reinforcing docility, we can shift the tide. So, as you continue to navigate this landscape of subscriptions, remember that they're not the cause but rather a reflection of a broader issue. Change lies in the choices we make as consumers. By the way, this is your sign to cancel that subscription that's been bothering you from the moment you read this video's title.