While online subscriptions were a new frontier years ago, offerings today are multiplying every second. From the lifesaving to the truly bizarre, there’s sure to be a subscription that caters to your specific niche. The market is vast with no shortage of demand – and it shows no sign of slowing down.
Ranging from pedestrian meal prep boxes to AI-generated videos of dead people, and even animal bone boxes (for the osteology enthusiasts), people willingly part with their money to add a bit more convenience, variety, or novelty to their lives. Or so it would seem. Questions have begun to arise about how much choice we have in the matter. How truly willing is it? And what does it mean for university students living on a budget?
My own experience with paid subscriptions started simply enough, with Spotify. It’s where I first experienced the convenience of subscriptions and the endless, never-sated hunger of capitalist companies for money. I resisted valiantly for years, not wishing to contribute my limited funds towards a billion-dollar company that shamelessly underpays artists. Eventually, after having my listening experience ruined one too many times by loud jingles and grating voices, I finally opted in for a subscription – this was before I found out that irritating you is part of the marketing strategy. A blessed relief that my ears thanked me for!
The subscription economy really took off around 2011 when, beyond streaming services in the entertainment industry and software subscriptions from Microsoft or Adobe, curated delivery boxes officially landed in the market. Today, with Gousto or Mindful Chef, you can get different recipes for homecooking; Stitch Fix and Lookiero can help with outfits; and if you’re really into fragrance or jams, there are subscriptions for those, too. Your shopping list and life are just one rolling direct debit charge away.
In true student style, I pivot here to the cost. A monthly Gousto subscription that gives you two recipes per week comes to around £75 per month, but can exceed £250 if your order is larger, not including delivery charges. Spotify costs about £6 per month for students. Netflix ranges from £5 to £19 pounds – the recent password crackdown is creating the need for multiple subscriptions in one household. Your loo rolls can cost anywhere between £19 and £50, depending on the subscription. The 18-30 group in the UK is the biggest consumer demographic for content subscriptions, which includes newspapers as well as individual subscriptions on platforms like Substack.
The bills add up, don’t they? And the services, once marketed as hassle-free with premium value, have gotten noticeably worse. Streaming services started out as cheap alternatives to traditional cable TV, with its constant ads and endless channels no one watched. Today, major streaming services also have ads in their tiered subscription models, with the lowest ones including the very adverts they marketed against. And with the ever-revolving licensing game between streaming services, consumers are forced to subscribe to a longer list of services just to have unstable access to the content they want. So are we really just back to glorified cable TV, this time with higher costs? The consumerist chickens have come home to roost.
Additionally, users also reported on the difficulty of managing their micro-payments to a dozen different services, leading to a so-called “subscription fatigue” among consumers. Companies rely on this fatigue. In 2024, research byCitizens Advice found that over 13 million people in the UK (26% of the population) accidentally took on a subscription in the past year.
The reasons varied, with some mistakenly believing they were making a one-off payment, others because it auto-renewed without their permission, and some forgot to cancel their free trial. The issue of ‘subscription traps’ became serious enough to attract government notice, prompting the introduction of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act). Its rules on subscription traps are expected to come into effect by spring 2026.
Subscriptions have done a lot to bring more convenience and depth to our lives. In the attention economy of 2026, where our time and engagement are monetised to get us addicted to products, paying extra to ensure you engage with quality content has its benefits. As university students, we are constantly juggling academic stress, life admin, and other commitments. Food subscription boxes offering nutritious, balanced meals sound amazing. Therefore, the trick seems to lie in balancing the budget with the conveniences that make life worth living. Exploitation or entertainment, the choice is yours to make in what you value most – your time, or your money?
Another article you may enjoy: https://thebadgeronline.com/2026/02/the-proxy-war-in-my-pocket-media/
