The Free Trial by Franz Kafka

There’s been some sort of error, thought Joseph K. Yes, that was it, an inadvertent error. Quite possibly on his part. A careless thumb tap when paranoiascrolling on his phone or a wayward mouse click while porn-drunk. The type of mistake modern life makes inevitable.

Though, too, given the fraught times, it would be foolish to rule out the possibility of e-malice. And no one was above suspicion. Not his fishmonger, his cheesemonger, his bongmonger, his psychiatrymonger—all, he knew, were active in MAJA (Mongers Against Joseph Alliance). For that matter, it might even be his own father, still in high dudgeon over Joseph K.’s name change (from Joseph G.), claiming it sounded “too Jewish.”

However it had happened, it had, undeniably, happened. The confirmation email made that clear.

“Welcome, Joseph K., to ChuckPhD! Your 30-day free trial starts now! Put the awesome power of AI to work for you today.” Further down the page, he read, “If at any time you wish to cancel, simply go to our website.” Unlike the letter’s body, this last instruction was written as a rebus, which made Joseph K. grateful he’d minored in Brainteaser Studies at University.

With the hour growing late, he made a mental note to cancel the subscription in the morning and retired to his bedroom. There, lying in the dark, he felt the foreboding presence of the Infinite Void. Why, he wondered, did it never stay on its own side of the bed?

- - -

That night, Joseph K. slept fitfully. He now felt certain he hadn’t been careless enough to subscribe to an AI “assistant.” First, because he’d sworn off subscriptions years ago after a dispute with the Columbia Record Club had ended in a duel. Second, he considered AI to be a flawed, unreliable adjunct for listless minds, not unlike astrology or The Epoch Times. More than anything else, however, was his suspicion of the techlords’ ethics, unsure of whether they were nonexistent or merely apocryphal.

- - -

In the morning, Joseph K. arose late. He barely had time for coffee, much less his customary (since his name change) bagel. Still, anxious to unsubscribe from ChuckPhD!, he navigated to their website, only to encounter—of course—the login page. Alas, with no memory of signing up, he also had no memory of a password. To get one, to change it, he was asked to confirm his identity by answering a security question.

“What are people for?” the screen read.

He’d have to think about that on the bus to work.

- - -

Four weeks later, Joseph K was at the end of his rope. His various attempts to unsubscribe from his free trial were countless yet futile. Slowly, it had begun to dawn on him that he wasn’t the victim of his own deficient motor skills, his mongers, or the intolerant goyim he called Foter. No, he was trapped between Technology and Capitalism, the Leopold and Loeb of social forces.

Little wonder, then, that he encountered every sort of obstacle and frustration imaginable. There were 404 errors (page does not exist), 808 errors (you do not exist), and 666 errors (God does not exist). He was confronted with a series of CAPTCHA screens instructing him to click on all photos with Presbyterians or argon gas.

When he at last obtained a customer service email address (purchased from the dark web using a cryptocurrency so sophisticated, a particle accelerator is required to make change), he swiftly dashed off a subscription cancellation. Just as quickly came a gormless auto-reply reassuring him his subscription remained active, along with an apology for any confusion. The following day, his bank account was assessed a $10 apology surcharge.

Flailing, he turned to Reddit, where he was informed ChuckPhD!’s “Cancel subscription”/“Delete account” pages resided solely behind a paywall in the minds of its creators.

With time running out, Joseph K. came to a bitter realization: he did not have the doggedness or technoguile to undo ChuckPhD!. Until, suddenly, the solution revealed itself in a flash: subscriptioncide. That is, command ChuckPhD! to terminate ChuckPhD!. In that instant, he felt the awesome power of putting himself out of work through technology.

- - -

The following day, Joseph K. was arrested and taken into custody. In the spring, he was tried for breach of free trial, breach of terms of service, assault with a deadly technology, and VC endangerment. Found guilty on all charges, he received an indeterminate sentence and was fined five lifetime ChuckPhD! subscriptions. His only solace is his prison’s dearth of Wi-Fi.