Over time, are subscription services more or less expensive?

Maundie said:
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?
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They are broadly more expensive. For instance, paying £6pm for O365 is more expensive than me continuing to use Office 2010 professional, likewise paying £120 pa for Spotify is more expensive than paying £40 pa for music. These services just seem to be designed to extract more money out of people and leave you with nothing to show for your money once you stop paying, effectively removing possession and ownership of things from you.
 
It depends, of course.

I spend more on music @£8/month subscription now than I ever did on physical music. I spend more on Netflix/Prime/Disney than I had done on DVDs for the past decade.

But in both cases I get a lot more use out of them than I ever did with physical media.

I definitely spend less on Xbox games for the kids thanks to having signed up for Microsoft Ultimate Gaming (or whatever it's called). Around £3/month thanks to making the most of upgrading Xbox Gold, and it means I spend nothing/very little on any other games for them.
 
I am cheeky and sponge off of family members for access to Amazon Prime and Netflix but those costs divided by the people using it is good value imo.

I do have one subscription in Youtube Premium (via Indian VPN for £2) that serves all my music needs, removes ads off youtube and allows for playback whilst phone is locked etc and for that price its worth it to me.

I used to subscribe to Spotify Family for £15 a month but then I moved everyone over to Youtube Premium and my parents dont notice the difference between Youtube Music or Spotify, and its only costing me £2 a month!

I never used to buy dvds or music of any kind so I guess I am "spending" more on that media but as has been said the convenience and immediate access is worth the price.

I don't use Office365 but I don't really like that subscription model, for *most* software I would rather a one off cost and then just pay to upgrade if I want to.
The number of users who use any of the new features that get released into Office each year I reckon is quite small, I work in a company of 1000+ people and 99.9% could get by on wordpad and thunderbird email if it really came to it.

However, the likes of Pycharm, Visual Studio and so forth do continually upgrade and improve with sometimes huge changes, I can understand a continous cost for that.
 
mrochester said:
Im sorry you feel that way. Its an interesting and relevant topic.
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It really isnt. Companies probably like it because it gives them a steady income stream instead of the typical peaks and troughs, feast and famine. It makes things more predictable for them so they can budget accordingly.
 
Lopéz said:
No, only an outright purchase. What do you feel about this model, are you concerned it will work out more expensive?
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I think so, I may have to start a thread on an online computer forum to pose the question for discussion
 
mrochester said:
They are broadly more expensive. For instance, paying £6pm for O365 is more expensive than me continuing to use Office 2010 professional, likewise paying £120 pa for Spotify is more expensive than paying £40 pa for music. These services just seem to be designed to extract more money out of people and leave you with nothing to show for your money once you stop paying, effectively removing possession and ownership of things from you.
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You are not comparing apples with apples. As I've mentioned in the previous threads you've started, subscription services evolve. The O356 I subscribed to 3 years ago isn't the same as the one I have now, there's loads more features, indeed more products and less bugs. Office Professional 2010 may have less bugs due to patching but doesn't have the new products or features. Same with Spotify, the music available to me changes and increases, therefore I consume more.

Your problem is that you're erroneously equating the value of two very different models and then are surprised that they cost different amounts. This has been explained before, but your thinking hasn't changed, so what exactly are you after?
 
Car - I lease a car. In most cases it's more expensive than buying. But it was convenient at the time. My previous car had an engine failure and I couldn't decide what to get next. This one popped up as a very good deal; probably a similar price to buying if I factor in the depreciation. So I thought I'd try it for a couple of years and then decide what to buy. It's the first time I've leased. I probably wouldn't again unless I saw another cracking deal. I think the key with leasing a car is not to look for a specific car or specific colour/trim. Just be prepared to take a good deal if you see one on something you would be "OK" with. The lease company will then try to upsell the next model which is very likely not to be as good a deal. But stick to the model with the good deal and be prepared to forego something specific you might want.

Services - I use Netflix, Amazon Prime and Spotify across the family. I am happy with the value they provide. Netflix is certainly cheaper than buying. I watch it every day and to pay for individual rentals or buying videos would cost many times the price of the subscription. I use Amazon Prime mostly for the delivery and the video aspect of it is therefore "free" to me. Spotify is maybe questionable because I don't commute now and therefore I rarely use it. But my kids do use it so it's good value to them.

