Canceling a subscription in most SaaS products requires finding a hidden settings page and clicking through 4-5 guilt screens

You want to cancel a SaaS subscription. You click Settings. There is no cancel button. You click Billing. No cancel button. You click Account. There is a tiny 'Manage subscription' link at the bottom. It opens a new page. 'Are you sure? You will lose access to X.' Click continue. 'Before you go, would you like to downgrade instead?' No. 'Can you tell us why you are leaving?' Select a reason. 'We can offer you 50% off.' No. 'Are you really sure?' Yes. 'Your subscription will be canceled at the end of the billing period.' The entire process took 3 minutes and 7 clicks. So what? This is not just annoying — it is a dark pattern that costs consumers real money. People who intend to cancel give up halfway through because they cannot find the button or get fatigued by the guilt screens. They continue paying for months. The FTC estimates dark-pattern subscriptions cost US consumers billions per year. Why does this persist in the first place? It works. Every extra click in the cancellation flow reduces cancellation rates by 5-10%. Companies A/B test their cancellation flow to maximize friction. The business incentive (retain revenue) directly opposes the user interest (cancel easily). Regulation like the FTC Click-to-Cancel rule (2024) exists but enforcement is slow and most SaaS companies outside the US ignore it entirely.