Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Subscription Hell

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 610 posts

Re: Subscription Hell

#551

Post by josefresco »

jimmy1 wrote: post #541
nojvek wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Payday loans are extreme case because it’s the last option for a poor person. A poor persons usually has little family/friends or they are poor too. Banks won’t give them loans. If they are stuck in deep dark mud, the only way out is payday loan. Sure, some outright gamble their life and their should be some low against it. But paydays are taking huge risks in funding them, therefore their higher fees as insurance.

> Payday loans are extreme case because it’s the last option for a poor person. This is a false dilemma. There are many options before succumbing to a payday loan. Depending on where you live, there are a myriad of housing assistance, energy assistance, medical bills assistance, and food assistance programs on the city, county, state, and federal levels. Heck, even bankruptcy can be better in some situations. It real…

It's usually the last (legal) option for "straight cash". Most public assistance programs have some sort of condition to the assistance they provide.

Re: Subscription Hell

#552

Post by jhall1468 »

TheKarateKid wrote: post #550

I'm okay with subscriptions. Software and quality media (such as Bloomberg) are things that provide excellent value, and people have gotten used to thinking they should be free or dirt-cheap - even within our own community, which is saddening (I used to have this mentality years ago, too). Yet, most people don't bat an eyelash when paying $100-200/month JUST for cell phone service, then $100/month for cable, etc. How…

The argument is that the subscription price is prohibitive. Bloomberg is charging $35/month which is considerably more than the advertising they are replacing. I don't have Cable, I can watch news free OTA and my cell phone bill is $170/month for 4 lines.

Problem is I don't use most of these services daily. Had Bloomberg decided $10-$15/month was the right range, I'd pay it happily. You can't charge $35/month for something that was previously free with zero value add and expect people to pay it.

Re: Subscription Hell

#553

Post by samlevine »

TimJYoung wrote: post #537

This is good. We need to get back to letting prices do their thing and provide the proper signals to the publisher/producer and the reader/customer. Pricing helps producers clarify who they want to their customers to be, and it helps customers clarify exactly what they do or don't actually want. Someone already mentioned software subscriptions and Adobe Photoshop, in the context of professionals vs hobbyists. If Phot…

Ad-supported websites are about as pure of an example of revealed preference as you can get. Advertisers target eyeballs that spend money, and the sites that capture the attention of said eyeballs get ad revenue.

The golden age of journalism, pre-web, was based on price signals being divorced from content because of classifieds propping up everything else.

We have been given the web that we want. It has been found wanting, because we ourselves are wanting.

Re: Subscription Hell

#554

Post by dpcan »

TheKarateKid wrote: post #550

I'm okay with subscriptions. Software and quality media (such as Bloomberg) are things that provide excellent value, and people have gotten used to thinking they should be free or dirt-cheap - even within our own community, which is saddening (I used to have this mentality years ago, too). Yet, most people don't bat an eyelash when paying $100-200/month JUST for cell phone service, then $100/month for cable, etc. How…

I keep hearing people say that other people think things should be free. Yet, I can't think of a single time I've ever heard someone actually say that, or read something that said "this should be free."

Rarely does anyone think something should be free.

What people are actually thinking is: this thing is free and I'll use it while it is, but if there's a paywall, I'm done.

This is very different than "should be free" because we are really saying it's value to me is $0.

And, everyone is batting an eye at the rising prices of cable, cell phone service, insurance, etc. In fact, it's so blinding we can't even open our eyes to look at anymore.

Re: Subscription Hell

#555

Post by TimJYoung »

intrasight wrote: post #549
TimJYoung wrote: post #537

This is good. We need to get back to letting prices do their thing and provide the proper signals to the publisher/producer and the reader/customer. Pricing helps producers clarify who they want to their customers to be, and it helps customers clarify exactly what they do or don't actually want. Someone already mentioned software subscriptions and Adobe Photoshop, in the context of professionals vs hobbyists. If Phot…

Libraries can only help with printed paid content. Electronic content can be licensed to only be viewable by one individual.

It doesn't need to be, though. I'm sure that libraries can work out a licensing deal that works fine with client-side certificates or some other "proof" that it is the library's machines that are being used to access the content.

