There’s too many dirty tricks in the subscription scam industry to cover. If you want a good start you can simply search SUBSCRIPTION SCAMS in YouTube and a wide range of videos will pop up. Before the internet advertising had already figured out that people are idiots and the scams pervaded magazines and music and anything else people could get hooked into thinking that it’s a good idea to have even after you long outgrew the entertainment value you received. Socially, identifying yourself as a part of a tribe became a self fulfilling feedback loop. If you bought a subscription to Super Awesome Nintendo Gaming you are now open to assault by Fabulous Nintendo Monthly and Great Nintendo Tips. All requiring a subscription that takes far more effort to cancel than it does to sign up.
Just in 2019 alone Facebook proudly announced they deleted 5.4 billion fake accounts.
https://people.com/human-interest/facebook-shut-down-over-5-billion-fake-accounts/
I’m sure there were many who marveled at how generous FB was looking out for their users to take the time and energy to do that for user safety. Never realizing that the proper reaction was, “Holy shit! That’s 69% of the world population!! Maybe there’s something wrong with FB if it got that way in the first place.”
Creating a real Facebook account is a form of a social subscription. You’re putting yourself out there, your image and obvious physical identifiers as simple as male or female and a rough idea of your age. Then your profile will set you up as a target for social subscriptions. Gardening, dog or cat lover, Kim Kardashian fan, hiking, whatever you want. You may relocate some old friends, you may make some new ones especially if you join a group, you may not use FB much at all. But you’ve also made a social subscription. And depending on how overboard you go with self profiling you will be invaded by the subset of that 69% of friend suggestions that were purposefully made to lure you away from your hard earned cash. That subset, literally billions of fake Facebook accounts over just a few years, wants you to prove your worth of being part of the in group by sending someone money that you will get little or nothing in return.
The main targets end up being the same as email, text message and good old fashioned phone scams. Youngsters without enough life experience to realize what they are getting into. The elderly. Not every old person in cognitive decline can become president of a big country. But they can donate monthly to rescue shelter that doesn’t really exist because it’s a really a fake account generated in Ghana instead of Newark, New Jersey.
Part of the assault on intellectualism and science is to seed distrust in those who are more capable of recognizing scams for what they are. Now, more than even just five years ago, is a perfect time to find the smartest and most trustworthy person you know and let them go through your phone or laptop and look for old shady stuff that might not be what it claims. And that’s not part of your political echo chamber trust, genuinely someone who knows their way around a computer and actually generates displays of empathy in real life. If you don’t have such a person in your life, congratulations. You maybe signed the social contract that you’re a gullible rube a long time ago. Of course, part of the problem is that there will be fake subscription services to remove questionable information from your phone. No niche is left uncovered by the billions making up part of that 69%.
Take gematria Patreon subscriptions as an example. Do you really need someone to tell you that there are things wrong with the world? I can tell you that for free every day. And I don’t want your money. Do you need to have more than one subscription? Hell no. That one sports gematria guru is often going to make a narrative for both teams himself. At least limit the damage of gambling losses to a single source. Patreon isn’t going to give you any hints that you are overdoing the number of sports prediction scammers you are using. Even the ads on the Gematrinator site are a source of questionable social contracts.
Did you get distracted by the pretty girl in the skimpy outfit and check out Plato’s Closet? Not interested? Because it’s a double whammy. Click the Closet and get similar targeted ads or become a member to get ad free meaningless tiny little numbers. Or both, you can check out the closet before going ad free. Personally I’m holding out for Descartes’ Cedar Chest because I really like chests.
Do yourself a favor and do a cleanup. A personalized actually time and effort put into it cleanup. Your chest will be a lot better off.
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