That's been so bad that there are now gyms which have 'easy cancel' as a selling point. Pure Gym (UK) allows you to cancel by just stopping the payment (they call this "No contract" which is legally illiterate, but whatever). Ironically my bank was suspicious about me when I did it.

That's not 'easy cancel', they've kept difficult cancelation but outsourced the responsibility (at no cost to themselves) to your bank.

They also let you cancel on their app or talking to the counter. The only "catch" is you have to do it at least 4 days ahead of the next payment or it will still go through one more time. I cancelled in person, they asked if I'd consider freezing the membership instead, I said no, they printed me a receipt for the cancellation on the spot and that was it.

Not a big fan of the gym itself, but I can't fault their cancellation process.

Nah, it was. Much less stressful than some salesman trying to string it out until I give in. Bank guy asked 1 question then actioned it. With another bank it would probably be 2 clicks.

In my experience it has been easy, but they charge a cancellation fee.