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Subscription fatigue: when will enough be enough?

I think a common factor on why torrents are having a resurgence and illegal streaming services are getting more traction, is subscription fatigue. Subscription fatigue doesn't only contain itself to streaming services, movies or music, nowadays you're also expected to subscribe to every app you download. Whether it's a meditation app, a budgeting app (looking at YNAB that went from a one-time purchase to a really expensive subscription model), the Adobe suite, the MS Office suite, your Peloton bike that you've already paid hundreds of dollars for (referencing the earlier article on them establishing a startup fee for buying used bikes), or a podcast app where the money doesn't even go to the podcasters themselves.

Is there a peak for this? I feel like subscriptions are becoming more of a rule than an exception. Having the ability to directly purchase digital goods seems more like a thing of the past. It's just so stupid. But apparently people don't care? They just keep paying for this? Apparently it's still worth it for companies to establish a subscription model, even if there are no benefits for the customer, just the company. What are your thoughts?

tias , (edited )

I know I’m in the minority but I am also a software developer, and I think subscriptions are a much healthier payment model for everyone. The issue IMO is not recurring payments but the total cost of ownership.

“Digitial goods” is very rarely just a thing that you produce once and then it’s done. The OS is regularly updated which causes incompatibilities, app stores introduce new demands, and there’s a constant stream of security vulnerabilities in your dependencies that need to be patched. Failing to adress any of these things breaks the social contract and causes rage among your users (“I PAID FOR THIS, WHY ISN’T IT WORKING/WHY AREN’T YOU FIXING BUGS/etc”). Even movies and music need to be maintained because new media formats are introduced, streaming services have to be kept responsive and up to date etc.

A subscription models the cost distribution over time much better, and it does benefit the users because it means the company can keep updating their shit even if new sales drop, instead of going bankrupt.

I don’t think this stops with just digital goods. Manufactured products (and the environment) would also benefit from a subscription model because it means there’s no incentive for planned obsolescence. It’s an incentive for keeping the stuff we already built working for a long time, instead of constantly producing new crap and throwing the old in a landfill.

But, the caveat is that this shift must not result in higher total cost of ownership for the end users over time. In fact, it should reduce the cost because repairing and updating is cheaper than building new stuff. The way many companies are pricing subscriptions today, they are being too greedy.

xilliah ,

What are your thoughts on ownership?

I feel a subscription model takes power away from me. Just like UBI would.

It just seems like a bad idea long term.

Loulou ,

Would Universal Basic Income take power away from you?

Like you personally?

Or is UBI meaning something else too?

akashihi ,

I think it was a “UBIsoft” , a game publishing company.

xilliah , (edited )

Yeah because it takes away leverage from unions.

It’s better to have national shares, so everyone owns the production, and that provides your income. But ya now I am probably a commie?

tias ,

Depends what kind of ownership you’re thinking about. When it comes to electronics, “ownership” is just subscription with a longer period between payments. Your existing phone, tablet, TV, dishwasher or what have you will last a finite time and then you have to buy a new one.

If there’s something that will last a lifetime, that’s a different discussion. But those are rare. Almost every purchase you make is a commitment to a recurring cost.

xilliah ,

That’s an interesting perspective, and it makes sense for certain objects.

I also disagree with something you’re implying. If you build a proper headphones it will last forever. It’s a symptom of a broken system to create headphones that break every 3 years. That applies to many objects that I can think of right now.

overload ,

I completely agree with you in principle for people who want their software updated, but there is some software that is standalone and doesn’t depend upon changing codecs/APIs etc. Something like myfitnesspal or a thermomix shouldn’t be a subscription, there is no major updates to how someone tracks their exercise uses a hot blender that justifies it beyond users being locked in.

In the example of thermomix, you’ve already paid top dollar for the hardware, getting locked out of functionality you’ve paid for stings.

lemmyvore ,

In the olden days software used to be sold by individual major versions. You paid for version 9, you paid for version 10. Or you skipped versions you didn’t need. You could use versions side by side. The newest installed would import its data from the older ones. etc.

