Four months ago I cancelled Netflix.

Then Disney+. Then Prime. Then Paramount+.

I kept Stan. Because I’m in Australia, and I wanted the Premier League.

That was it.

Four months ago I went from paying for almost every major streaming service to paying for one.

And I expected something to happen. Because for the previous eight years I had apparently been a valued customer.

I know this because they kept telling me. Every time the price went up, there was some beautifully crafted email explaining how much they valued my loyalty.

They appreciated my continued support. They were investing in better content. They were committed to giving me the best possible entertainment experience.

And, presumably, they were committed to making sure I continued paying them.

So when I cancelled, I assumed someone would notice. Netflix would send me an offer. Disney would tempt me back. Prime would remind me of everything I was missing. Paramount would perhaps throw in a couple of months at a reduced price.

Something. Anything. Instead?

Nothing. Zilch. Silence. Apparently, I wasn’t that valuable after all.

Maybe I wasn’t a customer. Maybe I was a monthly transaction.

Prices going up isn’t particularly shocking. Everything goes up. Content costs money. Production costs money. Technology costs money. People want to be paid.

Fine.

But.

“Thank you for being a valued customer.”

Here’s your price increase.

“We appreciate your continued support.”

Here’s another price increase.

“We’re committed to providing you with an exceptional entertainment experience.”

We’ve added advertising.

Hang on.

Advertising?

Yes.

Prime was the one that really got me. I was already paying for Prime. Then the price increased. And somewhere along the way, advertising arrived.

I’m paying more. And now you’re selling my attention to somebody else. It sounds like a “Black Mirror” episode.

But streaming companies have somehow convinced us this is normal.

And we went along with it.

Another couple of dollars. Another tier. Another restriction. Another advertisement. Another service. Another subscription.

It’s death by a thousand monthly direct debits.

The genius of subscriptions is that they make spending invisible.

$15 doesn’t feel like much.

Neither does $20.

Neither does another $12.

Until you have six or seven companies reaching into your bank account every month.

The beauty of the model is that you forget you’re paying for it. Until you don’t.

And that was my experiment.

I stopped paying. And then I waited.

Four months.

Nothing happened. The world continued.

I didn’t run out of entertainment.

I watched other things. I watched football. I listened to music. I read. I wrote.

I found myself doing things that didn’t involve scrolling through an enormous catalogue trying to decide what to watch.

I hadn’t really missed most of them.

I had missed individual shows.

The platform wasn’t the product. The content was the product.

And once I’d consumed the content I cared about, the subscription became a habit.

This is where the “valued customer” language becomes interesting.

Because loyalty apparently means:

Keep paying.

That’s it.

There is very little reward for being loyal. The new customer gets the special introductory price.

Congratulations.

Your price just went up.

It’s backwards and subscription companies have normalised exactly that behaviour.

The longer you stay, the more certain they become that you’ll tolerate the next increase.

Until you don’t.

And then they discover something they should probably have understood from the beginning.

Loyalty isn’t ownership. The customer can leave.

And once you’ve made leaving easy, eventually people will test whether they actually need you.

That’s what I did.

The most powerful button is Cancel

There’s something psychologically strange about cancellation.

Signing up is exciting. There’s new content. New possibilities. Something to watch tonight.

Cancellation feels like you’re giving something up.

The companies understand this. They want you to feel that you’re losing access.

But after four months, I think the opposite happened.

I gained the ability to decide whether something was worth paying for.

The question became:

“What do I actually want to watch?”

If there’s something I genuinely want, I can subscribe again. I did it with Apple+ for the show “Slow Horses”. Subscribed for a month and clicked cancel.

The subscription model wants permanent membership. It wants your credit card attached to the service indefinitely. It doesn’t want a customer who says:

“I’ll pay you for one month, watch what I want, and then leave.”

There was a time when Netflix felt like a bargain.

One service. Huge catalogue. No advertisements.

Simple.

Then everyone realised streaming was the future. So everyone launched their own service.

Now the consumer is effectively rebuilding cable television one subscription at a time.

Netflix. Disney. Prime. Paramount. Stan. Binge. Apple TV+. HBO Max. Bein Sports. Fox Sports.

And whatever else I’ve forgotten while writing this.

The only difference is that instead of one large cable bill, we’ve got a collection of smaller bills that somehow feels less painful.

Until you add them together.

Streaming was supposed to liberate us from television’s old business model.

Instead, we’ve recreated it. Just with better interfaces.

The strangest part is still the silence.

Four months.

Nothing. And perhaps that tells me everything I need to know.

I was a valued revenue stream.

When the money stopped, the relationship stopped.

I’m okay with that.

I don’t owe Netflix loyalty. I don’t owe Disney loyalty. I don’t owe Prime loyalty. I don’t owe Paramount loyalty.

I’ll pay for something when I want it. I’ll cancel when I don’t.

That’s the deal.