Why Your Brain Treats a Subscription as a Sunk Cost Trap

Behavioral Economics with Fexingo: Decision Making, Bias, and How People Really Spend · Jul 17, 2026 · 4m · transcript

In this episode of Behavioral Economics with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore why subscriptions are so hard to cancel—even when we barely use them. They anchor the discussion on a 2025 study from the University of Chicago that found people who signed up for a $10 monthly streaming service were 40% less likely to cancel after three months, even when they rated the content as 'poor' or 'fair.' The hosts break down the psychology: the sunk cost fallacy (we've already paid, so we stay), the inertia bias (cancelling requires effort), and the 'endowment effect' for…