CANCELLING A $9 SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRES A TELEPHONE CALL, TWO CONFIRMATIONS AND A REASON
Signing up takes eleven seconds. Leaving takes twenty-six minutes, four screens of retention offers, and a spoken sentence to a human who is instructed to ask why.
AF 11 — INFINITE FUCKERY
Awarded only after documented awareness, ample opportunity, and continued fuckery.
This case was opened at 6.4. It is now an 11, and the escalation is entirely the company's work.
The mechanics are ordinary. Sign-up is one screen and a stored card. Cancellation is a help-centre article, a chat agent, a callback window, a retention script, a discount offer, a second discount offer, a survey asking what we could have done better, and a confirmation email that arrives after the next billing date in a meaningful number of cases.
We published the case in November. The company responded in January describing the flow as "a considered offboarding experience." We wrote again in March with a specific, small request: put a cancel button in account settings. We received a note thanking us for our feedback. In June, a product update added a fourth retention screen.
That last sentence is the entire basis for the 11. Ten is fuckery. Eleven is when fuckery becomes institutional philosophy: the responsible party knows, has had ample opportunity, and has chosen to invest in the fuckery instead.
Evidence & source material
- SCREENSHOT
Sign-up flow, 1 screen
Timed at 11 seconds with a saved payment method.
- SCREENSHOT
Cancellation flow, 4 screens plus call
Timed at 26 minutes 40 seconds on the fastest of five attempts.
- DOCUMENT
Correspondence log, Nov 2025 – Jun 2026
Three inquiries, two non-answers, one product update adding a retention screen.
Response from the responsible party
“Our considered offboarding experience ensures members are aware of options available to them before making a final decision.”
Editor’s noteMembers were aware. That is why they were cancelling. Case escalated to AF 11 on 2026-08-30.
Case updates
AF 11 AWARDED — INFINITE FUCKERY
Awarded after ten months of documented awareness, three inquiries, and continued investment in the obstruction. The scale ends at 10. This does not.
SCORE REVISED 7.9 → 9.6
Fourth retention screen shipped. Avoidability and time-unresolved factors maxed.
RESPONSE RECEIVED
Statement received. No change to flow. Score raised to 7.9.
CASE OPENED
Opened at AF 6.4. Classified as Digital Fuckery / Asymmetric Exit Engineering.
Reader assessment
Reader votes are advisory. They inform the frequency factor; they do not set the score.