Why is everything turning into a subscription and when will it stop?

[Avenged7Fold]

Can’t possibly believe that! Surely people can’t waste that much time?!

Many people have it as background while they do stuff like cook or game or sit down to watch with friends or family to relax.

When you stop paying that £10pm, what do you have to show for it?

Same as what you have to show for those beers you had at the pub last week, less the damage to your liver.

If you listen to spotify the same way you listen to CDs. eg. only a few albums over and over, then it isn't for you.

Without Spotify i would not be aware of even 90% of the bands i have gotten into the last few years. That alone is worth the money. CDs can't make up for daily mixes and other spotify features i love.

 

[d_brennen]

Too true, for the software vendor it makes lots of sense.

The only time I have encountered it is when people have asked me whether they should buy a copy of MS-Office or pay for Office 365. When I suggest that they should consider using Libre Office they are horrified, insisting that they simply HAVE to use Word or Excel - A fool and his money are soon parted.

There's the value argument. I have o365, fully paid up sub out of my own pocket. A few years ago I'd balk at the idea but 1TD space and how nicely OneDrive works for me makes the yearly price tag worthwhile.

Also, believe it or not, Word, Excel and the rest of the 2016 suite are actually excellent productivity tools

 

[adolf hamster]

There's the value argument. I have o365, fully paid up sub out of my own pocket. A few years ago I'd balk at the idea but 1TD space and how nicely OneDrive works for me makes the yearly price tag worthwhile.

Also, believe it or not, Word, Excel and the rest of the 2016 suite are actually excellent productivity tools

Onedrive (or any other cloud storage tbh) is excellent if you have more than 1 pc you use regularly, i use it as much as a no fuss syncing tool as i do a backup storage solution, although having everything split across 4 hard drives sure does help backup important data.

 

[crinkleshoes]

When you stop paying that £10pm, what do you have to show for it?

And/or when Spotify goes out of business?

Years of experience of listening to a heck of a lot more music than I would have if I'd been stuck with spending a similar amount on CDs, that's for sure.

Plus their service introducing me to a lot of new music too...

Much better than buying two thirds of a CD every month...

 

[glenimp617]

Years of experience of listening to a heck of a lot more music than I would have if I'd been stuck with spending a similar amount on CDs, that's for sure.

Plus their service introducing me to a lot of new music too...

Much better than buying two thirds of a CD every month...

Quoted for truth!

 

[Bassmansam]

TBH phon

It is also the model that the consumers have called for. We live in a throw away and upgrade culture adn everyone seems to expect to have the latest flagship every two years but how many of those people want to dish out 600-1000 for a phone at one time?

Still using my 6s+ from launch day with a sim only contract. Im getting at least another year out of it before spending 6-700 on a new model. 2 year contracts nooo thanks!

 

[FortuitousFluke]

Who on this planet watches 20 films per month?! That’s obscene! I’ve seen about 20 films in the last 20 years.

I have a 2 hour round trip train ride. I don't just watch films, tv as well, but if you look at actual viewing time I'm probably not far off 20.

 

[terley]

Having the entire adobe creative cloud for £15 a month whilst i'm a student is great..

It is easy to end up with 5-10 £5-15 outgoings per month that make you feel like a bad person when doing your monthly budgeting, but honestly £3.99 or £6.. you will buy a sandwich for a snack for a few quid with a drink and a pack of crisps and spend more, no guilt behind it.

Saying that, every other month i do have a "purge" any get rid of most of my outgoings.

 

[Rroff]

Years of experience of listening to a heck of a lot more music than I would have if I'd been stuck with spending a similar amount on CDs, that's for sure.

Plus their service introducing me to a lot of new music too...

Much better than buying two thirds of a CD every month...

Personally I still buy separately (usually as downloads from Amazon) the top 10 or so tunes I'm listening to on Spotify every 2-3 months or so.

Spotify is a service which has a lot of convenience and so far hasn't replaced the ability to also own the tracks you like if you so wish.

 

[crinkleshoes]

Personally I still buy separately (usually as downloads from Amazon) the top 10 or so tunes I'm listening to on Spotify every 2-3 months or so.

