Streaming prices continue to rise. Here’s how to manage subscriptions.

The dream of streaming: watch what you want, whenever you want, for a slice of the cable price! – is ending.

With all the price increases for video streaming apps like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Hulu, the average household subscribes to four streaming apps According to research by Deloitte, the company may now pay as much as a cable subscriber.

To name a few of the price increases for streaming video (ad-free) in the past year: Amazon’s ad-free Prime Video now costs $12 per month, up from $9; Netflix increased the price of its premium subscription for watching content on four devices from $20 to $23 per month; Disney raised the price of its Hulu service from $15 to $18 per month; and HBO’s Max now costs $16 per month, up from $15.

If, like many people, you subscribe to all of these services, you’ll pay about $70 a month, about the same as a modest cable TV package.

There are more changes on the horizon that will result in people paying more for streaming. Disney announced this month that it will be cracking down on password sharing for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. Netflix told shareholders last month to expect more price increases.

Streaming services still offer more flexibility and savings potential than a cable bundle. If that’s what drew you to streaming, the solution may seem obvious: You could be wiser about managing your subscriptions — for example, canceling Netflix as soon as you’re done bingeing “Love Is Blind.” .

But that’s harder than it sounds. The streaming apps are designed to make us forget that we can unsubscribe.

You won’t get a reminder that your subscription needs to be renewed, says Tony Hu, program director of engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “When you go into a casino, you don’t see the exit signs prominently placed,” he added.

So it helps to be aware of what the companies are doing to help you manage your subscriptions. Here you can read what you should pay attention to.

Why we forget to unsubscribe

In May, Caroline Sinders, a designer and artist, published the results of an independent study into how companies like Netflix, Hulu, Vimeo and The New York Times make it difficult to unsubscribe from their services.

The research found that some media companies such as The Times were creating friction in the process, in some cases requiring a phone call to cancel a subscription.

While streaming services like Netflix and Hulu are easier to cancel, you may stay subscribed for longer than you want because of what they don’t do, Mx. Sinders said. They don’t send emails to remind you that a bill is coming. When you get billed, they typically don’t send receipt emails.

Harry Brignull, user experience consultant and author of a book about the tricks tech companies use to control youpointed out that the streaming industry has made consumers accustomed to accepting this practice, even though we would scoff at it in almost every other transaction.

“How come we’re all okay with this?” he asked, adding that when “you walk out of a store, you want to get a receipt.”

However, the streaming apps send a lot of emails after you cancel, hoping to lure you back with marketing messages about new TV shows and movies.

Netflix declined to comment on why it wasn’t sending monthly payment receipts or renewal notices, saying the best way for people to manage their subscriptions and view past payments was through their account settings on the website. Hulu, Disney and Max did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“Is the lack of memory a harmful design pattern?” MX. Sinders said. “I would say so. It puts a lot of pressure on the user to remember.”

Create a reminder system

The practices mentioned above have become the industry standard, so it’s up to us to create a system that reminds us when to unsubscribe from a streaming service.

Setting up a monthly reminder a few days before a subscription renewal is due would be a big step forward, Mr Brignull said. And Mr. Hu, the director of MIT, keeps a list of the streaming apps he pays for to track the shows he and his family watch so they can determine when it’s time to cancel.

Paying through a third party is another way to receive reminders. For example, when you subscribe to a streaming service through Apple’s App Store, you are billed by Apple, which sends monthly payment receipts by email. PayPal does the same. Apple also makes it easy to view all your subscriptions and renewal dates in one place in the Settings app, making it easier to delete them.

I choose a more aggressive approach. To disable auto-renewal, I cancel a subscription as soon as I sign up. That means if I want to keep the membership after the current billing cycle, I’ll have to resubscribe each time, but I think it’s worth it for the control it gives me over the billing process.

Whichever path you choose, the most important step is to slow down, Mx. Sinders said. If you need to log out, do so on a laptop or tablet instead of your phone, where you can easily be interrupted or distracted. And if you create reminders on your calendar to cancel your subscriptions, set them for a few days before the next bill appears on your credit card.