[Kadin]

> you're willing to pay for a $10 coffee with a 95% profit margin than a $5 Monthly subscription

One of those is $10, the other costs infinity dollars.

There's a large, and IMO underappreciated, amount of friction involved in subscription payment plans, given how often people are trying to get customers to sign up for them.

I'd buy a $50 tool more or less on impulse. A $10 or even $5/mo subscription is something I'd need to think over, not even because of the cost, but because I know it's something I'm going to have to deal with later on -- it means another place that I need to remember to update my credit card number whenever it gets changed, another thing that I might have to deal with the hassle of canceling later... overall, beyond the potential for the costs to add up over time, it's the construction of an ongoing relationship when all I wanted as a consumer was a sort of "one night stand".

Lots of vendors are looking for commitment from their customers, and I think a lot of potential customers are getting tired of it. Subscription business models are attractive for obvious reasons on the vendor side, but I wonder how many drive-by customers they pass up.

[cbhl]

The cost of running a website forever is also infinity dollars, so if you want to provide a service in the cloud, you have to charge a cost that is at least proportional to the cost of running it.

[tzikis]

well said ;)