Free Trials Turn Into Life Dependencies

Being that I am currently a subscriber to Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon Prime, I can't help but wonder if the benefits that I'm receiving from each service are worth the monthly payments. As I was wondering about this, I asked myself when did I even start paying for these services? From which, I realized that I had no idea. The only small fact that I could recall was that I definitely went through each services free trial periods of: Spotify's Premium Free month, Netflix's free trial month, and Amazon's Student Prime 6-month free trial.

The fact that I couldn't remember how I actually started paying for these services, led me to question if I had simply forgot to cancel my subscriptions before the end of each free trial. I was quickly able to determine that this was more than likely the case. I also realized that I thought I had been blindly paying for these services, I was still actively using each one and had no intention of cancelling them. It was like I was hooked on something that I didn't even know I was using! I mean, I knew I was watching Netflix, ordering Amazon Prime, and listening to music on Spotify, but I didn't see how much each service was impacting my life.

Once I was able to see this, I fully understood the reasoning that businesses offer free trials to consumers. It's an ingenious way to get consumers addicted to a service or product without them even knowing, and more importantly being mad about it. I, for example, should be at least a little upset about being charged for subscriptions that I thought were terminated after the free month trial, yet here I am still raving about each of these businesses and their services. I now understand how the use promotional techniques can give businesses the ability to instill a sense of convenience in consumer minds, so that once the promotion is over they feel as if they now need said service in their life. It's truly a brilliant technique, and I'm not just saying that because it worked so well on me...