I think a common factor on why torrents are having a resurgence and illegal streaming services are getting more traction, is subscription fatigue. Subscription fatigue doesn't only contain itself to streaming services, movies or music, nowadays you're also expected to subscribe to every app you download. Whether it's a meditation app, a budgeting app (looking at YNAB that went from a one-time purchase to a really expensive subscription model), the Adobe suite, the MS Office suite, your Peloton bike that you've already paid hundreds of dollars for (referencing the earlier article on them establishing a startup fee for buying used bikes), or a podcast app where the money doesn't even go to the podcasters themselves.
Is there a peak for this? I feel like subscriptions are becoming more of a rule than an exception. Having the ability to directly purchase digital goods seems more like a thing of the past. It's just so stupid. But apparently people don't care? They just keep paying for this? Apparently it's still worth it for companies to establish a subscription model, even if there are no benefits for the customer, just the company. What are your thoughts? What can we do to stop it?
I used to have a program called netlimiter (needed to throttle individual aop downloads on a shared WISP that was slow as balls). I bought a lifetime license like 10 years ago because I liked the software. A couple years ago they got rid of the old version and bumped me up to the new version. About a year ago I got an email saying something along the lines of "pay our new subscription fee or you lose your access" and basically put me on a trial account. I pirated their old version years ago to see if I liked the software enough after a couple months. I no longer use that software.
Another time I bought a lifetime access for a game on patreon. About 2 years later the dev switched to a subscription only fee to access all the new content and never released anything from updated versions to the older public release. So essentially I bumped down to a free tier of access to a game I paid for.
Omg same. I have been burnt so many times on "lifetime" scams, im done. I want to invest in your product, but part of that agreement is you doing what you say. I've had it!
That's happened to me with a couple of phone apps too. Its infuriating.
I'm peak subscription overload. I'm looking for ways to turf a bunch of ours, I'm currently trying to prove to my wife that our IPTV sub has everything that she needs and the Netflix/Disney/Amazon/Paramount subs can all fuck off and die. Almost there.
Next up is the bike trainer, roadside assistance, fitness and music subs. I'll keep Spotify because I like how it integrates with our car, but that's the ONLY reason.
Although more precisely: I refuse to fundfeed my oppressors. The reason for s/fund/feed/ swap is that our oppressors profit from our data too. So e.g. I won’t even email a gmail user because my data would then feed Google (an oppressor because of how they dictate e-mail terms among other oppressions).
I think some amount of it is apathy, or modern-life time-poor induced apathy where people just want something to work and work quickly without much effort or time and so they just pony up. And with so many people not keeping a budget, $10 a month here and there or $30 once a month doesn't seem like much if you're not adding up all those subs combined over a month or a year or 5 years. Really, some subs could fall into the category of a dark pattern because $10 a month doesn't seem like much compared to say $100 up front even though over the course of a year (or 2, 3, 5+ years) that sub costs you more than just buying software up front. (Think also Sam Vines Boot Theory).
I see some people are getting fed up (I'm one of them) but sadly plenty more who mindlessly keep paying more and more.
Absolutely. I constantly revisit the services I subscribe to, but to be honest, I still keep some streaming services on a constant subscription even though my viewing patterns differ from month to month. In that case I'm just too lazy, and it's not a huge hit to my disposable income. I pay for it to be available when I want to use them. I think this might be the case for many others, and coupled with not having a budget and/or financial sense, this can definitely add up for many. I also think many people just forget what services they are subscribed too, and barely even watch their bank account/credit card slip and what's being withdrawn.
When it's only one or two a month it's manageable, but now everything worth accessing is split over a dozen services. I gave the legal option a go and it became excessively expensive, so back to piracy. Both cheaper and more convenient.
A pal of mine his parents subscribe to basically every streaming service under the sun, but when he and I wanted to watch a movie and he already painfully searched it using the arrow keys on the remote of his smart TV, we'd figure torrenting it for a few minutes was easier. (and yes I shared back to a ratio over ×1.00)
Don't forget the subscription to be able to start your car from your phone, or if you have really poor taste in vehicles the subscription to heat your seats or unlock other already-built-in features.
Everyone should sit down and ask themselves - 'Do I Really Need This?'
I can only speak on my behalf. I have over, roughly estimating, 1,500 games both purchased and pirated. Do I really need a subscription such as GamePass right now when I have so much already? No, I really don't.
I've pirated thousands of songs over the years, do I really need Spotify's subscription? No, I do not and I'm glad that I don't.
So on and so forth. I decide what I need or want based on the current lifestyle and quality of life in my current state. I do not need over 40 subscriptions sapping me every month and it's only gotten easier because I combat FOMO, I evaluate what else is out there that serves as an alternative that isn't subscription based.
These days when I look at people paying a subscription model for Microsoft Office, I shake my head and have that kind of chuckle that makes you feel sorry over someone doing that. Because really, I still use older versions of Microsoft Office and LibreOffice to handle whatever modern features that there is to handle. Not a lot has really changed to warrant subscribing to such a model.
