I tapped the menu icon to cancel my Prime account, but there was no option to do so. I found the customer service button and scrolled down, past a random dog at a computer, before finding the cancel button. After tapping it, I was served a graphic that I had to scroll past in order to continue with the cancellation process. It turns out that Amazon calls this process The Iliad Flow, named after the Greek epic poem about a war that took 10 years. The FTC (a branch of the US government) is suing Amazon for using what it calls dark patterns design choices, which are used to subtly manipulate users. Examples of these include interface interference (like the random dog video) and obstruction (using extra steps to complicate the process, in the hopes that users abandon it all together). It’s both comforting and creepy to realize that sometimes this isn’t accidental.