The Subscription Economy in America is Collapsing...

Bankie said:
All those plebs need to do is SUBSCRIBE to a service like Rocket Money for only $10 a month to track all of those other subs down.
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A subscription service that tracks subscription services? Subscriptception? I feel like there should be a better option that doesn't require you to not forget about another subscription.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
For an extra $3.99 a month you can get yearly reminders to cancel your subscription cancelling service subscription.
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Why stop there? For $1.99 you can a monthly reminder to cancel your yearly reminder for your subscription services.
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vegeta535 said:
Don't need a reminder to unsubrcibe when I have zero subs!
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That's how I work. Not gonna like but I had 2 years of Amazon Prime without realizing it, and I never used it.
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M76 said:
Youtube started pushing "premium lite" which also has ads. IDK what's even the point of premium with ads, there are literally no other benefits to premium.

There is also a new popup on YT constantly asking "are you experiencing interruptions?" - Well, yeah I'm experiencing interruptions by the messages asking whether I'm experiencing interruptions. :facepalm:
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It basically just has ads on music from what I can tell. 99% of videos I watch have no ads. I got it included as part of my gemini sub, and my gemini sub is discounted to like $5 a month, so pretty solid. I was even questioning the value of gemini @ $5 a month, gemini is by far like the worst frontier LLM out there right now. The youtube perks made it worth keeping for me
 
ivandagiant said:
It basically just has ads on music from what I can tell. 99% of videos I watch have no ads. I got it included as part of my gemini sub, and my gemini sub is discounted to like $5 a month, so pretty solid. I was even questioning the value of gemini @ $5 a month, gemini is by far like the worst frontier LLM out there right now. The youtube perks made it worth keeping for me
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Why not just ad block it? Running Morphe on my Pixel 6 Pro and it even skips ads that the video itself has. Revanced it dead now, so everything is now Morphe.
 
I'm not against subscription services. I'm against subscription services that don't have ongoing costs.

I don't and never will out of principle subscribe to something like software. I don't need or want constant updates. A one time fee to buy it and use it until I upgrade is all I am interested in.

Something like cellular phone service has ongoing costs like power, tower maintenance, etc. I don't mind paying an appropriate fee for things that are services with required ongoing actual operating costs.
 
Professional business applications traditionally have a purchase price + annual maintenance (upgrades & security patches). In the era of A.I. vulnerability finding, global hackers, and countless breaches of PII, security patches are a non-trivial expense for software companies. So, a lot of resellers are moving to a subscription model: yearly subscription for software (lower than purchase price but more expensive overall) due to increased costs and the accounting bean counters wanting less CapEx and more OpEx. (It's just a different color of money to me.)

In additon, there is a global shift from buying (a copy of) something to renting everything. For many years now, companies have been deliberately taking away our "means of production" to increase their revenue. It's everywhere now, from software packages (pay or it stops working) to tv/movies (buy a DVD vs streaming) to parking places at your apartment complex (oh you own a car? parking is extra on top of rent).

I just hope that y'all are actually getting value for whatever subscriptions you sign up for...
 
djstarfox said:
In additon, there is a global shift from buying (a copy of) something to renting everything. For many years now, companies have been deliberately taking away our "means of production" to increase their revenue. It's everywhere now, from software packages (pay or it stops working) to tv/movies (buy a DVD vs streaming)
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it is not usually to increase their revenues then being force into that model by consumer-technological change.

The music production industry was making way more revenues from CD than streaming, the movie industry way more revenue from Dvd then streaming, those shifts have been massive revenues destruction for the industry (there a reason consumer forced them into it), that what internet-streaming did too music:
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In the movie industry the revenues adjusted for inflation was cut by 40% between 2005 and 2015, pandemy boom helped reverse that and now it is healthy again but new players, giant infracstructure cost and high contents created a way less profitable for the traditional movie studio world than 2005, they had to consolidate themselve to survive.

It is always a dance between companies and customer, they cannot usually ever force anything into them (and vice versa), and it is natural, if people would have continue to still pay $200-$1000 usd in 1999 money (so $380-$1800 in today dollars) for a physical box of Office Dvds for each computer in a company, Microsoft would have been more than happy to continue to make them, google suite of online service, libre office, pressure to want all the benefit of the cloud has been pushed in them, not just from them.

Making that $1800 enterprise office box by the little $30 a month take an eternity and you have expense, upfront money is greatly better than future money, etc... there is a little of revisionist history going on, at the time peopel that followed it, will remember that the recording industry fought the transition as hard as they could, same for movies studio after that, gaming industry was forced by consumer to give 30% to steam (or at least consumer pushing them into that direction is quite clear)
 
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LukeTbk said:
it is not usually to increase their revenues then being force into that model by consumer-technological change.

