“Pregnancy costs extra; it’s $90 per month.” This line from the latest season of Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker’s Twilight Zone-inspired sci-fi anthology on Netflix, succinctly captures the show’s persistent knack for extrapolating unsettling trends in modern technology. Season 7, featuring a star-studded cast, including Paul Giamatti, Rashida Jones, and Awkwafina, grapples with everything from pesky subscription services to artificial intelligence and the moral implications surrounding digitally generated sentient beings.

One nagging theme this season cleverly skewers is the ever-increasing encroachment of microtransactions and subscription services into every aspect of our lives. Amazon Prime and even Netflix itself recently introduced ads into their basic subscription tiers. Meanwhile, in the automotive world, Tesla unveiled its much-anticipated self-driving mode, but despite owning a vehicle already technically capable of autonomy, drivers must pay an additional $100 per month to unlock the feature. BMW abandoned a similar ploy to charge monthly fees for heated seats after public outcry. Such developments reflect the pervasive corporate shift toward “everything as a service,” prioritizing steady, recurring revenue streams over traditional one-time sales. It was surreal when this season’s first episode, centered on subscription frenzy, was itself interrupted by a Netflix ad.