Is this a problem for people? Like, do they not know how much they pay for subscriptions? I have detailed knowledge of every service I pay for and I seriously don't understand the issue.
Yes, lots of people don’t track their money that well. There’s an industry devoted to helping people do better at tracking their money.
One of the problems is that subscriptions aren’t consolidated. You might subscribe to streaming services individually or through a third party, such as Roku or Apple. And then of course, there are other types of subscriptions, such as music, news, patreon, recurring political contributions, and substack.
Another issue is that you might subscribe to a service which you are excited about, but you don’t actually end up using it, and you forget about it entirely.
And probably the main problem is that a lot of people don’t review their credit card statements rigorously.
You don't understand it because it doesn't impact you?
I keep an eye on my subscriptions too, mainly because my banking app automatically categorises outgoings so they are easy to keep track of.
It is easy for subscriptions to pile up though, at one point last year I had three subscriptions to different on-demand training and book repositories. I realised I hadn't used them for three months and cancelled them all.
Many gyms relie on subscribers not using the facilities, they are commonly oversubscribed. Cancelling something like a gym subscription, or a meditation app has some amount of guilt associated with it too, like you failed to achieve what you imagined when you first signed up.