Software - The only software I subscribe to is a Jetbrains all-products license. It's a collection of IDE's for most popular languages. I am happy to subscribe on the basis that they perform three upgrade releases per year on every IDE, I can install it on multiple machines simultaneously, there is a perpetual fall-back license, and they all work across all three major OS; Linux, Windows and MacOS. So without spending any more money I can switch to a different machine. The perpetual license means that if I choose to stop subscribing then I can still use it (without ongoing upgrades). Really what I'm paying for are the regular upgrades and the dedicated support. I have indeed used their support which was very fast and resolved my issue.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
You are not comparing apples with apples. As I've mentioned in the previous threads you've started, subscription services evolve. The O356 I subscribed to 3 years ago isn't the same as the one I have now, there's loads more features, indeed more products and less bugs. Office Professional 2010 may have less bugs due to patching but doesn't have the new products or features. Same with Spotify, the music available to me changes and increases, therefore I consume more.

Your problem is that you're erroneously equating the value of two very different models and then are surprised that they cost different amounts. This has been explained before, but your thinking hasn't changed, so what exactly are you after?
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I had never thought of it from the perspective of because you pay more you consume more of it. I’m viewing it very much from the perspective of consuming exactly the same as you’d always done so (I don’t listen to any more or less music when I have access to a free music subscription service for instance).
 
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.
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Get used to it. Most of the tech industry is moving to a SaaS model, because as others have said, there's a guaranteed revenue each month as opposed to a single one time purchase.

mrochester said:
They are broadly more expensive. For instance, paying £6pm for O365 is more expensive than me continuing to use Office 2010 professional
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There's your problem right there. You can't compare using office 365 to an office suite that's ~10 years out of date.

That's like saying it's broadly more expensive to pay £400 a month for a 70 plate car, than it is to continue using a 60 plate car.
 
mrochester said:
I had never thought of it from the perspective of because you pay more you consume more of it. I’m viewing it very much from the perspective of consuming exactly the same as you’d always done so (I don’t listen to any more or less music when I have access to a free music subscription service for instance).
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Do you not at least listen to a broader range of music?

If you're just listening to the same couple of dozen albums, then probably streaming services are not really for you.
 
These threads
cheesyboy said:
Do you not at least listen to a broader range of music?

If you're just listening to the same couple of dozen albums, then probably streaming services are not really for you.
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Not really. Certainly I don’t listen to anything I couldn’t do without. I already have a music library of 2800 tracks which is probably more than enough listening for a lifetime.
 
mrochester said:
These threads


Not really. Certainly I don’t listen to anything I couldn’t do without. I already have a music library of 2800 tracks which is probably more than enough listening for a lifetime.
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Well, if you already have all the music you want, of course streaming is pointless for your use case.

Me, I have no digital music at all, and only about 50 CD albums from my youth in the attic. Streaming means I actually have music to listen to, so it's very much worth it.
 
cheesyboy said:
Well, if you already have all the music you want, of course streaming is pointless for your use case.

Me, I have no digital music at all, and only about 50 CD albums from my youth in the attic. Streaming means I actually have music to listen to, so it's very much worth it.
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It's also worth noting that Spotify is to a large degree how I discover new artists.
 
Looks like Burnsy already beat me to the point.

mrochester said:
I had never thought of it from the perspective of because you pay more you consume more of it. I’m viewing it very much from the perspective of consuming exactly the same as you’d always done so (I don’t listen to any more or less music when I have access to a free music subscription service for instance).
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Then you're not making use of a music subscription service. Why would you get a free trial to a music subscription service, and just listen to music you already own? :confused::confused:
 
There’s some artists that are only on Spotify now isn’t there? Can’t buy physical or digital versions but they’re on Spotify, or am I making that up?

Good for other people’s playlists too...like if someone has compiled a huge list of 90s rave music or something!
 
Burnsy2023 said:
It's also worth noting that Spotify is to a large degree how I discover new artists.
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Yeah, I have Amazon Music and, whilst I don't discover much directly, any artists I hear about elsewhere I can just stick on an album and check out if they're any good, rather than have to pay out for anything.
 
I haven't switched between models as such, I use both.

I use spotify to discover new music, granted I use torrents also for this but that's more for when I want to check out the discography of a specific artist, and then I buy a copy of the music I actually want to keep as I don't want to be tied down to a specific platform which could go bust and doesn't work offline or on all my different devices.
 
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