Why is everything a subscription?
Subscription services are everywhere effecting personal finance the average person is now spending $273 a month on subscriptions and at the same time less than one third of them could afford a $1,000 expense without going into debt…
This only includes software services like netflix, disney plus, hulu, spotify, adobe, apple music, xbox games pass and others. it does not include other recuring expenses like gym or club memberships.
Service companies are doing this to attract venture capital investment. These investors favour subscription businesses because they provide consistent cash flows and can be scaled rapidly before being sold through a traditional IPO, a SPAC or to a private equity fund.
But these businesses are not always perfect and there are some products that just make more sense to sell through a one time direct sale.
So it’s time to Learn How Money Works to find out how everything became a subscription.
All part of the enshittification of the world. I hate where we’re going.
I would gladly rent my car if that covered all vehicle repairs and maintenance and insurance.
That’s called private lease.
Isn’t that always an option? Car companies push that kind of leasing like mad.
Not that I have seen. I have been offered packages that cover the drive train or something similar, but the maintenance is up to me, the insurance is up to me, and that makes for a hell of a car payment each month.
Volvo actually had this very program for a bit. They don’t seem to now which tells you how it went…
It’s common for fleet leasing but I haven’t encountered widespread push for personal lease. It exists as a service but I don’t know if I’d call it “pushed like mad”.
Maybe I’m out of the loop though, especially globally. It’s probably different from country to country.
Well I live in the crappier side of Europe and in the last 10 or so years, this kind of car leasing have been more popular even for individuals. I was under the impressions the trend came from the west, cause I remember learning about it in high school when it wasn’t much of a thing here yet.
I am so in favor to actually owning something instead of renting it for years.
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@WhoRoger Thanks to Adobe shitheads!!!
Also the only subscription that I can stand is Humble Choice which let me keep the games that they give on my Steam account. So if I cancel I don’t loose them.I keep HBO MAX for the sole reason that they have newly released films. So is cheaper ($8 monthly) that paying for a cinema ticket.
TBH, I’m quite happy with the Affinity alternatives, although I never used Lightroom and I guess that’s the hardest to replace for the average user
There are some services I pay for using a subscription service. My password manager, because my whole family uses it. Various streaming services, mostly because they have stopped providing physical media and have now created a monopoly on their content. But that’s it. I used to pay for PathFinder, a Mac Finder replacement. I would happily upgrade my license on every major release because it was a perpetual license. When they switched to a subscription model, I just stopped.
What I think these companies don’t understand is that keeping track of a bunch of subscriptions results in a huge cognitive load. Not only do I have to keep track of which prices are fair relative to many other similar services, I have to keep track of when they renew so I’m not taken by surprise. In most cases, not having to deal with that cognitive load is a better deal for me than the service they’re offering.
Yea I’m not against any and all subscriptions in principle. When I was taxi driving, having unlimited music on Spotify was totally worth it and a great upgrade over radio. I even had Audible for a while, where you get one book a month to keep (DRM aside, which can be dealt with), so you know exactly what you’re getting.
The major problem is how much everyone is pushing subs now for every stupid thing, how markers are fracturing and worst of all, with most services once you subscribe, you take a massive hit and lose everything you’ve paid for until then - such as with the game passes. So one can only keep sucking up the ever increasing prices, further fragmentation and be at the provider’s mercy whether the thing even keeps going at all.
