Comment by jrjeksjd8d
9 days ago
Subscriptions have a "boiling frog" phenomenon where a marginal price increase isn't noticable to most people. Our payment rails are so effective many people don't even read their credit card statements, they just have vampires draining their accounts monthly.
Starting with a low subscription price also has the effect of atrophying people's ability to self-serve. The alternative to a subscription is usually capital-intensive - if you want to cancel Netflix you need to have a DVD collection. If you want to cancel your thin client you have to build a PC. Most modern consumers live on a knife edge where $20/month isn't perceptible but $1000 is a major expense.
The classic VC-backed model is to subsidize the subscription until people become complacent, and then increase the price once they're dependent. People who self-host are nutjobs because the cloud alternative is "cheaper and better" until it stops being cheaper.
My bank has an option to send me a notification every time I'm charged for something. I've noticed several bills that were higher than they should have been "due to a technical error". I'm certain some companies rely on people not checking and randomly add "errors".
Notably there's no way (known to me) that you can have direct debits sent as requests that aren't automatically paid. I think that would put consumers on an equal footing with businesses though, which is obviously bad for the economy.
Wasn’t aware about charge notifications. Looks like my bank supports that - thanks for the info!
> My bank has an option to send me a notification every time I'm charged for something.
Wait, your bank doesn't do that by default? I've always assumed it's default behavior of most banks.
It's normally an option in my experience. I have mine set for charges over $100. I don't want a notification every time I buy gas (I do check my statements every month though).
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You had to opt in for my bank, and choose a minimum amount to be notified for. I chose $0, so I get notified for everything.
If it's random surely you'd get a discount sometimes!
> The alternative to a subscription is usually capital-intensive - if you want to cancel Netflix you need to have a DVD collection.
I did Apple Music and Amazon Music. The experience of losing “my” streaming library twice totally turned me off these kinds of services. Instead I do Pandora, and just buy music when I (rarely) find something I totally love and want to listen to on repeat. The inability to build a library in the streaming service that I incorrectly think of as “mine” is a big feature, keeps my mental model aligned with reality.
I do wish these services would have an easier method to import/export playlists and collections. But that would make it easier to leave, so its not going to happen.
I don’t know about Amazon but having migrated to/from both Spotify and Apple Music they are both ludicrously easy to export playlists/libraries from.
At least with Apple Music you can cmd-a cmd-c cmd-v playlists into a CSV file or something.
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> if you want to cancel Netflix you need to have a DVD collection
You don't need a whole DVD collection to cancel Netflix, even ignoring piracy. Go to a cheaper streaming service, pick a free/ad supported one, go grab media from the library, etc. Grab a Blu-Ray from the discount bin at the store once in a while, and your collection will grow.
Music is different, but I never understood buying movies. Once I see a movie, I've seen it. I very rarely watch a movie more than once.
It really depends on the movies you're watching and how you watch them. I've watched "It Follows" like 4 times in the past year to show it to different people. I would watch The Shining every year at Halloween, and It's a Wonderful Life at Christmas. On the other hand, sometimes you just want to throw on one of your comforting favorite movies in the background.
There's also a media preservation angle - you can imagine the monopoly media companies of the next decade not wanting to stream "My Own Private Idaho" or "Female Trouble".
Maybe you would, if you bought it.
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You can only boil the frog until it dies. If there isn't a true dependency relationship then at some point the industry will die.
In the 2010's, when short on money, I noticed my cable+Internet package was above $200. I took a look at things and cut the TV service, keeping the Internet.
Movies and theaters thought they were untouchable until they weren't. Games can keep increasing their subscription fees until people just stop playing them. There was a world before video games, after all.
This is something I’ve been seeing for a while. As a teen that kept his 300 dollar paycheck in cash that money would last a very long time. Now I make a good 6 figures and was seeing my accounts spending way more than I should. It wasn’t big purchases it was 50 dollars here 200 hundred there. A subscription here and there. By the end of the month I would wrack 8k in spending.
Going line by line I learned how much I neglected these transactions being the source of my problem. Could I afford it? Yes. But saving and investing is a better vehicle for retirement early than these minor dopamine hits
Sure but modern cloud subscriptions have a lot of service layers you otherwise won't pay for so effectively you may be buying the hardware yearly that's a lot different than renting a media collection that would be assembled over a lifetime for the price of one new item a month.
> Subscriptions have a "boiling frog" phenomenon where a marginal price increase isn't noticable to most people.
This is so apt and well stated. It echos my sentiment, but I hadn't thought to use the boiling frog metaphor. My own organs are definitely feeling a bit toastier lately.
the best con of all is convincing ppl they need Hollywood in their lives to be happy