Welcome to the Hall of Shame
Below is a realistic user journey through a typical SaaS product. It's smooth at the start. Increasingly painful by the end. Click through each stage and you'll see what's happening behind the scenes and why it's damaging
Below is a realistic journey using actual dark patterns from real products. Click through and experience what users go through. Then we'll reveal what just happened and why it's damaging.
This is a mockup and will not subscribe you to any products or services.
You've found a productivity tool that looks promising. Signup is quick and painless.
Get started in seconds
You signed up in 30 seconds with one click. Easy, frictionless and wonderful. But now you're locked in.
When you want to cancel (and most users will within 90 days), cancellation will be buried 7+ steps deep in account settings. The company deliberately made exit friction 10x higher than entry friction.
[Product Name] wants to customise your experience. They're asking about email preferences.
How would you like to receive updates?
Which of the following do you NOT want to receive?
This phrasing is intentionally confusing.
You had to choose between two confusing options using weird negative phrasing. Most users click "No" thinking it means "No, I don't want emails" when it actually means "No, keep sending them". You're now opted into marketing emails.
You'll receive a series marketing emails every week. When you try to unsubscribe, you'll be met with more confusing language or more hoops. You'll either mark as spam (damaging their email deliverability) or just give up. It's unlikely you'll become a customer through this tactic, but they'll do it anyway.
You've used [Product Name] for 90 days. Your trial period is ending and they want you to pay. But life is busy, you never really used the product as you thought you would and you are considering your options.
Choose what happens next:
You clicked "Pause" because that option was less friction than finding a genuine "cancel my account" option. [Product Name] offered this as a friendly option.
Your subscription auto-resumes in 3 months. The reminder email goes to your promotions folder or never arrives at all. You don't check your bank statement that month. On day 92, you're charged £9.99 and don't notice for another 6 weeks. When you discover it, you're angry and you dispute the charge.
You finally notice the subscription is active. You're only using 2 of the 10 features. You want to downgrade to the cheaper plan or cancel outright.
Your current plan:
You clicked "Manage This Plan" expecting to see a downgrade option. There is none. Just ways to change email addresses. Buried amongst help articles you finally find an option to downgrade. You are placed on a retention journey where you are shown warnings that says things like "If you downgrade, you may lose access to some features like advanced analytics or API access. Your data may be deleted within 30 days or you may be liable for additional costs."
Users are intended to see this warning and get scared. The "may" wording covers a large range of tiers and is deliberately inspecific. The desired outocme is for users to click "Never Mind" and stay on the expensive plan. The company is counting on you not wanting to risk it. You pay for features you don't use because the downgrade path is too risky.
You receive an email titled "Update to Your Account Terms". You skim it. It's a 20-page document with dense legal language.
Dear Valued Customer,
We're updating our service terms on 1st March. Please review the attached document for all changes.
If you do not wish to accept these changes, you may cancel by clicking here.
[Product Name] Team
You didn't read the 20-pager thoroughly. Most people don't. Inside that attachment, buried somewhere around page 14 is a note that your subscription price is increasing from £9.99 to £14.99 per month. The email says you can cancel if you "do not wish to accept" but makes it sound optional, not mandatory.
On 1st March, you're charged £14.99 and you don't notice for weeks. When you do, you feel scammed and furious. You dispute the charge. [Product Name] faces regulatory scrutiny for deceptive pricing practices. You leave a 1-star review warning others.
You've had enough. You want to cancel your subscription. You log in to find the cancellation button.
The path to cancellation:
That's 8 steps and one hour just to cancel.
You're back where this journey started. You signed up in 1 click. Now you need 8 long and painful steps to cancel. At step 4, you'll be asked "Why are you leaving?" with no skip option. By step 6, you'll likely give up. Some users do and the AB test that trialled this journey marked it as a success.
[Product Name] artificially inflated their retention metric. You stayed subscribed 5 times longer than you actually wanted to use the product. You were charged for features you never used. You feel scammed and trapped. You'll never recommend them. You'll warn your friends. Their CAC goes up because trust is destroyed. And this is exactly why they're in the Hall of Shame. The downstream metrics were there the whole time to warn them this was happening, but their pursuit of short term tactical 'wins' drove them to this
This is how thousands of SaaS tools, streaming services, and subscription boxes operate right now. Users experience smooth acquisition, confusing preferences, auto-renewing pauses, scary downgrade warnings, silent price increases, and punishing cancellation paths. By the time they escape, they're angry and they've wasted months paying for something they didn't want. Another Web is Possible.
We help subscription businesses, SaaS tools, and membership platforms redesign their retention journeys. Not to maximise churn artificially. To maximise genuine loyalty through respect, transparency, and user control.
We audit your onboarding, billing, and offboarding to identify where you're adding friction. Then we remove it and watch your retention improve because users actually want to stay.
The dark patterns have a shelf life. Regulations are tightening. User expectations are rising. The companies winning right now are the ones who've already switched to ethical retention.
Let's build that for you.
