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Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

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Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#21

Post by mattjenner »

Dear innovative people: think of a better model.

1. Free = problematic with the lack of money

2. Freemium = looks good if the balance is right

3. Ads = Mostly works but the model is flawed and skewed

4. Subscription = Love/Hate currently trendy but too relied on

5. Pay-what-you-can = Fans provide the service for everyone

6. Premium only = Only what it's worth, when it's worth

7. Enterprise = S'ok because my company/org pays for it

8. Tokenised = S'ok because the next person pays for mine...

9. Charitable / foundation = Someone more wealthy pays

10. None of the above = For now somehow it works

There are probably 10 more models already, 10 more out there and 10 more coming soon. Get thinking, stop complaining.

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#22

Post by amelius »

davidkuennen wrote: post #11
auveair wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So we're catering to the people who are OK with buying a subscription because there are enough of them. Are there enough of them? Many services seems like they can only exist because many people forget to cancel their subscription.

I believe this to be untrue. People are very quick to unsubscribe to my app once they don't see a use for them for the paid version anymore.

There is also lock-in. In many services you will lose your data if you unsubscribe.

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#23

Post by amelius »

boffinism wrote: post #4

Dear customers: we know. But our businesses are viable as subscription services, and not as one-off or ad-hoc puchase models. We know because we tried them. So we're catering to the people who are OK with buying a subscription because there are enough of them. Sorry if that doesn't suit you.

From a monetization-persepective, the only difference between a subscription model and a purchase model is that in the former there are always some people paying for something they do not want to have anymore.

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#24

Post by Daveenjay »

Havoc wrote: post #15

I can deal with them conceptually - I just dislike how they go about things on the billing & signup side. Its usually quite darkpattern-y in vibe. See trials that switch to paid, or discounts for 1 month (heavily advertised) then extortionate rate (in fine print) after. Or easy online sign up, phone in during office hours to cancel. Or getting mercilessly hounded to re-sub after cancellation. If they just behaved a l…

This is one thing apple got right. I don’t have to deal with individual apps process of cancelling a subscription. If I don’t like it, I can go to the App Store and cancel it there

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#26

Post by xg15 »

mattjenner wrote: post #21

Dear innovative people: think of a better model. 1. Free = problematic with the lack of money 2. Freemium = looks good if the balance is right 3. Ads = Mostly works but the model is flawed and skewed 4. Subscription = Love/Hate currently trendy but too relied on 5. Pay-what-you-can = Fans provide the service for everyone 6. Premium only = Only what it's worth, when it's worth 7. Enterprise = S'ok because my company/o…

How about good old "pay for it once, then own it"?

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#28

Post by Barrin92 »

One thing that subscriptions have going for them is that they're a relatively fair way to charge for products that have continuous operating and development costs.

With one-off payments there's the obvious issue that you're either overcharging in case the startup (which the article talks about specifically) fails or you're severely undercharging which I think is more common if anything.

Just a few days ago I noticed I still have a lifetime membership for a podcast app that I once bought for almost nothing and they still ship features. While lucky for me personally not necessarily great for either the devs or other users who joined later after they switched to subscriptions.

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#29

Post by eastbound »

davidkuennen wrote: post #11
auveair wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So we're catering to the people who are OK with buying a subscription because there are enough of them. Are there enough of them? Many services seems like they can only exist because many people forget to cancel their subscription.

I believe this to be untrue. People are very quick to unsubscribe to my app once they don't see a use for them for the paid version anymore.

As a B2B cloud vendor, I’d say 60% of my revenue comes from companies who don’t know are using our products. However, this is part of the business model which sponsors the creation of a product for the 10% who are intensively using our products.

I think of this illegitimate money as seed funding, by large companies, who certainly hope that we’ll reach the feature level of IBM’s products. Given they spend a million a year for IBM’s products, I think they’re doing good by seeding startups like us, even if we fail (which we won’t).

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