You usually pay via SEPA recurring transfers, and just authorize a company to take $n money monthly (and can easily revoke).
Or you set up an automated recurring transaction to transmit that much money.
Or you allow a company to take just any amount, at any time, but you can revoke each transfer.
This last is how you usually connect debit cards, credit cards, Amazon, PayPal, to your account.
Cancellation was theoretically possible by calling or mailing the merchant, but too many times, an extra payment (or two, or three...) went through and it was hell to get the money back. The banks were not much help - you would have to try to get the debit reversed, and it was no fun.
I think I had a few similar experiences here in the USA, but I can't recall specifics. Now I pay everything in "push" mode via online banking, as silly as that may seem.
I hope things like SEPA work better at revocation than what I experienced back in the day!
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Life would have been so simpler then (Obviously I haven't thought this through completely, but something similar to this with proper security would be far superior than our current model of Name + Credit card number + CVV).