Roach motel

Roach motel may mean:

• a low-priced motel or comparable lodging facility, usually a considerably older property in disrepair, not affiliated with a major chain, and located in a decaying area of town
• Roach Motel (insect trap), a device used to catch cockroaches
• a business model in which it is easy to begin using a service but difficult to stop for a technical reason
  • some companies provide an automated means to sign-up and begin recurring payment but then require human interaction to cancel, such as Gogo In-flight Internet access
• In computers:
  • a proprietary file standard -- "you can check your data in, but you can't check it out".
  • a property of the Java Memory Model, which lets compilers and Java Virtual Machines move accesses to memory into synchronized blocks, but not to move them out
  • a type of dark pattern -- "tricking a computer user into taking an undesired action", such as clickjacking or scareware