A lot of subscription models can be pressy to people who aren't knowledgeable unless they take advantage of what's out there.
My buddy pays $100 for a cell phone service, and gets a new $1000 phone every two years. When I told him he pays $4400 every two years, his jaw dropped.
He first talked about how important it was for him to have wireless while hiking. He hiked ONCE in the past year. And if it's super important, he can rent a device during that trip.
It's ridiculous. I buy used $300 phones and pay $10-20 a month.
There's nothing wrong either with pumping the brakes of a subscription, which I'm seeing and hearing people do now including myself. I just need a good reason to subscribe to say like, Netflix, to get me to watch what I want to watch or catch up on then decide to unsubscribe.
I sincerely hope they don't penalize people in the future for doing this, but I expect at somepoint that they will so mind as well enjoy that while we're able.
My peak was one. For like 5-6 years Netflix had enough content to keep me entertained by itself. When the other media companies started pulling their stuff off Netflix to make their own services I started pirating again. Why would I bother keeping track of multiple services when I can get one VPN subscription and have it all plus stuff that isn't on any of them?
No. There's no reason the content has to be on only one platform other than anti-competitive bullshit. They could all have all the content and differentiate themselves in other ways with quality of life features. Then people would have options without missing out on content.
I was thinking about this the other day when I heard Chick-fil-a wants to start their own streaming service. I feel like...it's starting to feel like every big business is squeezing us like lemons. Not only do they artifically increase prices for their goods, but now they want us to pay for subscription services too.
It's starting to feel extremely invasive. Surely, you would think there is a tipping point. But I also said that about the inflation of groceries and the general cost of living. But we haven't seem to hit that point either, lol.
Apparently the family that owns Chick fil a also bought a movie studio in 2022 in Atlanta and they filmed some marvel stuff there. So it might make a little bit of sense?
My prediction is that now that tech has run out of its endless growth runway the- industry will begin to consolidate and they will have massive ecosystems that you can join for like 200 bucks a month
I think if you run Linux, you don't notice it so much. Don't need office suite or Adobe suitsäe or mediation apps or whatever.... There are many decent free ones.
I don't pay for any software at all actually, and my job pays for chat gpt...
I think a lot of the blame lies on the shoulders of platform makers:
Apple constantly churning their already-working OS so software makers have to keep working just to keep already-working software running
Google constantly fucking with web browser standards/frameworks so it’s an endless stream of work to keep a web app up to date.
The basic productivity software that computers run hasn’t changed in functionality for literally my entire lifetime, yet there is an endless supply of software engineers working hard on these same basic tools for no apparent gains.
Apple update their OSs annually now because the shareholders demand constant evolution, meaning the devs have to constantly be on top of changes to the OS. And it’s fucking exhausting how badly it affects us all.
It’s telling that my piracy of music all but disappeared when Apple Music came along. (Almost) Everything I want to hear is right there on my phone. I don’t have to switch between different services to find artists.
Now, whether such enormous consolidation of the record companies, allowing that kind of setup, is a good thing is another discussion…
I would pay if à la carte was remotely economical. For example a digital DRM movie rental should cost $1 in whatever resolution, on any device capable of playing it. A TV show should cost like $5 for a season or $0.5 per episode. To rent, not to own of course. I don’t care about ownership. With that model I would probably end up spending like $10-15/month on media, but I would feel better about it knowing the studio could pay more to those specific individuals who worked on the programs I am enjoying.
A subscription is a blank check to the studio to make whatever they think draws in subscribers, and to pay everyone involved as little as possible with no bonuses for blockbusters.
Is there a peak for this? I feel like subscriptions are becoming more of a rule than an exception. Having the ability to directly purchase digital goods seems more like a thing of the past.
You may have heard the saying: "you'll own nothing, and you'll be happy". Maybe there's some real agenda supporting this way of life for us peasants, and this is the manifestation of it.
And wasn't that what we were promised by capitalism? That we could own our land, our homes and our lives. But even that, they're turning back on, except for the privileged few. Back to feudalism it is.
Can you recommend lifetime access courses in offline too instead of subscription?
I'm tired of this model, where you just wanna have access to one single course with offline mode and they offer 1-month subscription for all of them. Who has time to check them all?
I know I'm in the minority but I am also a software developer, and I think subscriptions are a much healthier payment model for everyone. The issue IMO is not recurring payments but the total cost of ownership.
"Digitial goods" is very rarely just a thing that you produce once and then it's done. The OS is regularly updated which causes incompatibilities, app stores introduce new demands, and there's a constant stream of security vulnerabilities in your dependencies that need to be patched. Failing to adress any of these things breaks the social contract and causes rage among your users ("I PAID FOR THIS, WHY ISN'T IT WORKING/WHY AREN'T YOU FIXING BUGS/etc"). Even movies and music need to be maintained because new media formats are introduced, streaming services have to be kept responsive and up to date etc.
