[Cause]

Im not saying anything you do not know. Subscriptions are skyrocketing.

I have quite a few subscriptions to my name.

Some are fair: I think its fair for Netflix to charge an ongoing fee for me to access the streaming platform. The revenue is necessary to pay for the ongoing maintenance of the servers, the production costs of first party content and the licensing fees for 3rd party content. Netflix charges me a monthly fee but has oingoing monthly expenses they need to account for and of course I don't begrudge them a little profit. That's business. Magazine subscriptions are fair. News bureaus charging for content is fair.

Some are ridiculous: A) The Amex platinum card now includes a $200 dollar credit for an Oura ring. This made me contemplate getting one. An oura smart ring costs $350 dollars but requires an ongoing monthly $6 subscription to unlock anything more than the most basic functionality. Not even heart rate data is accesible without the subscription. The company is charging you hundreds of dollars for hardware, with all the sensonrs necessary to measure Heart rate, sleep, oxygen etc but purposefully locks access behind a subscription. We know its uneccesary because apple and their competitors do not need a subscription or AI to show you your heart rate. If you want me to pay for the subscription for advice on how to improve my sleep or excercise in a healthy heart zone thats fine, but this is locking core functionality behind a paywall. Car companies are experimenting with locking heated seats behind a subscription? Is the hardware in the car, Yes. Am I providing the energy for the heat, Yes? Than what reason other than greed is there for this paywall?

Then there are the grey areas: What about freemium games. At worse these games are skinner boxes hidden through cute and fun UI to look like games. 90% of people do not get sucked in but the ones who do are paying tens to hundreds of dollars to play substandard games. Games that are free cost more than premium triple AAA titles in the longterm. Its not a subscription in the traditional sense but gameplay is locked away behind purposefully irrating adds to milk you for money. The game mechanics are desgined to frustrate you if you dont smoothe the road with paid for extra XP, weapons, unlocks, perks etc.

Is legislation falling behind the times by failing to protect consumers against these practices? Is this jut the free market at work?

I guess I could even stretch 'subscriptions' to include things like the new Nintendo Switch 2. The hardware costs $450 but you dont own it in the traditional sesnse. Nintendo is selling you a licence to use the hardware in perpuity in accordance with their rules. They calim the right to deactivate the licence and brick your switch forever if they catch you cheating in online play, modding the console etc. I understand they want to prevent people jailbreakign the switch and allowing piracy of switch games but if in 2030 I want to modify my switch to become th worlds best PSP emulator that should be my legal right. I paid for the physical hardware. It mine to do with as I like. I feel this is destined for a lawsuit.

This post has been edited by Cause: 22 September 2025 - 07:12 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

A lot of influential investors love subscriptions because they're a relatively steady and predictable source of revenue, so there's pressure to add subscriptions anywhere imaginable.

And like those "freeware" games subscriptions exploit the psychology of US consumers by requiring small monthly payments that add up to large amounts over time and as more and more "negligible" or "inexpensive" seeming monthly subscriptions pile on. US consumers seem particularly vulnerable to this because they tend to spend most of their paychecks instead of saving or investing---even going into debt to buy more unnecessary stuff, much of it cheap junk that seems to have "negligible" cost. Relative to other countries like China, most consumers seem short-sighted and wasteful. But then again the US economy has come to largely depend on that behavior. So perhaps they're being... patriotic? To our Idiot Go*-King, Maman, who has finally arrived in quasi-human form as Donald Trump?

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 22 September 2025 - 07:42 PM

[QuickTidal]

You will own nothing, and rent everything. ~ All billionaires everywhere

But yeah, I refuse to play the subscription game at the level they want me to. I have been curating streaming services for a while now (I never have any more than 2-3 per given month...and if I want to grab another, I will ditch one of them to accommodate so I'm not knee deep in 5 payments a month.

You will never get me to sub to a video game system (again). I did PS Plus for Destiny PVP content back when I played that, but never again. I love my switch, but odds I buy a switch 2 are low...the games not being cartridges, but internal "key's to a downloaded game is the straw/camel sitch for me.

I use the Adobe suite of products for work, so I don't pay for those....but I wouldn't if I did it independently.


I have not, and would not do a Loot Crate for books or anything nerdy either. Yeah, some of that stuff looks cool....but you can fuck off with your subscription to MAYBE get it.

My dad paid for Satellite radio for years on his car, and when he gifted it to me I got about a month of the remaining bit of his subscription before it expired....and it was SUPER meh....and with Bluetooth and aux cable connections for my phone, I have no need of radio at all. So that's another one I won't do.

[worry]

I think you shouldn't need a subscription to turn your car stereo's volume up, but you SHOULD need a subscription to turn it back down.

[QuickTidal]

worry, on 23 September 2025 - 11:59 AM, said:

I think you shouldn't need a subscription to turn your car stereo's volume up, but you SHOULD need a subscription to turn it back down.

Nah, it's the reverse...I enjoy the quiet.

[Abyss]

There's also a base level of stupidity to some.
My car came with a year of free Sirius XM. K, great, used it, liked it enough that when it ended I checked, saw the price would jump to $25/month, but ample online comments were clear they would do better if i asked. So i called customer service and asked, got $9.99/month for two years.
That expired this year, did my due diligence, saw they were offering $5.99 month for 1 year for "new subscribers". Called, asked for that. They said no, i said 'ok cancel'. They came down three times but not to $5.99, so i cancelled. Guess what 'please come back we miss you offer' landed in my email a week later?

Subscription models assume most people are stupid and lazy, they're probably right, which is why so many companies are moving to that if they aren't already.

[worry]

QuickTidal, on 23 September 2025 - 12:01 PM, said:

worry, on 23 September 2025 - 11:59 AM, said:

I think you shouldn't need a subscription to turn your car stereo's volume up, but you SHOULD need a subscription to turn it back down.

Nah, it's the reverse...I enjoy the quiet.

So pay for it!

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

The "subscribe to everything" era is unraveling. After years of stacking streaming platforms, delivery perks, and digital add-ons, Americans are pulling back hard. A new survey from Self Financial shows the average household cut its paid subscriptions from 4.1 in 2024 to just 2.8 this year. That's a drop of nearly a third in twelve months.

[...] but the stronger signal comes from how people feel about it. Nearly half of subscribers now say they won't put up with another price hike. A few dollars more for Disney+, Hulu, or Apple TV+ might not seem like much, but across multiple services, it piles up to a small rent payment.

[...] Even with cutbacks, people are still wasting money. The average household pays for an unused subscription, costing about $127 a year. Most of that comes from free trials that flipped into paid plans because no one remembered to cancel.

https://www.vice.com...gun-in-america/