Over time, are subscription services more or less expensive?

Depends on how often you buy the thing you subscribe to I guess. Like music, I used to buy loads of CDs and stopped in 2013 when I subscribed to Spotify. Costs £120 per year (though had 50% off as a student for a few years) but for me its worth it as I'm not buying music all the time now.

Short term some are good too like gaming ones where you can bash through a 20 hour game in a couple of months of a gaming sub then stop it so instead of paying £40 you pay £20 for example. Longer time less so if you wouldn't be buying the games full price anyway.

Some make very little sense as they come out more expensive than buying though like cars or meals.

Ultimately depends on whether you'd have bought the original thing for more over the time you subscribed and if you're happy not to own or keep a copy if you let the subscription lapse. Eg there's music I listened to in 2013 that I don't even remember so I wouldn't still listen if I'd bought the CD. But if I still wanted to play a game then I'd have to resub or buy it (but its probably cheaper now anyway).
 
iamdjdz said:
Depends on how often you buy the thing you subscribe to I guess. Like music, I used to buy loads of CDs and stopped in 2013 when I subscribed to Spotify. Costs £120 per year (though had 50% off as a student for a few years) but for me its worth it as I'm not buying music all the time now.

Short term some are good too like gaming ones where you can bash through a 20 hour game in a couple of months of a gaming sub then stop it so instead of paying £40 you pay £20 for example. Longer time less so if you wouldn't be buying the games full price anyway.

Some make very little sense as they come out more expensive than buying though like cars or meals.

Ultimately depends on whether you'd have bought the original thing for more over the time you subscribed and if you're happy not to own or keep a copy if you let the subscription lapse. Eg there's music I listened to in 2013 that I don't even remember so I wouldn't still listen if I'd bought the CD. But if I still wanted to play a game then I'd have to resub or buy it (but its probably cheaper now anyway).
Click to expand...
I looked at how much I spent on music in the last 12 months and it was just under £40 (which was an expensive 12 months as the previous 12 months I spent £1.78) so £120 per year for a subscription service is far more expensive than buying outright.

Interestingly I don’t think of a game subscription service from the viewpoint of a game where there’s a campaign story you play once and never play again as I don’t ever play that type of game! The games I play (Cities Skylines, League of Legends) are the sort of game you play for hours and hours over a long period of time because they are almost infinitely replayable. It would cost a fortune to subscribe to these vs buying them outright.
 
Stovehead said:
I thought this sounded familiar..

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/forums/threads/for-people-with-a-streaming-music-service.18879200/

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/foru...ld-you-buy-and-what-should-you-rent.18880023/
Click to expand...

Hah same guy! Thanks newbie.

My opinion - I've spent a lot on a music subscription in the last however many years I've been paying for it. But, I download a new album every few days. Say I download 8 albums a month, that could easily be £80. My family subscription to Apple Music is £14.99 so that easily pays for itself and I get to listen to literally anything I want to at a decent quality.
 
mrochester said:
What are peoples experiences with regards to cars and software?
Click to expand...

I have a car on finance. It makes no sense financially, but my desire to have a car that doesn't flood prevailed. I have had to completely ignore the logic of the cost of it. I don't for one second believe that it's more economical. I do, however, enjoy driving a nice car.
 
As per post #2, "it depends" - I subscribe to Netflix because with a 4 month old baby we don't get out much, so tend to watch a film/few episodes of a series almost every night & it's cheaper than buying 10-20 blurays/DVDs every month.

The other thing to take into account is the non-monetary "value" that it adds. Netflix has the convenience that we can stick it on wherever we are - don't need a bluray player connected to every TV or mess around swapping discs etc. even used it when we went away for the weekend a couple of months ago - just stuck our account details in the TV at the house we were staying at so we had something to watch in the evening.

Spotify is similar. Don't need to mess around with CDs or ripping them to the PC then copying them to various USB sticks/devices, just "Alexa, play XYZ", or plug my phone in to the car and stream whatever. Spotify also has the benefit of suggesting similar artists - I've found so much new music to listen to since I subscribed, which never would have happened if I was still just buying CDs.

For games however, I don't bother - I don't have the time to play much at the moment, so e.g. paying £8/month for the xbox game pass doesn't make sense when it might take me 2-3 months to complete a single game which I could have bought for £25. The xbox pass is also less convenient than buying games on Steam. The files are encrypted which has caused me some issues, and it doesn't play nicely with Steam link - which basically means any controller/couch games are out of the question.
 
If it was possible to view your entire watch (listen) history on Spotify I’m fairly sure the cost of buying every album/track I’ve listened to would be more than the subscription cost.
Even if the sub costs more I’d still use it as it’s far handier than taking up space/storage elsewhere
 
It annoys me when some services go subscription only. Adobe for instance, you cannot buy their software outright anymore. You have to have a subscription to the creative cloud service. At least carry on giving customers the option.
 
Lopéz said:
You return to this topic a lot, do you need some form of counselling?
Click to expand...
No? I don’t see anything wrong with discussing the increasing ‘subscriptionisation’ of products and services that would traditionally be buy once and use for a time/forever.

I have seen a number of ‘subscription fatigue’ type stories in the tech press recently, especially in light of increasing prices and it’s interesting to examine exactly in whose interest it is for subscription business models to be pushed so heavily (I.e., who is getting the ****** end of the stick).
 
Last edited:
robfosters said:
It annoys me when some services go subscription only. Adobe for instance, you cannot buy their software outright anymore. You have to have a subscription to the creative cloud service. At least carry on giving customers the option.
Click to expand...
The issue companies have with the old model is that they only get paid once, this new model ensures that they get a steady income stream for months and years to come, I have an Office 365 subscription which has no doubt cost me more than purchasing the Office Suite outright but the fact that I can store all my critical files (and also access them just about anywhere) is worth the monthly fee to me but I find things like Spotify and Amazon music rather expensive as I mainly listen to the radio now.
 
Maundie said:
The issue companies have with the old model is that they only get paid once, this new model ensures that they get a steady income stream for months and years to come, I have an Office 365 subscription which has no doubt cost me more than purchasing the Office Suite outright but the fact that I can store all my critical files (and also access them just about anywhere) is worth the monthly fee to me but I find things like Spotify and Amazon music rather expensive as I mainly listen to the radio now.
Click to expand...
I think you are talking about 2 different products there. Cloud storage is a service you pay a subscription for, office is a product you’d expect to buy once and use forever. You could buy office once and then get a cheaper cloud storage solution from someone else.
 
mrochester said:
I think you are talking about 2 different products there. Cloud storage is a service you pay a subscription for, office is a product you’d expect to buy once and use forever. You could buy office once and then get a cheaper cloud storage solution from someone else.
Click to expand...
Not really Office 365 comes with Office applications that you can install on multiple machines (5 I think it is including Apple, I certainly have it on 1 desktop and 2 laptops) and also access to Onedrive from any PC with an internet connection (also I can access from my phone and ipad), would you get that level of accessibility by buying Office once, MS have rolled these products together and as a consumer I welcome that as it's an easy 1 stop shop for products that I use.

If you want to split it into 2 components then that is up to you but as a rolled up package I find it extremely useful and am happy to pay the £5.99 (I think that's how much it is) a month, other products I find are too expensive for how much I'd use it, I'll be cancelling my Spotify account soon as my 6 month new user code expires as I've only used it 4 times since signing up, I let my X Box live account expire as I don't play online anymore and haven't had a free game from them for years but I'll keep my EA Access account running as I play NHL, Fifa and Dragon Age games.

What are your thoughts on these services as you haven't provided your opinion yet, are they more expensive for you?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom