this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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I’m not talking about this one specific application. I’m talking about the trend that everything is taking.
One thing in isolation isn’t bad. “ItS oNlY $xx.99/yr” after all.
But when stepping back and looking at the trend you see a different story.
It’s only $10
It’s only $15
It’s only $30
It’s only $5
It’s only $50
It’s only $100
It’s only $60
It’s only $3
It’s only $1599
It’s only $130
It’s only $45
It’s only $99
It’s only $200
It’s only…
You can use interest rates to convert between stocks and flows of money. If the prevailing interest rate is 5%, a thing will produce 5%, or 1/20th, of its actual value every year. So you can take the annual cost of something and multiply by 20 (and vigorously wave your hands at compounding) to get its actual value.
A $10/month subscription costs $120/year, or $2,400 over 20 years. So it's equivalent to a $2,400 purchase.
You can also think of it as, you need to set aside $2,400 in investments to pay for your subscription, e.g. in retirement. Or, if you ditched your subscription you could afford to borrow $2,400 more to e.g. buy a house. Or, you as a customer are the same value to the business as $2,400 in capital, minus whatever they have to spend to make the thing.
You should think a lot about a $2,400 purchase.
Exactly, and that's why I dropped Amazon Prime and most other subscriptions.
Yeah, packages taking a few days longer is annoying, but I also don't feel obligated to keep shopping at Amazon to "get my value." I miss some shows, but I can buy them for less than the yearly cost of the subscription, and most can be replaced with content at other services.
I still have two streaming subscriptions: Netflix (kids love it, I watch it while folding laundry) and Disney+ (wife and one kid loves it). I spend $20/month total for both (have discount for D+ through credit card for the legacy plan, so it's like $7-8 net), and neither have ads.
And that's pretty much it for subscriptions. Sure, I have my city utilities and whatnot, but those aren't really optional unless I'm willing to go off-grid, and from my math it would take many years to pay off (not sure it will depending on how markets go), and I'd likely have a worse experience.
Other services:
We just got two cats, so maybe I'll end up getting a Chewy membership or something, but we'll try to avoid that.
Reoccurring bills are also subscriptions. Like rent, food, electricity, gas, water, etc.
I guess, but they're a lot less optional and more useful.
I own my house, so I don't pay rent. My mortgage is below inflation and expected investment returns (it's even below risk free investments like CDs), so I actually make money by not paying it down.
Replacing gas/water/electricity/food with fixed cost items is more expensive. Electricity is the easiest, and going off-grid would cost $20-30k initially with a really good deal (assuming I DIY a lot of it; a lot of this is the battery backup), which if invested in the market would yield $1200-1600 the first year @ 6%. I only pay $50-100/month for electricity, so I'd pay more to generate it myself vs investing that money. The same goes for gas, water, and food, mostly because of the land requirement (need trees for heat, large plots for growing for, well access, etc). These items benefit from economies of scale, so it's absolutely worth paying based on use.
So it goes both ways. Some subscription-type things are cheaper long term, such as a Costco subscription or natural gas delivery, and some are likely more expensive, like paying for heated seats or many streaming subscriptions.
Microtransactions started with horse armor in oblivion. The fact that people can't see the clear trend with things like this is directly one of the causes of constant enshitification
Again you’re missing the point.
This is the future of everything.
That's one possible future. Or you could go out of your way to not get subscriptions.
I have two digital subscriptions, Netflix and Disney+, and I'm considering cancelling them.
For music, I just buy what I want to listen to. I watch far less TV shows now because I find them very repetitive and low quality. I don't watch many TV shows because I find video games and books more satisfying. And so on.
If a car requires a subscription, I'm not going to buy that car. If a TV comes with ads or a subscription, I'm not buying that TV. And so on. Unfortunately, the subscription model is very popular, but if enough people push back, alternatives will continue to exist.
I’m trying, but I see this going the same way as MTX in video games.
Yet there are still a ton of games without MTX.
I can count on one hand the number of games I've played with MTX in the past year, and I've played dozens of games in that time. MTX is mostly in big AAA MP games, so I just don't play big AAA MP games.
In the last year, I've gotten a lot more into indie and AA gaming, but I still occasionally play AAA games. If a game obviously has MTX, I don't play that game. There's plenty more to choose from.
Vote with your eyeballs and your wallet and support companies that don't do that nonsense.