A subscription service is an agreement between a consumer and a business, where the consumer agrees to provide money in exchange for access to some service. Tha

A subscription service is an agreement between a consumer and a business, where the consumer agrees to provide money in exchange for access to some service. That service might be something that they regularly receive, e.g. meal kits, or it might be something that they can choose to access, e.g. Spotify. In the former case, where there is a definite agreement that some item will be delivered, I agree with you; not providing that is fraudulent. It looks like you're talking about the latter case, though, and I starkly disagree there. First, it is not the responsibility of the business to ensure people use the product that the business sold them. Why should it be? This standard doesn't exist for companies providing physical products. Someone could order a meal kit subscription, and after receiving the food every week, they could choose to throw it straight in the trash. The company shouldn't offer someone a refund because they chose to throw away the food they sent. The same principle applies for digital subscriptions - the subscriber is choosing to throw away access to whatever service the business provides. Second, I think it's worth pointing out that the principle underlying your argument, that it is the responsibility of the payee to ensure the payer gets what they pay for, logically contradicts salaried or waged work. The principle you've implied is consistent with all services being paid for piecemeal, since if nothing is produced, nothing was received. This implies cashiers should be paid per transaction, chefs should be paid per meal, baristas should be paid per cup, etc. Maybe you do think that - I can't possibly know. However, I doubt you would support a minimum-wage worker having to return a day's pay to their employer if no customers showed up that day. I think that's silly, because in the absence of active demand, the employee is still providing a service: their presence, and thus the ability to fulfill transactions if requested. I also think what you're saying not only absolves consumers of their responsibility, but also strips from them any agency in the matter. This is not a problem requiring collective action, like climate change. This is a problem where the individual's actions are 100% capable of resolving it. In a world where lots of issues are out of the individual's control, why not empower people to control what they can? Cancelling unwanted subscriptions is a simple and effective way to avoid unwanted subscription fees, and is available to every subscription-holder. Arguing that businesses should resolve, to their own detriment, a problem that consumers create, and can easily resolve, doesn't make any sense to me.