[eldaisfish]

This doesn’t address a major gripe with the subscription model - taking away the option to purchase software outright. Were both to exist, we would not be having this discussion.

In reality, corporations are driven by greed and greed pushed the subscription model. For some situations, subscriptions work well - music is one. For others, it is terrible. CAD software is a great example especially at larger orgs. Why should software be a recurring cost in the name of development and support?

[registeredcorn]

I agree with the majority of what you wrote, but I'm utterly confused by this statement

> For some situations, subscriptions work well - music is one.

I've only ever purchased albums. Why in the world would I pay a monthly fee for something I presumably want to listen for for the rest of my life? 10-15$ for a one time purchase is far preferable to a monthly fee of nearly the same. I'm also weary of the idea of the services that have the right to stream music from labels X, Y, and Z suddenly pulling out, cutting off my access to the albums from artists I want to listen to at any given time.

I hope none of that comes off sounding "snobby" or whatever, I just don't understand how subscribing to listen to music is adventitious. Is it just not having to transfer music from the computer to your devices? Or is there something deeper I'm not getting?

[wan23]

When you have a subscription to music, it's not about your collection as much as it is about discovery. You hear about a new artist and you want to sample their stuff. You don't have to hunt it down - you know where to find and listen to their entire discography in exactly two clicks (not counting having to type in the name of the band). If you decide you like it, nothing is stopping you from buying an album for your collection if that's your thing. Also, instead of your budget of one $10-$15 purchase per month, you can do this process multiple times a day.

[mgkimsal]

I used to own a lot of albums and CDs. Worked in a music store, and would get new albums often. Even after that, music was... a big part of life. As I got older, I got fewer albums, as other things took precedence.

I subscribed to Spotify about 7 years ago, and... I'm spending about what I might otherwise spend on 'albums' now (maybe one per month) and I get a lot more - back catalogs, for one. But discovery and sampling are the biggest 'wins' for me. Might switch to apple music at some point, but probably 95% of what I want is now streaming, and the utility/affordability balance is fine for me.

Was cleaning out a room last night and found a couple boxes of old CDs and tapes. In that box of 50+cds, there were 3 I know aren't on any streaming service, as they were special 'bonus' things in specific box sets from the 90s. And I still have them, just nothing outside my car to listen to them on. And given that I haven't opened that box in 15 years... my life has been OK without using those specific CDs.

I really enjoy being able to find other versions of the same song, exploring some new genres that I would never have bothered to spend $12-$15 on otherwise, and finding some new artists (found Real Estate, which then led to all the 'related' artists, and they're all now part of my music life). Family or friends recommend some new band, I can take a listen in a few seconds, add it to a list if I want, and usually find something I like about many artists.

[voz_]

Spotify is, let’s say, $120 a year. After 10 years, let’s say $1200. If an album has 5 songs, and an album costs $12.00 (dunno, middle of your range plus easy math), you can buy 100 albums in that time. 500 songs.

After 500 songs for 10 years, your model costs more and offers no value (in fact, it’s less convenient for a dozen reasons)

I don’t know about you, but I listen to way more than 500 songs… a year. Let alone a decade.

[sanitycheck]

Except with Spotify the songs can go away, so it's not necessarily equivalent - you don't get access to the same music as long as you're subscribed, you get access to whatever Spotify is currently serving up.

I was an early Spotify user and that annoyed me enough to stop and go back to buying music instead.

BTW, albums usually have more than 5 songs.

[voz_]

I've never had a song I like go away, is this a real issue?

[sanitycheck]

Are you sure? If you've got playlists you haven't touched for a few years, take a look and you may discover they're shorter than you remember.

Maybe they've improved in recent years, and maybe it depends on the music/artists involved.

[registeredcorn]

That's fair. Hmm...maybe it's my listening habits, then?

For myself, when I listen to music, I insist on listening to it start to finish, in the order it was recorded. I hate skipping around. I find it distracting and frustrating. If I start listening to an album, I am "locked in" to finishing it.

Most albums I own are closer to 12 songs per album, with each song being in the 2-5 minute range, that makes listening somewhere around 24-60 minutes of solid music.

When I find an artist I like, I generally start to buy the other work that they've made, and will queue up their newer and older work together, too.

I will usually queue something like: new album, old album 1, old album 2, old album 3, translating close to a few solid hours of music. By the end of it, my ears will be pretty exhausted and I'll either continue in silence, or switch to an audiobook or YouTube video.

I might have a dramatically small collection of music that I listen to compared to other people, because of how I listen. I can essentially repeatedly listen to the same songs many times, but because there's a lot of stuff in-between it still feels new because I haven't fully memorized each note yet.

[k3lsi3r]

Not OP but I agree with his sentiment. Maybe I'm not as "into music" as some people, but I do like finding new artists and songs, though probably only to the tune of 1-5 new artists a year and I buy on average about 5 new albums a year.

It's cheaper and better for me to own the stuff I want to listen to than sign up for a subscription in perpetuity.

[crazygringo]

> CAD software is a great example especially at larger orgs. Why should software be a recurring cost in the name of development and support?

But it always has been. Every larger org has always wound up purchasing upgrades. Not only for new features, but because professional tools often include all sorts of interoperability plugins and you need the upgraded ones to interact with other newer third-party products.

Maybe an individual hobbyist can get away with not upgrading, but upgrades have always been just a recurring cost for larger orgs.

[pb7]

Funny that you talk about greed when one of the reasons everything went the way of subscriptions is because of piracy. Even here and today, people defend pirating movies when you can rent one for a few bucks in 4K HDR with Dolby.

Nothing but greed by people making top 1%-10%ile incomes.

[sosodev]

I get pretty annoyed paying $4 to rent a movie that was released 40 years ago. It used to be that I could pay $4 to own a copy of that movie I picked up out of the bargain bin.

I still pay it though because I prefer to support companies that at least make their media available.

[gremlinsinc]

or you'd pay $4 for new releases, $1.88 for older movies. We'd maybe rent a new release if it was a really good one or wait 6 to 8 months.

I honestly kind of miss those days, I mean I love Netflix and chill like the next guy, usually without the chill cause we have toddlers and no energy, but it was like an event.

My aunt or grandma would be like hey let's get a movie and I'd be like yay! it's a blockbuster night! We'd often get cassanos pizza and/or popcorn and treats and watch the main movie, and the cheap ones the next day.

I kinda miss libraries too, but no clue how any programmer could work without Google, and six months in maybe gpt4, etc...

[amatecha]

No, the invention of subscription models is not because of piracy. It's because you can keep extracting money from customers "forever", rather than just once, and continue funding your business instead of having large gaps of reduced revenue when a product has not been recently released. A moment of consideration easily reveals that SaaS was inevitable with cheap hosting/networking and readily-available worldwide payment processors.

Sources which are speaking solely about the increase in revenue (and related benefits) and not a peep about piracy:

https://hbr.org/2023/04/the-rebirth-of-software-as-a-service

https://bebusinessed.com/history/the-history-of-saas/

https://smartbear.com/blog/the-pre-history-of-software-as-a-...

https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/history-of-saas/

[pb7]

Two things can be true at once. Piracy was a huge contributor to adoption of subscription based models.

[amatecha]

How do you know? My experiences and knowledge of the subject indicate otherwise. I'm not convinced. (btw, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim of the existence of something, as one cannot prove that something doesn't exist)