this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2024
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the biggest reason for subscriptions is. 1. consumer laws don't protect it. and 2. you can quit your job and don't have to be actually productive and work for a living because your users will just keep on "buying" the product every month indefinitely. and finally 3. subscription basically gives you monopoly in any given area you host it; because the user will usually not look or even have the means to look for options or alternatives once they have already tied a percentage of their monthly income to a company for the software or service they provide - as wallets got spread thinner and thinner until they, now, are entirely swallowed by subscriptions.
the only people arguing in favor of subscriptions are those who don't want to work for a living while still taking advantage of the capitalist system.
I worked at Amazon and the head of Ring said their best customers were people who bought a subscription and then put the camera in a drawer and forgot about it. They don't even want to provide you a service. They want you to absentmindedly give them money every month because you forgot to cancel.
Fine, but this is on the buyer not on the seller.
I mean, if you buy a subscription to something and then don't use it (or forgot to cancel while not using it) is not really a seller fail: you would have wasted your money even you'd have bought it without a subscription.
I get subscriptions are (mostly) bad, but it is not always a seller fault and the buyer should be aware of what he is doing or spending money.
I get what you're saying but the forgetful customer is explicitly what they said they want, which is dumb any way you look at it. Many times you're forced into signing up for subscription, or coerced under the guise of a free trial. Now this wouldn't be as bad if they came back and were like, "hey we see you haven't used our service in a while, do you still need it?" rather than just leeching money from the user. The system is designed to purposely allow the user to make these errors and that's wrong any way you want to shape it.
I don't disagree on that.
Maybe, but at this point I doubt that a forgetful customer would pay attention to it. What would really make the difference would be to renew the subscription explicitly. This way you could be forced to sign for a false free trial, but you would also need to confirm a subsequent subscription.
Yes, this is another way to see it. But the solution in my opinion is not to eliminate the concept of subscriptions. The solution is to educate the customer.