Comment by athrowaway3z
1 month ago
I think HN needs a regular reminder that most things sold are commodities -without limits or re-use. Coal and wheat have no DRMs.
This kind of thing is the exception. Subsidized subscriptions work to distort the power of the market. The more successful they are (in destroying competition), the worse it leaves consumers.
While i get the individual steps that leads them to this "difficult position", I think i'll just keep telling everybody to cancel their sub and make sure to not get locked in.
> Most things are sold as commodities without limits or re-use.
This is somehow doubly wrong. Not only are most economic goods NOT commodities, there are plenty of economic analogs to AI subscriptions (streaming, telecom, gyms, buffets) and none of them operate as "unlimited with no restrictions on re-use". Really just terribly misinformed way of thinking here.
In most parts of the world telecom & gyms are commodities - America is 'further ahead' in letting companies distort markets without regulation.
But i think you misunderstood the scope of my claim. We can argue whether its 30% or 70% of an average paycheck is spend on fungible things and per line item how much of it is fungible and not - but I was also including all the B2B sales.
Companies that let themselves become entirely dependent on specific suppliers do worse.