Spotify is a service which has a lot of convenience and so far hasn't replaced the ability to also own the tracks you like if you so wish.

Yeah, I buy the stuff I really like for keeps too... but grumpy OP was asking what else I could have got with the price of the Spotify subscription and what I had left over...

I own tracks I may never have found thanks to Spotify...

 

[Deleted member 77746]

I like subscriptions as long as they are fair prices for what you get.

 

[tom_nieto]

What’s wrong with subscription music?

I get a lot more out of my £10/month on Spotify than I ever would by spending the same buying CDs.

This x 1000. I’m sure I could argue that the sound isn’t as good, the sheer convenience and the ability to discover new music totally outweighs it.

The charity direct debit point: you’d be absolutely amazed at the huge proportion of a charity’s income that is derived from small, regular monthly direct debits. It’s much greater than the amounts generated by one off donors.

 

[robfosters]

5 films a week is easy to do if you like films. I regularly watch 3 in one sitting when I'm in the mood.

 

[Rroff]

The charity direct debit point: you’d be absolutely amazed at the huge proportion of a charity’s income that is derived from small, regular monthly direct debits. It’s much greater than the amounts generated by one off donors.

Hence the power selling at the door - had some girl at the door from a homeless charity a little while ago got quite funny with me - I was like lets not waste either of our time if you've got a card/flyer I'll consider making a donation, she came out with some tacky line about "I am the brochure" and started babbling on about how just a couple of quid every month would make a difference when I said I wasn't interested she was all "but its for the homeless and kids" and then desperately tried to tell me their website as I was closing the door :s

 

[crinkleshoes]

This x 1000. I’m sure I could argue that the sound isn’t as good, the sheer convenience and the ability to discover new music totally outweighs it.

The charity direct debit point: you’d be absolutely amazed at the huge proportion of a charity’s income that is derived from small, regular monthly direct debits. It’s much greater than the amounts generated by one off donors.

Yeah... I can hear the difference between MP3 and CD on my home systems when it's quiet... but when out and about or playing through car system it's not as noticeable because of the background noise and I get the ease of variety that's not so simple with other sources.

Sure you can still build playlists etc... but when you want to use the algo to find new music - it's beneficial.

 

[TacticalFish]

Do you expect spotify to forever host music for you just because you pay a one off fee?

This.

 

[Semple]

And then this is what forces people to watch more and more dross mind control shows on netflix, because it's just there and the more crap they watch the more value for money they get.

Just because your taste in content is lacking, doesn't mean everyone else's is!

Prime as a delivery service is certainly unfair. Someone could be shipping 100s of packages a month, but they pay the same as someone ordering 20 packages a month.

Don't you see how that is just sad? (honest question) because some customers subsidise services for other customers.

That analogy could be applied to a million things though.

I only pay £20 VED for my diesel car, i cover about 20-25k miles a year, so in terms of road usage, i'm probably taking more than my "paid share" than other road users.

Here's another... i feel that i pay an extortionate amount of tax/NI, yet i never use the NHS (touch wood), i don't have any children that need schooling, i could argue that i also have no friends/family who are dependent on state benefits. So despite not using any of the above, i still have to contribute.

 

[LeeUK]

It's not the broadband, sky, mobile phone subs I'm really bothered about, it's the gaze box, meat packs and razor subs that the OP mentioned in the first post along with charity subs. Before you know it you could be shelling out "5 coffees" a day for all this.

 

[Avenged7Fold]

What is the problem with that?

If the subscription terms are not for you, then don't subscribe. The fact is that subscriptions suit some people and not others. It isn't like those items are not available without subscription.

Do you believe that eventually we wont be able to buy meat or razors without subscription?

Of course not. Many subscriptions are novelties, some are actually very good value, some are required due to the ongoing cost of the service delivered. Subscriptions are not exactly a new thing. Magazines always offered subscriptions which saved you money and were convenient but if you didn't have one, you could just pop down the corner-shop and buy the latest issue.

If your problem with subscriptions is that it could build up on cost, then your issue is with budgeting, not the price model.

 

[HEADRAT]

What we need is "one subscription to rule them all", where you can get somebody like Apple/Disney/MS that is able to consolidate all you other subscriptions into one box.