The music production industry was making way more revenues from CD than streaming, the movie industry way more revenue from Dvd then streaming, those shifts have been massive revenues destruction for the industry (there a reason consumer forced them into it), that what internet-streaming did too music:
View attachment 832218

In the movie industry the revenues adjusted for inflation was cut by 40% between 2005 and 2015, pandemy boom helped reverse that and now it is healthy again but new players, giant infracstructure cost and high contents created a way less profitable for the traditional movie studio world than 2005, they had to consolidate themselve to survive.

It is always a dance between companies and customer, they cannot usually ever force anything into them (and vice versa), and it is natural, if people would have continue to still pay $200-$1000 usd in 1999 money (so $380-$1800 in today dollars) for a physical box of Office Dvds for each compute in a company, Microsoft would have been more than happy to continue to make them, google suite of online service, libre office, pressure to want all the benefit of the cloud has been pushed in them, not just from them.

Making that $1800 enterprise office box by the little $30 a month take an eternity and you have expense, upfront money is greatly better than future money, etc... there is a little of revisionist history going on, at the time peopel that followed it, will remember that the recording industry fought the transition as hard as they could, same for movies studio after that, gaming industry was forced by consumer to give 30% to steam (or at least consumer pushing them into that direction is quite clear)
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That graph seems to show that concert sales dwarfed media sales, before streaming media sorta crawled in for the leftovers. In fact it looks like streaming was pretty flat for a long time before it finally made some real headway.
 
Nobu said:
That graph seems to show that concert sales dwarfed media sales, before streaming media sorta crawled in for the leftovers. In fact it looks like streaming was pretty flat for a long time before it finally made some real headway.
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The Music industry has almost been completely consumed by the tech sector now. Those concerts are kind of the only place where the Music industry gets any money from Music. It would be funny watching the tech sector drain the music industry dry like the music industry did to artists, but the artists are getting drained by both now.

The purest expression of capitalism is when middlemen become so onerously parasitic that they make actual production a loss-lead.
 
Nobu said:
That graph seems to show that concert sales dwarfed media sales, before streaming media sorta crawled in for the leftovers. In fact it looks like streaming was pretty flat for a long time before it finally made some real headway.
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That the complete shift, during the CD eras, tours where giant ads for physical music sales that more than doubled all other revenues.

Now, streaming bring very little and are ads for the tours, where they can sales live experience and physical items. Streaming are maybe a 5th of the revenues physical music were and it is not that the music industry got greedy, too they could save money on digital without loosing sales and their plan backfired, they were forced into it, they fought against it as long as they could, same for TV-movie, they would have loved the giant 200 billions cable business + giant Dvd business status quo to stay forever, ott youtube-tiktok happened to them.

That something to remember when people talk about a plans and "they" when it come to transition like this, very powerful people tend to loose a lot of money in them and fight those (often new incumber) that will make less money but are Ok because it is more than the zero they had, it is usually messy and not something well planned like the DVD-bluray were (that the established industry itself that was in control and pushed those into people, Netflix-Youtube was picked-choosen by the people and pushed it/forced it bottom up on the industry). A bit like steam for people that followed gaming a bit, it is gamers that in mass that pushed the industry into selling revokable game license on the cloud download, not the other way around.

Major game publisher hated pure digital, specially if they did not own the platform, we forced it on them. Back in the day almost all major game publisher fough against pure digital distribution to not hurt their relation with the Walmart-bestbuy-Gamestop of the world, giving power to valve, creating expectation of cheap price linked to digital, loosing safe sales to distributor that are not actually sold to the consumer or at a lost by the distributor not on the publisher. And now there will be a revisionist history to say "they" forced it into the consumer, when it was clearly the other way around.
 
I had Hulu for a while now bundled with ESPN+ and Disney+, but that value evaporated when they put commercials in my movies and shows and I hit the high seas once again.
 
boss99 said:
I had Hulu for a while now bundled with ESPN+ and Disney+, but that value evaporated when they put commercials in my movies and shows and I hit the high seas once again.
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I think the whole thing depends on how you look at it. Streaming movies/TV, for me, was never a replacement for buying physical media. I use streaming to replace the live TV subscription. It has, for me, had the follow-on effect of slowing/stopping my purchase of physical media for TV shows and movies because I can now watch them at any time I want without having to go find the DVDs and slot them in a player.

On the music side, I've not touched streaming music because I can do digital downloads for what I want to listen to. That, to me, is stupidly convenient and has stopped any attempts at going to streaming music for me. I much prefer to just dump my digital downloads onto an NAS in my home and then stream them wherever I want. Yes, I could do the Spotify thing and accomplish the same goal but, for me, I accomplish what I want right now and compensate the artists more directly than the pennies Spotify gives them. It also helps that most of my music purchases these days come from independent artists producing their own stuff so there's no big music company between me and them.
 
1_rick said:
Right up until they get taken down because they're "insensitve", or bowdlerized.
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Yeah, that isn't happening as much as it used to. Before you didn't have a choice. If they didn't like it they banned it from broadcast TV and your choice was ... well ... you didn't have one. If they want to ban something then I can still go online and buy it. The options today are massive so while I might complain about the pricing, I'm certainly not going to complain that I have limited choices.
 