A subscription models the cost distribution over time much better, and it does benefit the users because it means the company can keep updating their shit even if new sales drop, instead of going bankrupt.
I don't think this stops with just digital goods. Manufactured products (and the environment) would also benefit from a subscription model because it means there's no incentive for planned obsolescence. It's an incentive for keeping the stuff we already built working for a long time, instead of constantly producing new crap and throwing the old in a landfill.
But, the caveat is that this shift must not result in higher total cost of ownership for the end users over time. In fact, it should reduce the cost because repairing and updating is cheaper than building new stuff. The way many companies are pricing subscriptions today, they are being too greedy.
I completely agree with you in principle for people who want their software updated, but there is some software that is standalone and doesn't depend upon changing codecs/APIs etc. Something like myfitnesspal or a thermomix shouldn't be a subscription, there is no major updates to how someone tracks their exercise uses a hot blender that justifies it beyond users being locked in.
In the example of thermomix, you've already paid top dollar for the hardware, getting locked out of functionality you've paid for stings.
In the olden days software used to be sold by individual major versions. You paid for version 9, you paid for version 10. Or you skipped versions you didn't need. You could use versions side by side. The newest installed would import its data from the older ones. etc.
App stores have made this very awkward or almost impossible. There's no concept of separating major versions. You'd have to buy and install completely different apps to be able to pay for them separately and to use them side by side, but if they're separate apps they can't import your data from each other. Not to mention that people seem to hate having "too many apps" for some reason.
Software subscriptions switch the "support per major version" to "support per time of use". It's obviously shittier but it's more realistic than a one-time price and expecting to use the app in all future versions in perpetuity. The one time price would have to be very large to be realistic.
Something like myfitnesspal or a thermomix shouldn’t be a subscription, there is no major updates to how someone tracks their exercise uses a hot blender that justifies it beyond users being locked in.
I won't dispute that both of these likely abuse the subscription model for their benefit. But they definitely have a social responsibility (and in many cases a legal responsibility) to keep updating the software in these products and the network infrastructure that go with them. The internet of things is one of the most vulnerable attack vectors we have. It has been exploited many times not just to attack individuals, but to create massive bot nets that can target corporations or even countries. The onus is on the manufacturer to continuously keep that at bay. You know what they say - the "S" in "IOT" stands for security.
I see your point. But as someone else mentioned, there are many programs, apps and what not that shouldn't require a subscription just by looking at how the software or hardware is set up.
Depends what kind of ownership you're thinking about. When it comes to electronics, "ownership" is just subscription with a longer period between payments. Your existing phone, tablet, TV, dishwasher or what have you will last a finite time and then you have to buy a new one.
If there's something that will last a lifetime, that's a different discussion. But those are rare. Almost every purchase you make is a commitment to a recurring cost.
What I find annoying is for what you occasionally use.
For instance I started to listen more frequently to a songs service (which I was bypassing ads) and so I thought to officially subscribe. When I looked at prices I didn't because it was too costly and knowing me I could stop anyday to use it. Price for one was above 10 when for two it was something like 14 so 7 per person and which I would have been ok to pay. Good for me because I stopped to listen some weeks after and it has beek years I didn't really use it.
I think, especially for video and audio media consumption, you should pay a global amount and it should be split between services you used. Split should be based on usage.
Most of them are cheap though. Like Spotify at ~$10 is nothing, you can barely get a beer for that in the city these days. That's far cheaper than you used to pay for CDs!
Netflix really took the piss though - with the charging for no ads, HD and multiple screens. Then it gets to like $30 a month which just isn't worth it with the diminishing library, so I cancelled that and use Amazon Prime Video for now as it's still cheap in my country (and has no ads for now).
$10/month would be cheap if it would cover every movie and show you'd want to watch. It used to be that but nowadays you need about ten different subscriptions in order to get what you want, plus many more if you use SaaS. So you end up paying ~$200/month for everything.
IMO, Spotify still "works" and music piracy probably is not as common as movie piracy, because Spotify has close to everything one would want to listen to.
Don't most music streaming services have all the major bases covered? Unlike for films or TV shows, there are hardly any music streaming exclusive versions of albums. Sure, Tidal tried to make it happen but still, at this day, most streaming services have most of the stuff one wants.
Imo, the mindset of "X is cheap!" what leads people to end up overspending.
Having worked with marketers, they use the whole "price of a cup of coffee" to convince people to buy services that they don't need all the time.
I don't have or need Spotify. Same with a lot of steaming services. I own Netflix stock but I don't even own a Netflix account. I could afford it but why?
If the replacement for X is Y, sure! Buy the alternative. But honestly I think people should reevaluate what they really need.
A sales person was trying to sell me a timeshare with the ol "only the cost of a cup of coffee per day" tactic. The conversation got real awkward when I told them I couldn't afford a cup of coffee everyday