[api]

They've certainly encouraged subscriptions but the big driver is the drive for recurring revenue, which can be valued up to 20X what one-time revenue is valued. In some cases companies with investors are instructed to not even care about non-recurring revenue since it doesn't matter. Revenue is recurring or it doesn't exist.

Recurring revenue has always been highly valued. What changed is that the Internet and modern automated payment networks have made it so much easier to implement recurring revenue models. Now everything can be a subscription and now companies that don't have subscriptions are at a massive valuation and fund raising disadvantage. The more companies figure out how to add recurring revenue, the more companies have to figure out how to add recurring revenue.

This is why your car company, appliance company, etc. is trying to get you to subscribe to something.

[johnnyanmac]

Can you imagine the hellscape Steam would be if they adopted this phlosophy? It may have fundamentally ended PC gaming as we know it. Literally throwing free money away.

>Now everything can be a subscription and now companies that don't have subscriptions are at a massive valuation and fund raising disadvantage

It won't alter this course, but given recent news I sure hope Biden can do one last kick to this stupid model. The biggest reason subscriptions do this is because so many forget to unsubscribe. An issue as old as fiat currency. discouraging recurring subscriptions could be the US's version of GDPR in terms of how utterly devastating it will be to companies.