LukeTbk said:
A bit like steam for people that followed gaming a bit, it is gamers that in mass that pushed the industry into selling revokable game license on the cloud download, not the other way around.
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I think it is the other way around. Gamers didn't push them but it was the shareholders. Gamers are now pushing back and the industry is now buckling. Does Sony sell games? Legally, Sony would tell you that they sell a revocable license but at face value they make it seem like you're buying game to own. Gamers now realize this isn't the case and have been attacking Sony.

If GTA6 isn't playable on PC by December then I'll be shocked, and this will be due to RockStar being greedy by not releasing a PC port. RockStar pushed gamers to port their game to PC.
Major game publisher hated pure digital, specially if they did not own the platform, we forced it on them. Back in the day almost all major game publisher fough against pure digital distribution to not hurt their relation with the Walmart-bestbuy-Gamestop of the world, giving power to valve, creating expectation of cheap price linked to digital, loosing safe sales to distributor that are not actually sold to the consumer or at a lost by the distributor not on the publisher. And now there will be a revisionist history to say "they" forced it into the consumer, when it was clearly the other way around.
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Clearly not forced by the consumer. There is no loss to game publishers by selling digital, then or now. You'd have to ignore the cascade of decomp game ports of Sony games to see exactly how gamers feel about all this. The history of streaming services is tied to unhappy customers who overpaid for media. People turned to piracy and help destroyed physical media because it was too expensive. People were paying $25 for a music CD and $60 for a Blu-Ray movie, and that was in the 2000's. Streaming appears as a cheaper alternative but now paying for a service includes ads. Customers didn't ask for ads but shareholders sure did. Even if subscription prices went up, they'd still include the ads. This is why they call it enshittification and not something consumers asked for.


View: https://youtu.be/uHRYABP5tiY?si=-aZ1JUrXKf4DSzJF
 
DukenukemX said:
I think it is the other way around. Gamers didn't push them but it was the shareholders.
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could be market to market, for when there was the 2 offered, steam vs in game store, I was choosing steam all the time, people around me has well, there was even many if it is not on steam I am not buying it crowd.

Yes shareholders forced publisher in some indirect way to go where the gamers went, but the dance/that what consumer want and choose was really clear in the PC gaming space.

DukenukemX said:
Clearly not forced by the consumer. There is no loss to game publishers by selling digital, then or now.
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That seem revisionist history that consumer did not choose and push the industry into steam in the PC gaming market and yes there is obvious loss to game publisher (there a reason they fought against it), would they have their own digital store that work and no expectation of rebate (and not the one that has to offer the rebate) there would not be, true.

It created a world in which some publisher are buying games from others to give us for free to try to go through, I could have like 1,000 titles that costed me togethers less than $60.. would need to care enough to check they mean virtually nothing by now, it came with a destruction of value versus Nintendo physical games of the 1990s in our minds, not the only reason that game are way cheaper than before, but one of them.

It also created a near infinite competition for your new game from Independant dev and old titles you, as a group of giant publisher little control on. Physical games and its distribution created some friction and bareer of entry that made publisher a bit more powerful in that regard.

DukenukemX said:
People turned to piracy and help destroyed physical media because it was too expensive.
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that one of the main variable of the tech/consumer forcing the change yes, exactly. It is not about asking for ads, it is choosing the lesser option with ads over the more expensive one, that what asking for is in a market place. Usually you have an high enough price with no ads, yet to see them at least on mines when I choose that one.
 
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LukeTbk said:
it is not usually to increase their revenues then being force into that model by consumer-technological change.

The music production industry was making way more revenues from CD than streaming, the movie industry way more revenue from Dvd then streaming, those shifts have been massive revenues destruction for the industry (there a reason consumer forced them into it), that what internet-streaming did too music:
View attachment 832218

In the movie industry the revenues adjusted for inflation was cut by 40% between 2005 and 2015, pandemy boom helped reverse that and now it is healthy again but new players, giant infracstructure cost and high contents created a way less profitable for the traditional movie studio world than 2005, they had to consolidate themselve to survive.

It is always a dance between companies and customer, they cannot usually ever force anything into them (and vice versa), and it is natural, if people would have continue to still pay $200-$1000 usd in 1999 money (so $380-$1800 in today dollars) for a physical box of Office Dvds for each compute in a company, Microsoft would have been more than happy to continue to make them, google suite of online service, libre office, pressure to want all the benefit of the cloud has been pushed in them, not just from them.

Making that $1800 enterprise office box by the little $30 a month take an eternity and you have expense, upfront money is greatly better than future money, etc... there is a little of revisionist history going on, at the time peopel that followed it, will remember that the recording industry fought the transition as hard as they could, same for movies studio after that, gaming industry was forced by consumer to give 30% to steam (or at least consumer pushing them into that direction is quite clear)
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It would be interesting to see how large revenues from royalties are compared to these direct to consumer revenue sources.
 
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