This is illegal in the EU.

Send them a letter and an email detailing that you are cancelling your account and kill the payment authorization. Problem solved.

This is so incredibly dark of a pattern that it makes me a bit mad tbh.

I subscribe to the Humble Bundle, where you get 10 PC games per month for $12. The trick is they pick the games, and you may not want to pay that month. You can skip a month whenever you want, but you need to remember to do so. That's their business model, assuming people won't remember to skip.

I'm frickin' iron man when it comes to this. I set a reminder on my phone every single month and haven't missed a pause yet, now over three years.