You’re talking about a service. Every time I use Spotify, it costs Spotify money. This cost is why I specifically excluded subscription services from my criticisms. It makes sense for services with recurring costs to have recurring billing.
Spotify the Application, is just the means of accessing Spotify the Service. It provides me with cheap access to a library of data that I don’t otherwise possess.
By way of analogy, I understand why I have to pay for a magazine subscription: they send me information on pieces of paper every month and that has a cost. But I wouldn’t pay a monthly fee to the manufacturer of my toaster. Whether I toast a thousand slices or let the toaster collect dust on the counter, the manufacturer incurs no additional cost. Leasing a toaster would be absurd, but that’s the expectation some developers of pretty basic applications expect.
One of the related posters mentioned JetBrains. I agree JetBrains get it right. You get to keep your toaster when you unsubscribe. If you stay subscribed you get the latest toaster if that’s what you want. And the incentives and risk are on them to make sure they make the next model toaster compelling.
You said “To be clear, I'm talking applications which require subscriptions for basic functionality”
That’s exactly apps likes Spotify. They restrict downloading, skipping, and bitrate unless you pay for premium, which I would say is basic functionality. You get access to the music whether you pay or not. I’m not paying for the music, I’m paying to skip ads and download to play offline.
> You said “To be clear, I'm talking applications which require subscriptions for basic functionality”
You're taking that statement out of the context of the post in which I said it. I began my post with "Subscriptions to services are fine." Everything in the post after that, including that quote, is specifically and explicitly not talking about services like Spotify.
You're not understanding my point. I'm saying that Spotify is actually closer to the model you decry than to a subscription service of which you approve. An example of a subscription service would be Netflix. When I pay for Netflix, I get to watch Netflix. When I stop paying for Netflix, I don't get to watch Netflix anymore.
Spotify is different. With Spotify, when I stop paying for Spotify I still get to listen to the music. But I lose the basic functionality of the app, like the ability to save songs to disk, or to skip tracks. To me, this seems like the exact model you're saying is bad. They have removed basic functionality in order to push a subscription.
No, I didn't misunderstand your point. I understand the distinction you're making between Spotify and Netflix in terms of how subscriptions are motivated. My post is about the distinction based on recurring versus fixed costs.
My footnote is not part of my argument. It's only meant as a clarification for which types of applications (not services) I'm discussing. You also mistake what I mean by 'basic functionality'. I maybe should have said required functionality. Spotify is perfectly usable without download, skip, or bitrate. Instead, I'm talking about applications like an RSS reader (again, an application only, not an online service) that will only show you sample feeds if you're not subscribed.