App stores have made this very awkward or almost impossible. There’s no concept of separating major versions. You’d have to buy and install completely different apps to be able to pay for them separately and to use them side by side, but if they’re separate apps they can’t import your data from each other. Not to mention that people seem to hate having “too many apps” for some reason.

Software subscriptions switch the “support per major version” to “support per time of use”. It’s obviously shittier but it’s more realistic than a one-time price and expecting to use the app in all future versions in perpetuity. The one time price would have to be very large to be realistic.

Treedrake OP ,
@Treedrake@fedia.io avatar

This is an interesting point as well. Before, if you weren't happy with an update or whatnot, you could just keep running the older version. But nowadays that's impossible in many cases.

tias ,

Something like myfitnesspal or a thermomix shouldn’t be a subscription, there is no major updates to how someone tracks their exercise uses a hot blender that justifies it beyond users being locked in.

I won’t dispute that both of these likely abuse the subscription model for their benefit. But they definitely have a social responsibility (and in many cases a legal responsibility) to keep updating the software in these products and the network infrastructure that go with them. The internet of things is one of the most vulnerable attack vectors we have. It has been exploited many times not just to attack individuals, but to create massive bot nets that can target corporations or even countries. The onus is on the manufacturer to continuously keep that at bay. You know what they say - the “S” in “IOT” stands for security.

Treedrake OP ,
@Treedrake@fedia.io avatar

I see your point. But as someone else mentioned, there are many programs, apps and what not that shouldn't require a subscription just by looking at how the software or hardware is set up.

1984 ,
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

I think if you run Linux, you don’t notice it so much. Don’t need office suite or Adobe suits or mediation apps or whatever… There are many decent free ones.

nivenkos ,

Most of them are cheap though. Like Spotify at ~$10 is nothing, you can barely get a beer for that in the city these days. That’s far cheaper than you used to pay for CDs!

Netflix really took the piss though - with the charging for no ads, HD and multiple screens. Then it gets to like $30 a month which just isn’t worth it with the diminishing library, so I cancelled that and use Amazon Prime Video for now as it’s still cheap in my country (and has no ads for now).

Schorsch ,

$10/month would be cheap if it would cover every movie and show you’d want to watch. It used to be that but nowadays you need about ten different subscriptions in order to get what you want, plus many more if you use SaaS. So you end up paying ~$200/month for everything.
IMO, Spotify still “works” and music piracy probably is not as common as movie piracy, because Spotify has close to everything one would want to listen to.

Frozyre ,

I might sound a little in the minority of this.

Everyone should sit down and ask themselves - 'Do I Really Need This?'

I can only speak on my behalf. I have over, roughly estimating, 1,500 games both purchased and pirated. Do I really need a subscription such as GamePass right now when I have so much already? No, I really don't.

I've pirated thousands of songs over the years, do I really need Spotify's subscription? No, I do not and I'm glad that I don't.

So on and so forth. I decide what I need or want based on the current lifestyle and quality of life in my current state. I do not need over 40 subscriptions sapping me every month and it's only gotten easier because I combat FOMO, I evaluate what else is out there that serves as an alternative that isn't subscription based.

These days when I look at people paying a subscription model for Microsoft Office, I shake my head and have that kind of chuckle that makes you feel sorry over someone doing that. Because really, I still use older versions of Microsoft Office and LibreOffice to handle whatever modern features that there is to handle. Not a lot has really changed to warrant subscribing to such a model.

A lot of subscription models can be pressy to people who aren't knowledgeable unless they take advantage of what's out there.

Treedrake OP ,
@Treedrake@fedia.io avatar

For sure. And Libreoffice doesn't constantly try to make you save your documents in OneDrive...