Re: Subscription Hell

#556

Post by JustSomeNobody »

icebraining wrote: post #535
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A restaurant has some really popular plates, fancy looking things. Owner sees a way to generate revenue, so he sells the plates for $5 and every time you bring the plate back, you can refill it for $10 (which is a discount off normal prices). That's a pretty good deal for everyone, this is good. Alternatively, same restaurant has some really popular plates, fancy looking things. Owner sees a way to generate revenue,…

Why would I want this? What's in it for me? Why must there be something for you? The thing in it for you is the same as before: the plates. If they're no longer worth it for you, that's fine, but that's the same if the owner had kept the same model but simply raised the prices or reduced the size of portions. I don't see why that's "crap" or "inappropriate". The only exception I see is people who already bought a pla…

In scenario two, why should the plate get more expensive over time? It's the same exact plate. Nothing changes about it. I don't get a service where chips are fixed. I don't get a discount on food occasionally. Nothing. So, there's no _reason_ for the monthly fee, from the perspective of the purchaser.

You seem to be taking issue with my word choice, but I stand by that choice. The second scenario is a crappy deal. It's "Crap" for the consumer. I don't know anyone in their right mind who would go for deal number two willingly.

Re: Subscription Hell

#557

Post by chadash »

jhall1468 wrote: post #552
TheKarateKid wrote: post #550

I'm okay with subscriptions. Software and quality media (such as Bloomberg) are things that provide excellent value, and people have gotten used to thinking they should be free or dirt-cheap - even within our own community, which is saddening (I used to have this mentality years ago, too). Yet, most people don't bat an eyelash when paying $100-200/month JUST for cell phone service, then $100/month for cable, etc. How…

The argument is that the subscription price is prohibitive. Bloomberg is charging $35/month which is considerably more than the advertising they are replacing. I don't have Cable, I can watch news free OTA and my cell phone bill is $170/month for 4 lines. Problem is I don't use most of these services daily. Had Bloomberg decided $10-$15/month was the right range, I'd pay it happily. You can't charge $35/month for som…

I think that Bloomberg is making a smart move here. While they have general news too, their primary focus is on high quality reporting on the financial and business markets. Many people within those industries will happily pay $35/month for this news if they find it useful, and I'd venture that many will just charge it to their employer, who won't bat an eye.

They could charge $10-15/month and try to appeal to a broad audience, but the vast majority of people wouldn't pay that anyway. Given the choice, I'd prefer a smaller number of higher paying consumers within a niche anyway, since I can make a more targeted product and still bring in revenue. If anything, this lets them be laser focused on their niche.

Re: Subscription Hell

#558

Post by andrei_says_ »

shripadk wrote: post #483
concerned_user wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They sell you version at the time of purchase (fallback license) + access to updates, all accounted at the date of purchase. So when your subscription runs out in theory you could get old version then apply updates but you have no access so no updates for you.

> then apply updates but you have no access so no updates for you. But that is denial of service that I legitimately paid for. Either they should provide the updates till end of subscription or refund the collected update fees pro-rata (viz. if I cancel after 9 months of purchase, 3 months of excess update fee collected should be refunded).

My sense is you paid for the software as it is on the date of purchase.

With that you get a trial of all updates for a year. If you don’t like the trial you don’t pay and revert to the version you paid for.

Re: Subscription Hell

#559

Post by TimJYoung »

samlevine wrote: post #553
TimJYoung wrote: post #537

This is good. We need to get back to letting prices do their thing and provide the proper signals to the publisher/producer and the reader/customer. Pricing helps producers clarify who they want to their customers to be, and it helps customers clarify exactly what they do or don't actually want. Someone already mentioned software subscriptions and Adobe Photoshop, in the context of professionals vs hobbyists. If Phot…

Ad-supported websites are about as pure of an example of revealed preference as you can get. Advertisers target eyeballs that spend money, and the sites that capture the attention of said eyeballs get ad revenue. The golden age of journalism, pre-web, was based on price signals being divorced from content because of classifieds propping up everything else. We have been given the web that we want. It has been found wa…

Web advertising only works to reveal preferences through privacy-invading ad tracking, and the public is showing less and less tolerance for such measures.

Newspapers were absolutely using classifieds to blow up their revenue, but advertising still played a big part and I doubt if classifieds were a significant source of revenue for most magazines (a quick look didn't turn up much in terms of figures).

Web publishing developed the way that it did because publishers weren't particularly good at foreseeing what the end-game was going to look like, combined with a good bit of hubris about what actual effects the web would have on print publishing. The resultant excessive ad tracking occurred because publishers were trying to, ahem, "polish a turd".

Re: Subscription Hell

#560

Post by ungzd »

> Advertising is one such model, with massive privacy violations required to optimize it

Why they took as granted that web ads must be behavior-targeted? It does not even work. Ads were much better targeted in 2005 with context-based targeting than now. Now I see ads about things that I'm not interested in at all and that I hate almost everywhere.

Post reply on HN