Roach Motel

Come on.

The Roach Motel.

Stop playing.

Let's sing.

what only fans is is managing to capitalize on as well yeah absolutely and like the classic family guy joke of but the mystery box lois take the boat take the boat peter but the mystery box could be anything it could even be a boat So that's kind of pay to win tears.

There's also the concept of the Roach Motel.

What the fuck? The Roach Motel, it was a product introduced in 1976 as a sticky trap that used bait to lure cockroaches into an enclosed space with the slogan, roaches check in, but they don't check out.

I mean, I know what the actual product is for catching disgusting insects, sure.

So the concept, how it's applied to user interface design is one of these dark patterns, which is worthy of an entire side quest all of its own.

But the Roach Motel concept is basically make it easy for people to sign up, make it completely frictionless via cheap trial rates and first stage, enter your credit card, forget about it again, but make it difficult for them to leave, make it difficult to cancel, make sure that they agreed to auto renew to start with, have all sorts of irritating steps to go through.

It's basically, yeah, easy to check in, hard to check out.

So that's quite sinister.