Ask HN: How do you stay afloat in the subscription economy?
Backstory:
I was looking at an email I received this morning from Oku (A GoodReads SaaS alternative that I have no connection to -- You can easily swap in any of the hundreds of services that get posted to HN). Like so many others I've gotten from the various apps and services for which I've signed up over the years, the email espoused all the latest updates and changes happening on the platform. I was immediately hit with a sense of excitement and mild despair.
While I love the idea of Oku, it's become so difficult to justify paying yet another monthly fee for yet another service. Oku is even on the lower end at just $6/mo! Instapaper and Todoist are others that I can think of on this end at $2.99/mo and $4/mo respectively, but it seems the majority are $8-12/mo. This doesn't even consider the expensive subscriptions like Netflix or YouTube Premium that can be upwards of $15-30.
I say 'despair' because I'm torn between two realities:
1. If a service is valuable to me, I should be paying for it. Not only due to “you are the product”, but because if a service is not profitable, it will inevitably shut down and thereby remove my access to it; I should not depend on it if I'm unwilling to pay for it (no free tier usage).
2. There are a LOT of services out there (like Oku) that are not necessities, but are useful, beneficial, and deserve to be compensated if used. I really don't think it's crazy to think a person could spend $200/mo+ on recurring subscriptions.
Part of me thinks this could be a “power user” problem, but a large portion of the services I can think of are top downloads on their respective app stores: Music streaming, file sharing, video streaming, task management, delivery services, etc. are all pretty mainstream.
All of that to say: What do you think?
83 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 170 ms ] threadWe've drastically cut back; the only subscriptions we pay for at the moment are HBO (we're finishing up a show and will cancel that when we're done) and Peloton (keeping this). The challenge for us has really been finding suitable alternatives that are either free, or involve one-time purchase.
Spotify has been replaced by NPR's music discovery channel and purchasing some of our favorite albums on the iTunes Store. Headspace has been replaced by guided meditation videos on Youtube. Our (my) Adobe CC usage has been replaced by purchasing Final Cut Pro X (lifetime license) and using Darktable (FOSS).
Most services have reasonable alternatives that you can either purchase outright or use for free.
I'd absolutely live without it, but it's well worth the cost of a bottle of cheapish wine a month for me.
Some friends only listen to music on youtube or free on spotify (with ads). Personally I have apple music, after going through 3 months free trial of all the services I stuck with it and for £10/month it's less than I used to spend on CDs. I would drop it tomorrow if I needed the money.
The only other thing I subscribe to is Netflix, which is £5.99 and my kids watch a lot on it. I've had disney in the past, but it doesn't get watched. Again I would drop netflix if I wasn't watching it. There's already more free stuff on youtube or bbc iplayer than I could ever watch.
Some services, primarily Spotify, lack public alternatives, but fortunately Spotify does have a family plan.
That does seem pretty crazy to me.
Music streaming ($5-30/mo), video streaming ($10-75/mo), Apple/Google OS services ($5-30/mo), email ($5-10/mo), shopping (e.g., Prime, Walmart, etc. -- $5-10/mo), audiobooks, delivery, backups, gaming, home monitoring, etc., etc., etc. I mean, we've been hearing about automobiles having subscriptions, for goodness’ sake!
Costco especially. The 2% yearly rebate more than pays the subscription fee. The food is much cheaper than any other grocery store I have access to and of higher quality. The hard goods they sell save me a ton of money because they have already figured out on my behalf what a good quality middle-of-the-road product is, whether a metal ladder or a mattress. It takes a lot of time to research products.
The world will try to tempt you to make you part with your money. It's your job to figure out how to say no.
At least now we have choice. In the caveman days, you got beat up and your stuff was taken by force.
I also believe that subscriptions essentially make the developers a bit more lazier because there would always be a chunk of customers who’d continue paying because they haven’t bothered to cancel a few dollars here and a few dollars there. Compare this to having to entice people to buy an upgrade license, where the value decision in buying or not buying lies with the buyer. Subscriptions tend to invert the power equation in favor of sellers for little benefit to the buyers (I’m not saying all subscriptions are like this). This is what makes people hate them, because they know intuitively that they’re being scammed.
Also subscriptions pair nicely with continuous changes to UIs and features, for better and worse.
If I'd bought "Facebook home/student 2012 edition" I'd feel more entitled to it not undergoing dramatic redesigns. If I want that, I'd buy "Facebook home/student 2014 edition" and hope its migration wizard works.
In theory we’ll notice it expire if there’s something we want to keep watching but it never happens.
Second, subscription rotation. My family wants to watch the Battlebots season. We have subscribed to Discovery+ since that's the only place it is. While it's on Discovery+, we're catching up on the other shows we're interested in. We will be cancelling our subscription when we're done. Perhaps some other thing will pop up, perhaps not. Oh, hey, that reminds me, now that the Superbowl is done, I'm done with Peacock... {click click click} OK, that's cancelled. (Seriously. Literally just cancelled it because you reminded me of it.)
Third, some things I just won't subscribe to. I've been building my MP3 collection since I got my first CD in something like 1995. I've never gone subscription and at this point I almost can't, in the sense that I would lose too much. Lately I've been building up my Plex system rather than get too stuck on movie streaming. It's nominally more expensive, even, but it's mine, and I'm in full control of the cost rather than a monthly subscription.
