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Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

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Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#31

Post by ljm »

aNoob7000 wrote: post #11

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

I don't know how it scales at all.

I just cancelled Netflix because I'm also paying for Amazon Prime. Netflix hasn't had anything worth watching for a good few months but it took me longer than that to go in and cancel it. But the trajectory suggests that you'll need to sub with Amazon, Netflix, HBO, Disney, etc. if you want the full range of streaming TV. You're going to have to start micromanaging that if you don't want to throw your money down the drain.

Patreon's another one. Really cool idea, but everyone with a Youtube or a blog or a Twitch stream is pushing it. So it's a case of subscribing to one person for $10 a month or 5 people for $2 each.

After that, you can get a monthly subscription of underwear, shaving stuff, make up, etc. at which point it seems like a purely wasteful cash grab.

The problem is, even with the increased competition, prices are only increasing.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#32

Post by johnpowell »

lsc wrote: post #29
TeMPOraL wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 disappoi…

I have a card with Capital One and can do virtual cards too. There is even a Firefox extension to make it a few clicks to make a new one and input the info.

I guess I should mention that I am poor-ish. Right now I am getting lumber from a reclaimed lumber place and making furniture in a Amish style. Then my sister paints and distresses it. So if a bunch of random five dollar charges hit my account at once and I am not expecting them it could be a problem.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#33

Post by awinder »

So because of the timing on this article, the notes on Apple’s PE ratio are interesting to consider. Apple is now trading at a P/E ratio of 23 (Microsoft at 28), and Apple has made a point of trying to reorient / reclassify revenue as subscription revenue over the last several years. Even still I think this argument is rather weak, I think looking at a coarse metric like P/E to induce a single fact is a little too much.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#34

Post by ajdlinux »

aidenn0 wrote: post #25
TeMPOraL wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Visa/Mastercard debit cards are a thing.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#35

Post by baroffoos »

thebean11 wrote: post #24
mlazos wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Steam lets you refund a game for any reason if you have under 2 hours playtime. I have never found that I liked a game for the first 2 hours and didn't like it at all after that.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#36

Post by ceejayoz »

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.

PayPal has many issues, but this is one of the things they get right, and I tend to steer in their direction for anything recurring as a result.

You can cancel a recurring payment with a few clicks.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#37

Post by baroffoos »

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…

Selling lifetime services for something like that is very risky. It would be like paying someone a few million dollars and then they have to try to budget it out for the rest of their life. Also what happens if the company runs out of money and cant continue services. You have already paid for a lifetime subscription but they have no money to give you a refund.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#38

Post by lsc »

johnpowell wrote: post #32
lsc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 disappoi…

I have a card with Capital One and can do virtual cards too. There is even a Firefox extension to make it a few clicks to make a new one and input the info. I guess I should mention that I am poor-ish. Right now I am getting lumber from a reclaimed lumber place and making furniture in a Amish style. Then my sister paints and distresses it. So if a bunch of random five dollar charges hit my account at once and I am no…

I heard that but never got it setup. I did a bunch more poking today, and it looks like they want me to use a chrome extension (I'm mostly a safari person) I should spend more time looking up how to get that working, 'cause it was way more convenient than just canceling my credit cards every six months.

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#39

Post by tehwebguy »

koyote wrote: post #30
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.

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…

Interesting, what if your bank account is a UK account but with a US based bank that also has branches in the UK (is that even a thing)?

Re: Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018)

#40

Post by koyote »

tehwebguy wrote: post #39
koyote wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Interesting, what if your bank account is a UK account but with a US based bank that also has branches in the UK (is that even a thing)?

This is UK specific, so if the bank has a UK banking licence and it implements direct debit then they have to adhere to those laws and regulations.
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