[wesd]

>I walk twice around the earth before even considering a subscription service.

I can't imagine going back not having music subscription service. I don't have to make a decision which album to buy anymore and I don't have to worry about my kids pirating music.

[asdff]

That's because the music subscription service was designed from the ground up to be exactly unlike the previous music business model; in fact the spotify model boils down to legal napster.

The problem is when something really has no reason to not be a one time purchase, like companies on instagram charging me $15 a month to send me three new pairs of socks twice a quarter, or maybe they mail me a wooden box once a month with some woodsy smelling beard oil, a leather flask, and a small axe.

Software is moving this way too; but I'm still in the camp that would shell out $25 for a program as is that would still work on my machine decades later even if the company folds or puts out another version, than pay $2 a month for something that might not work at all or fundamentally change its functionality in a year.

[gonehome]

I've actually moved to preferring subscription software for things like 1Password (which moved from purchase to subscription).

Software is a moving target where everything else is changing around it - OS, hardware, web infrastructure, etc. and having devs continuing development on a tool I'm using is useful. The subscription model in this case accurately reflects the reality and is better than randomly having to pay $45 on occasion to upgrade to a version that still works.

I'd also argue that Spotify is better than legal Napster with its streaming and music playlist curation. Spotify may be the best software application I use on a regular basis.

[tjoff]

That I agree. I've payed for spotify for nine years. But that's reasonable because it is streaming the music. As is netflix et al. Though I have yet to see a media subscription service with decent software. It would be much better if they could provide a decent API that people could integrate it. But that doesn't fit well with the lock-in, and lock-in is apparently the only thing worth doing.