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Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

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Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#21

Post by throwawaycuriou »

johnpowell wrote: post #20
aNoob7000 wrote: post #11

I wonder if sometime in the future, there is going to be subscription fatigue.

I'm already there. I just hate random money coming out of my account. I just gave fastmail $130 for three years. I wish I could have given them a thousand for lifetime so I would just never have to think about it again. I bought a lifetime Plex Pass for $150 so I would never have to think about it again. And no hard feelings if these services were to shut down. I can deal with a large one time payment. A bunch of ran…

try privacy.com one off credit cards with fixed limits. use them for each service that may bill you again.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#22

Post by TeMPOraL »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #8
buboard wrote: post #7

subscribe to read hahahah For one, I hope subscriptions die. It's a pernicious trend that is borderline fraud for consumers (like gyms, profiting from users who simply forget to unsubscribe or making it painfully hard to unsubscribe). It's also exclusionary for most of the world for whom the subscription price might be a year's income. With downloadable software it was kind of possible to find a crack online, but web…

I think subscriptions are fine; it is the banks that give power to corporations by making it impossible to control who bills your accounts. If you could easily see recurring billing charges and cancel on your bank's end easily, companies would have to step up and offer a useful service.

Part of the problem is that they handle much differently than purchases. To buy something you need to have enough money at some point in time. Subscriptions require you to have a stable cashflow. The former is usually easier than the latter.

On top of that, subscriptions are also relationships you have to keep track of. With a lot of subscriptions, it can become overwhelming.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#23

Post by TeMPOraL »

throwawaycuriou wrote: post #21
johnpowell wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm already there. I just hate random money coming out of my account. I just gave fastmail $130 for three years. I wish I could have given them a thousand for lifetime so I would just never have to think about it again. I bought a lifetime Plex Pass for $150 so I would never have to think about it again. And no hard feelings if these services were to shut down. I can deal with a large one time payment. A bunch of ran…

try privacy.com one off credit cards with fixed limits. use them for each service that may bill you again.

The problem isn't with unexpected or fraudlent charges. It's with the expected ones. Each subscription is another recurring charge, of a different amount and at a different time. Eventually it can become a death of a thousand papercuts.

I too share the subscription fatigue, and avoid subscriptions as much as possible. I prefer to pay once, up front.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#24

Post by thebean11 »

mlazos wrote: post #10
swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think subscriptions are fine; it is the banks that give power to corporations by making it impossible to control who bills your accounts. If you could easily see recurring billing charges and cancel on your bank's end easily, companies would have to step up and offer a useful service.

I agree but at the same time I feel like companies are bolting “as a service” onto literally everything . Take Rosetta Stone for instance. There’s zero need or benefit from that to being subscription but there it is. Games as a subscription also make we want to die unless it’s an MMO where you’re constantly getting new content.

I don't know, I was falling into a pattern in games where I kept spending $40-60 just to find out I don't really like a game. A subscription service lets me try out a bunch of stuff and sink time into what I actually like.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#25

Post by aidenn0 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #22
swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think subscriptions are fine; it is the banks that give power to corporations by making it impossible to control who bills your accounts. If you could easily see recurring billing charges and cancel on your bank's end easily, companies would have to step up and offer a useful service.

Part of the problem is that they handle much differently than purchases. To buy something you need to have enough money at some point in time. Subscriptions require you to have a stable cashflow. The former is usually easier than the latter. On top of that, subscriptions are also relationships you have to keep track of. With a lot of subscriptions, it can become overwhelming.

Most subscriptions are on credit cards, and having available credit implies a stable cashflow (even if you are operating at a loss).

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#26

Post by aidenn0 »

Subscriptions for SaaS are essentially a lease, and leases are almost always preferable to sales for the one doing the leasing. See e.g. IBM[1]

[edit]

Software (and other media with a high development cost, but low marginal cost such as films) are particularly valuable to lease, because you remove the secondary market, which can cannibalize sales.

1: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40751117?seq=1

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#27

Post by whinythepooh »

tracer4201 wrote: post #19

I signed up for “subscribe and save” because it gave me like a 5% discount on my Protein purchase from Amazon. Before the next 5 lb jar was supposed to get sent, they sent me an email saying they were about to charge me and I had until X date to cancel. You can make subscriptions work if your intentions are good and you’re not looking at them as a revenue stream based on people forgetting to cancel. I ended up cancel…

> You can make subscriptions work if your intentions are good

I am afraid investors only care about growth. First they are going to grow untill no more subscribers. Preferably the company will have monopolistic position by that time. Then they will start increasing rates up to "what market will bear". Then they will start tweaking "personalizing" experience with microtransactions etc trying to squeeze more. Add regulatory capture to this. This rent-seeking won't stop.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#28

Post by whinythepooh »

aidenn0 wrote: post #26

Subscriptions for SaaS are essentially a lease, and leases are almost always preferable to sales for the one doing the leasing. See e.g. IBM[1] [edit] Software (and other media with a high development cost, but low marginal cost such as films) are particularly valuable to lease, because you remove the secondary market, which can cannibalize sales. 1: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40751117?seq=1

For SaaS I agree but subscriptions for stationary bike, for food, for printer ink, for traktors, etc.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#29

Post by lsc »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #23
throwawaycuriou wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

try privacy.com one off credit cards with fixed limits. use them for each service that may bill you again.

The problem isn't with unexpected or fraudlent charges. It's with the expected ones. Each subscription is another recurring charge, of a different amount and at a different time. Eventually it can become a death of a thousand papercuts. I too share the subscription fatigue, and avoid subscriptions as much as possible. I prefer to pay once, up front.

eh, but the comment you are responding to had a solution that worked for me for some time. I haven't used privacy.com, but bank of america used to have a way for me to create virtual credit card numbers; I'd simply create one for every subscription I had, and it was really easy to just disable the virtual credit card.

Bank of America has discontinued this service, and I haven't setup a new workflow, which is disappointing. but I mean, it is one solution.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#30

Post by koyote »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #8
buboard wrote: post #7

subscribe to read hahahah For one, I hope subscriptions die. It's a pernicious trend that is borderline fraud for consumers (like gyms, profiting from users who simply forget to unsubscribe or making it painfully hard to unsubscribe). It's also exclusionary for most of the world for whom the subscription price might be a year's income. With downloadable software it was kind of possible to find a crack online, but web…

I think subscriptions are fine; it is the banks that give power to corporations by making it impossible to control who bills your accounts. If you could easily see recurring billing charges and cancel on your bank's end easily, companies would have to step up and offer a useful service.

In the UK that is (and has been for a while) the case:

If you set up a direct debit (allow a company to withdraw money from your account) you will be able to view all the details about it on your web banking (which company, how much and when the last debit occurred).

But most importantly, you can unilaterally cancel the direct debit from within the web banking interface. It will notify the company that you cancelled it on your side and you are guarnateed to not have any money withdrawn from them.

This makes life easier but does not solve the problem completely. Cancelling a direct debit does not cancel any debt you have (obviously) but it also doesn't cancel your account/contract with the company. So there is nothing stopping the company from continuing to bill you. It will just make it harder for the company to recuperate their money.

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