[BobaFloutist]

I mean we could give them a "free" month as on off ramp, pay exactly the same as we do today but if you don't use it for a full month it gets paused, and that would still be dramatically better for consumers than the status quo.

[makeitdouble]

You seem to be describing something like a credit system ?

It would be weird to get billed for December on a service because you used it a few times in November; that can be explained, but with enough time between the use and the billing it would easily look like a fraudulent charge to the user, and if they decide to cancel it at that time, they'll still be stuck for a full month.

That could make more sense if you're burning through "coins" and need to purchase new ones once you don't have any.

Come to think of it, mobile data billing system would also be close to that, except mobile ISPs can afford to require KYC documents up to a legal ID which drastically reduces the potential for fraud.

[BobaFloutist]

I'm taking about exactly our same system but it pauses (payment for) the service after a full month of no use.

[makeitdouble]

You can't put it as "everything is exactly the same, but I just change the fundamental mechanism"

[BobaFloutist]

Do you feel like you don't understand my intended mechanism? Because that language was solely intended to communicate what I was thinking. Which part was unclear?

[makeitdouble]

Yes, you're pushing an idea that has deeper ramification on how the billing works and how you explain it to the user.

It goes from a simple "the user pays every month" to "the user sometimes pays, sometimes doesn't, they have to guess by themselves when and why they 'll pay, it all depends on what happened in the past month". How you deal with the extra complexity from the user and from the contracting side is completely unclear. It might be surprising, but many users care a lot about understanding what and how they pay for.

Perhaps it's not important to your point and it's just an idea that doesn't need to ever see the light of day. But I feel we've been using subscriptions for long enough that improvement ideas could come with a clearer picture on how we deal with the change.