The best way to avoid being trapped (or feeling trapped) by a service is to never start using it. My plan for the "metaverse", for instance, is to not. Consequently, I will never face a choice between leaving them in disgust but losing all my friends and high scores and purchased content and all the other stuff I didn't actually own, or feeling forced to compromise my principles and stay on a service that takes my money and does things I don't like with it.
I selectively break this rule but only for stuff that I know in advance I don't care if I lose. We've purchased some video from Amazon Video, but I only do that for stuff I am very confident we're only going to watch once. I only subscribe to things I know I don't care if I lose, because it isn't even just the control aspect. Something like "Oku", I don't know what that is, I've never heard of it, will it even be there in six months? Will the feature you love get "upgraded" out of existence? I just don't trust these things, and it's not because I'm just a generic old man shouting at clouds to get off my lawn, it's from experience. I've outlasted a lot of these services already. I've lost track of the amount of "content" I've added to my "watch later" list only for it not to be there when I'm ready. I'd rather just own things I can stick on my automatically-backed-up partition and be done with it.
1. You are not responsible if something's business model causes it to fail. 2. Nothing deserves compensation. There is no inherent right to earn a living.
One of the joys of capitalism is that there is a competitive marketplace. Each competitor is trying to beat the others. Sometimes on service and quality - but usually on price. If a VC is willing to subsidise something to undercut the competitors - take advantage of that.
So, sign up to an education provider and get a student discount. Rotate though your family members to keep getting new customer offers. Call up to cancel and see if they'll offer you a better deal. Find the offers which let you refer friends to get discounts. Switch to competitors.
But, most of all, ask if you are really getting £X worth of value from the subscription. If not, dump it.
It takes space, but the long term savings are substantial. It especially helps with Blu-rays being relatively cheap on eBay and at thrift stores in my area (I'm averaging $7-$8 per film, way cheaper than buying an online digital version and I physically own it, it just takes patience). I got on the Blu-ray train because it's cheaper than 4K Blu-Ray, but looks way better than DVD on a 4K TV, a nice middle ground. Plus you can find players at thrift stores and often repair them by cleaning the laser assembly for $10 or so.
For music... sorry, Apple Music. I don't have many CDs yet, and music is something I'm more interested in discovering new tracks for than movies.
However, as a developer of small desktop application (which doesn't have recurring costs), I do want to enable subscription to continue to support the application. I still haven't because I'm torn as a user as well as developer. Of course, there is the fear of angering the existing users.
I think people will have to vote with their wallets to the things that they need. If a developer can't pay the bills, the application will be mothballed eventually.
The only things I pay for on a subscription basis at the moment is $11 a month for a subscription-based game and $25 a month to a patreon so that I can read their weekly chapter early. I could drop the latter if I was willing to go a few weeks without updates, but I'm too invested in the current point of the story and do not yet mind the cost.
I also don't think people spending $200 a month on subscriptions is out of the norm, considering most people I know from the generation above mine pay that just for their cable bill. That being said, I still think it's crazy to spend that kind of money for something like cable.
To be honest, this just reads like a post from /r/personalfinance from someone who is not good at managing their money. I don't know how much your monthly expenses cut into your income, but I would guess noticeably so if you are making this post.
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EDIT
I realized I missed a few other things I pay for since I don't think of them as subscriptions, even if they are. I pay whatever it costs to own 5 domain names and a digitalocean droplet.
I do this too. One trick for this is to use a 'virtual card' or disposable CC for subscriptions (With Revolut you can create those). And if you don't want to be charged, just terminate the card, rather than cancel the subscription. I do this where cancelling means lots of back-and-forth with support (many services don't make it easy to cancel a subscription)
Cancelling the payment method is NOT an acceptable way to cancel a service. It does not absolve you of the obligation you made in the service agreement to pay them. Taking this approach WILL result in your debts being sent to collections and damaging your credit rating.
People seem to get away with it for a short time, or for small services where the cost of collecting is more than the subscription cost, but you can be sure that companies will figure this out and come up with a solution to make you pay up.
I’m sure you are in absolutely good faith, but I just don’t believe the correlation is as you imply. Are you sure you just didn’t get hit by the inflation we are all experiencing?
I (generally) am pretty good about killing off subscriptions that I'm not using (I killed one yesterday, gitpod.io because I just haven't been able to use it much); I think this post came more out of a sense that subscriptions are taking over the world. There are numerous services that are good services, that I would use, but it's _because_ it would be irresponsible to spend $200+/mo on subscriptions that I don't subscribe.
Ideas are cheap, so if anyone wants to make this I'd appreciate a free year of usage but otherwise have fun!
This is one of the things that many Apple customers actually value the most about their service.
But I think only Apple is big enough that they can make this model work. Otherwise, no one would want to offer their services through Apple, because Apple makes it too easy for customers to terminate their subscriptions.
Caveat: I come from the "small business as client" world, so scaling is not much of a concern for my bread and butter.
I don't subscribe to any video streaming service; Youtube is quite usable with uBlock in a browser (I don't even have a TV anyway).
Software wise, Adobe Creative Suite pricing is predatory; I just use Affinity and am very happy with it (I do have a license for Lightroom 6 which is fine for my needs). I have a copy of Office 2003 which is perfect (and pre-ribbon!) I manage todos on Workflowy which is free and fits how I think perfectly; if it ever went away I could probably do the same in a text file.
When it was free (twelve years ago?) I did use Instapaper, but found that I almost never came back to an article on a Kindle or other device; "Reader mode" is available on most browsers and lets you read with no distractions directly.
I think it's still possible to avoid all the subscription traps and random offerings, but I agree it's all going the wrong way.