[d2p]

This is my issue with most subscriptions too. The price has to be set based on the average use, which makes it really expensive for the infrequent user (and ultimately this means less conversions, yet nobody seems to care about this?!).

I've had the same gripe with games for years. I stopped paying for Xbox live and World of Warcraft because they're the same - if I only played for a few hours in a month, I've paid over-the-odds. I can't predict in a given month how likely I am to have how many hours, so I end up paying them £0. They could get more money out of me if they had a better PAYG or tiering option.

[StudyAnimal]

Obviously (in these cases) there are market segments that favor all you can eat subscriptions and those that favor à la carte. It makes sense that for most things the heavy users get the sub and the light users get to pay for what they use. However I thought of a counter example. Spotify. I would normally be a light user of music. I had some CDs in the 90s but lost interest in the whole thing by the time I graduated Uni. However it’s still nice to listen to some music sometimes. However I couldn’t imagine being able to buy all the singles I listen to in a month for less than €9.

That’s the secret. Price your subs so it’s a better offer for the lightest of users. Not hard in the music business that was ripe for disruption.

And I think that’s the message in the article. Subs themselves are not the problem , but the way they are priced . (Although the fact that he spends so much money on subs kind of negates his argument. It seems like people like him are happy to pay which reinforces the soundness of the business case).

Incidentally I subscribe to ms office even though I would never have paid a one off fee for it. I think it’s cheap enough to justify its value. I also subscribe to Netflix but should really cancel. In europe there is not much content there. When I first got it i watched maybe 4 or 5 interesting documentaries now I never see anything there worth watching. I might unsubscribe after my daughter finishes binging gravity falls. (She’s not a big user either we both find YouTube more interesting and relevant than European Netflix)

[d2p]

I tend to prefer subscriptions for things where what I'm consuming is somewhat throwaway; so things like TV, films, books (things I'd never want to revisit/rewatch). I don't prefer it for things I might like music though. Some years ago, I ripped all my CDs (yeah, it was a lot of effort) and said I'd spend up to £10/month on music rather than a Spotify sub. I don't spend anything like that, but still tend to pick up all the new music I like. At any point I could stop buying new music and still having a big library, so I think it's worked out well.

That said, if Google Play Music Unlimited was either half the price (£5/mo) or was shareable with my wife for the current price, I'd probably have a different opinion!

[ctulek]

Subscriptions usually work better when the variety of content/product offered is big. Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, NY Times; these companies offer a lot of content from a lot of producers. In contrast, most media subscriptions offer you a few articles per week that is worth of reading. The rest is usually written by people who are not necessarily more knowledgeable about the topic than their readers but only have the skill/patience of writing an article about them.

[always_good]

This is one of the underappreciated benefits of ads: infrequent or freeloading users were subsidized by the users that converted. Every day you are being subsidized by users that don't use adblockers. Eventually this will end and you'll be left with no option but to complain about spending money, but what did anyone expect?

Free shit forever?

[d2p]

> Every day you are being subsidized by users that don't use adblockers

I guess I'm a subsidiser; I don't use an ad blocker (for many reasons). I'm also slightly of the opinion that people using ad-blockers have made things worse for those that don't :(

I don't mind ads - I don't even mind advertises tracking some things to give me more relevant ads (heck, I'd tell them what I like to get more relevant ads).. I do mind obtrusive and noisy ads, and the security risks that tend to come with them (and other third party content) being slapped on every site with no thought though; and for some content I would pay to a reasonable fee to remove them.

[drukenemo]

This can be relative, in some cases at least. My go-to notes app is Bear and they charge EUR14/Year. For me that's a decent price to keep the software existing in the long run.