[amelius]

> Being ethical means no planned obsolescence, or otherwise churning out new variants of the same thing to keep sales up.

If you buy "TV as a service" instead of as a product, the effect is basically that the company providing the service will do the opposite of planning for obsolescence.

Perhaps this is the kind of company you are looking for?

[TeMPOraL]

That's a fair point, and arguably a good side of products-as-serivces. I'm still generally against them, though, for two reasons.

One: in practice, -as-a-Service businesses tend to quickly devolve their business models to include user-hostile, unethical aspects. Requiring Internet access, telemetry, ads, remote bricking, etc.

Two - and this is more of a gut feeling than a properly thought-through objection: I don't like the risk curve. Services require a steady cash flow. Have a financial hick-up, and you have to start sacrificing some of your services. Whereas with ownership, you can keep using the goods you own regardless of how much money you have - and with proper care and maintenance, you can get a lot of mileage out of the things you buy. Poorer people tend to be good at it by necessity. The same poorer people would end up trapped if they depended on everything as services.

I also like the fact that, if for some reason you prefer monthly installments to lump-sum purchase, you can turn almost any product into service by getting a bank involved. It has a nice, Unixy feel to it.

But, as I said, I haven't really made up my mind about this just yet.

[tksb]

This is my only argument for "subscription culture" in much better words.