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Why were online subscriptions once rare, but now they are everywhere?
Submitted 10 months ago by labbbb@thelemmy.club to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 10 months ago
NexiusLobster@lemmy.world 10 months ago
this may be the greatest thing i’ve read on lemmy in a month. what are some good books on business that you’d recommend more people read?
Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com 10 months ago
Thanks for explaining this so well.
honeyontoast@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Because they seemed like a good deal when they first came around, and they were, so they boomed in popularity. Then everyone started offering them, the prices got jacked up and now you’ll struggle to find an alternative.
Also, the very very short answer: More money
bstix@feddit.dk 10 months ago
It’s a lot easier and much much cheaper to run a subscription payment model today than it was 10-20 years ago.
vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
C A P I T A L I S M
originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 10 months ago
'recurring revenue streams'. businesses can make more money selling products as services than actual things, and more reliably.
take adobe licensing as a perfectly example of this enshitification.
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
Part of the problem is that the technology needed to turn increasingly mundane things into subscription services has gotten much cheaper.
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Once they proved that people would be willing to pay repeatedly, everyone wanted a slice of that delicious guaranteed revenue.
grue@lemmy.world 10 months ago
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
Rent-seeking is the act of growing one’s existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth. Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, reduced wealth creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality, risk of growing political bribery, and potential national decline.
solitaire@infosec.pub 10 months ago
Online subscriptions have actually been a thing for a long time. In some ways it’s even fallen out of favor, especially with the rise of the “freemium” model. MMOs are a great example of this as subscriptions used to be the price of entry with no other monetization, where as these days if an MMO uses subscriptions it’s a secondary “convince” fee after entry that is almost always combined with MTX bullshit.
If you’re talking specifically about SaaS bullshit, it’s because it required a certain level of infrastructure before it became practical. We had to move away from cash and needed reliable internet connections first, amongst a host of other developments. Anything that couldn’t be a cash purchase in a physical store was losing significant market share. This didn’t stop time restricted licenses on software still being a thing, but it was generally pretty niche software.
leaky_shower_thought@feddit.nl 10 months ago
imo, the subscription style is the evolution of “planned obsolescence”.
people are willing to give money if the goods have an expiration. so instead of the goods expiring, the concept of validity of the goods now expire. same money, but saves on making different goods altogether.
JadenSmith@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Less people were tech literate back then, and the ones who were would likely pirate things like music, than consider buying things out of convenience.
When everyone and their grandmas got online, convenience was something more people were willing to pay for.
That’s just my theory though.
jvrava9@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
Istg this is a bot
andrewta@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Isgt?
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
“I swear to god” maybe.
Must be an old person, no cap.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I was wondering the same thing, like 6 new posts in the same sub within an hour is rather suspicious, but its not completely unheard of.
kratoz29@lemm.ee 10 months ago
What is its purpose here?
Zorque@kbin.social 10 months ago
It's a similar reason retail stores try and push their loyalty programs, it's a more guaranteed source of income than a one time payment.
PopMyCop@iusearchlinux.fyi 10 months ago
As my boss said in one of those stupid floor meetings we always had to have, “if they have [the competitor’s] card in their wallet, and not ours, who do you think they’re going to?” God, I got sick of asking folks to sign up.
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Because now is the age of techno-feudalism.
OpenStars@startrek.website 10 months ago
Bc people get stupider over time, it seems. :-(
stoy@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
If you had to pick, would you rather get a large ammount of money semi regularly, or a smaller ammount of money on a consistant schedule, oh and there is no alternative for your customer than to keep paying for as long as they use your product.
zeppo@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Because companies make their best and most reliable income from subscriptions.
FelipeFelop@discuss.online 10 months ago
I’d say companies THINK they will make more money. That might be true with big, complex software that can be sold as a service that people will use (Photoshop, Windows, Office etc) or services that offer a lot (like the original version of Netflix or Amazon Prime)
But it’s not true for things you can take or leave. (Such as most mobile apps which now have to really on sales to boost conversion rates from Free tier to subscription).
Then you also have the issue of a fragmented market so even previously successful services like Prime are looking to get more money by adding extra costs (eg Prime Video will have adverts from the summer unless you pay $40 extra per year as a new top up subscription)
So it’s more of a theoretical reliable income.
zeppo@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It works great when people have it on autopay and are paying without consuming any services, or they make it a giant pain in the ass to unsubscribe and people put it off.