CosmicTurtle0 ,

“Am I getting my value out of this subscription?”

If you want to pay for GamePass, Amazon Prime, Paramount, Peacock, Hulu, etc. then by all means do so.

But each renewal, you need to ask yourself, “Am I getting the value out of this subscription to warrant the price?”

Amazon Prime was a no starting two years ago.

Spotify premium was never valuable to me.

I do have a YNAB subscription but this is slowly moving towards a no as well.

I have Google One for drive/Gmail space but that’s about it.

smegger ,

When it’s only one or two a month it’s manageable, but now everything worth accessing is split over a dozen services. I gave the legal option a go and it became excessively expensive, so back to piracy. Both cheaper and more convenient.

lord_ryvan ,

Word!

A pal of mine his parents subscribe to basically every streaming service under the sun, but when he and I wanted to watch a movie and he already painfully searched it using the arrow keys on the remote of his smart TV, we’d figure torrenting it for a few minutes was easier. (and yes I shared back to a ratio over ×1.00)

ReversalHatchery ,

Is there a peak for this? I feel like subscriptions are becoming more of a rule than an exception. Having the ability to directly purchase digital goods seems more like a thing of the past.

You may have heard the saying: “you’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy”. Maybe there’s some real agenda supporting this way of life for us peasants, and this is the manifestation of it.

Treedrake OP ,
@Treedrake@fedia.io avatar

And wasn't that what we were promised by capitalism? That we could own our land, our homes and our lives. But even that, they're turning back on, except for the privileged few. Back to feudalism it is.

Megaman_EXE ,

I was thinking about this the other day when I heard Chick-fil-a wants to start their own streaming service. I feel like…it’s starting to feel like every big business is squeezing us like lemons. Not only do they artifically increase prices for their goods, but now they want us to pay for subscription services too.

It’s starting to feel extremely invasive. Surely, you would think there is a tipping point. But I also said that about the inflation of groceries and the general cost of living. But we haven’t seem to hit that point either, lol.

Treedrake OP ,
@Treedrake@fedia.io avatar

Chick-fil-a starting a streaming service sounds like the worst idea ever.

Thorned_Rose ,
@Thorned_Rose@sh.itjust.works avatar

I think some amount of it is apathy, or modern-life time-poor induced apathy where people just want something to work and work quickly without much effort or time and so they just pony up. And with so many people not keeping a budget, $10 a month here and there or $30 once a month doesn’t seem like much if you’re not adding up all those subs combined over a month or a year or 5 years. Really, some subs could fall into the category of a dark pattern because $10 a month doesn’t seem like much compared to say $100 up front even though over the course of a year (or 2, 3, 5+ years) that sub costs you more than just buying software up front. (Think also Sam Vines Boot Theory).

I see some people are getting fed up (I’m one of them) but sadly plenty more who mindlessly keep paying more and more.

Treedrake OP ,
@Treedrake@fedia.io avatar

Absolutely. I constantly revisit the services I subscribe to, but to be honest, I still keep some streaming services on a constant subscription even though my viewing patterns differ from month to month. In that case I'm just too lazy, and it's not a huge hit to my disposable income. I pay for it to be available when I want to use them. I think this might be the case for many others, and coupled with not having a budget and/or financial sense, this can definitely add up for many. I also think many people just forget what services they are subscribed too, and barely even watch their bank account/credit card slip and what's being withdrawn.

Matth78 ,

What I find annoying is for what you occasionally use.

For instance I started to listen more frequently to a songs service (which I was bypassing ads) and so I thought to officially subscribe. When I looked at prices I didn’t because it was too costly and knowing me I could stop anyday to use it. Price for one was above 10 when for two it was something like 14 so 7 per person and which I would have been ok to pay. Good for me because I stopped to listen some weeks after and it has beek years I didn’t really use it.

I think, especially for video and audio media consumption, you should pay a global amount and it should be split between services you used. Split should be based on usage.

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