A price should mean what a buyer reasonably thinks it means. A discount shouldn't rely on an invented previous price, and a subscription shouldn't depend on making cancellation hard to find. These are modern forms of a very old problem: how does a buyer know they are receiving what was offered?
English laws on weights and measures reach back before Parliament. Magna Carta's chapter 35 required common measures for wine, ale and corn, alongside standard widths of cloth and weights. A charter remembered for liberty also concerned the terms on which people bought ordinary things.
Rules need someone to enforce them
The repetition of weights-and-measures requirements across centuries suggests that declaring a standard wasn't enough. Someone had to check whether it was being followed and have a remedy when it wasn't.
Modern commerce changes the opportunities for misleading people. A digital subscription isn't a medieval loaf. The underlying imbalance is familiar, though: the seller knows how the offer was constructed, while the buyer may have little practical way to check it.
Competition helps where people can compare offers and leave. A misleading reference price makes comparison harder. A cancellation process designed to exhaust the customer makes leaving harder. Saying the buyer should shop around doesn't fully answer a practice intended to obstruct that choice.
What follows the announcement?
A crackdown deserves judgement by what happens after it is announced. Are the rules understandable? Can businesses comply without guessing? Do the bodies responsible have the staff, information and powers to investigate breaches?
The historical parallel doesn't establish that every proposed regulation is useful. A badly written duty can add cost without helping buyers. It does explain why fair dealing isn't an optional concern bolted onto an otherwise self-sufficient market.
People need to know what they are buying and what they will pay. Governments have been setting standards for that relationship for centuries. The difficult part remains making the standard hold in the transaction itself.