These comments are so blatantly absurd considering in all the cases we're talking about, the user signed up for the service initially. Even if it's a trial, the user is forced to make it abundantly recognized that they will be charged money when the trial is over because they are forced to input credit card information or authorize use of Apple Pay or some other similar service to enter the trial.
I can understand suggesting that services like this, especially when using tech like Apple Pay, have made it too easy to 'check out' through a trial process, but the language is still over-the-top since the user is still clearly considering the product as potentially useful to go through the effort of signing up for a trial or an actual sub. (And on the flipside, Apple Pay, e.g., makes it easy to see all subs in one place and cancel them in one place, so it has that going for it.)
And of course, what illegal practices are you talking about? I'm going to guess most people here aren't blaming the victim if a practice is actually illegal. But I see you're being hyperbolic so maybe I shouldn't bother.
The big change between the subscriptions of yore, e.g. magazine subscriptions in the days before the internet, and the subscriptions of today, is that payments used to be push and now they are pull. The magazine used to have to beg and plead with you to send them a check, but now vendors can set up an automatic debit continuing into perpetuity.
The regulatory environment has not caught up (although the article explains how it's starting to). It turns out that recurring pull payments tend not to be cancelled, resulting in a system where massive overpayments for actual services consumed are the norm. This is not economic efficiency leading to useful consumer innovation, it's rewarding the players who lodge the darkest dark patterns. Occasionally that includes, as described elsethread, the illegal practice of "just straight-up not honoring the 300 page contracts that they had written" — although unethical practices such as making it deceptively difficult to cancel are presumably more common than outright lawbreaking.
I can understand suggesting that services like this, especially when using tech like Apple Pay, have made it too easy to 'check out' through a trial process, but the language is still over-the-top since the user is still clearly considering the product as potentially useful to go through the effort of signing up for a trial or an actual sub. (And on the flipside, Apple Pay, e.g., makes it easy to see all subs in one place and cancel them in one place, so it has that going for it.)
And of course, what illegal practices are you talking about? I'm going to guess most people here aren't blaming the victim if a practice is actually illegal. But I see you're being hyperbolic so maybe I shouldn't bother.