The Subscription Trap

71 103 3 years ago

It's technically easy to not charge/cancel the user if they haven't used the services. But it's impossible to convince the product and business leads this is the correct thing to do. You will quickly get the "industry standard" response.

It's demoralizing working on the subscription feature since it's filled with dark patterns.

bombela• 3 years ago

Pay per use with a rate lowering proportional to the increase in usage would feel quite fair.

But it seems that a bit of ethic would kill the greedy.

hn_version_0023• 3 years ago

We’d be better off without the greedy, and this method seems a lot more humane than a literal purge.

atticora• 3 years ago

It's demoralizing working on the subscription feature.

Agree. I loathe subscriptions and avoid them like Covid. But the code I write for the publishing industry is out there day and night, across continents, pitching subscriptions to readers thousands of times per minute. Begging them to renew for this limited time offer, prodding them through the checkout process.

It's not like a pacifist writing missile guidance software, but it's sad that this is where the money is.

IggleSniggle3• 3 years ago

You could always work in advertising instead

jrmg• 3 years ago

That’s an interesting idea. I wonder if, for some services, the outcome for the supplier would be better.

I think I’d be likely to subscribe to more TV services if they only charged me on months I used them. I’d feel I could just let them sit dormant in months they had no shows I wanted to watch, but I think I’d use them without much hesitation when some new show I was interested in became available.

jader201• 3 years ago

From a consumer standpoint, 100% agree with you.

From a provider standpoint, I’m guessing they would lose more revenue from existing subscribers not using it vs. what they’d gain from new (often dormant) subscribers.

jonhohle• 3 years ago

There’s a sneaky reason to suspend their service if they’re not using it: to capture some revenue by avoiding chargebacks or refunds for the entire idle period. If they fees stop getting charged, past periods are likely not going to be audited and are at less risk of claw back. Obviously, this itself is a dark pattern masquerading as beneficial to customers.

jacobkg2• 3 years ago

The one service I have that works this way is AT&T mobile International Calling and Data. I pay $10 USD for any day that I use the service outside the US and Canada. It is always “on” so I don’t have to worry about enabling it before trips or canceling it when trips end.

I agree it would be great if more services were like this.

devilbunny• 3 years ago

This is a tangent, but I would bet that your AT&T service also covers Mexico without the $10/day fee. My wife's does, as does my Verizon. Note: AT&T didn't have a partner in Morocco on the $10/day plan when I was there in 2019, but VZW did. Do check which countries are covered.

makeitdouble6• 3 years ago

This is an interesting idea but would need deeper adjustements on what the user is paying for.

For instance Netflix charges you for the next month you'll be using it. So at the time of charge, it has no idea if you'll use the service within the month or not, thus only the "cancel" part could happen. Moving to a post-usage payment can be done, but it becomes weird when the payment doesn't go through and quickly transforms into an open door for fraudulent activity.

Auto-canceling could be the best option, yet it would be an issue if the user actually expected to use the service the next month. They can still resubscribe again before using it again, but that's an extra step and also means the billing date gets reset, which might not desired by the user depending on how they manage their budget.

Basically, it's looks like a simple enough idea but the devil's in the details and it requires a decent amount of work to come out with something both the service and the user can easily understand and manage efficiently.

BobaFloutist3• 3 years ago

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.

ksdnjweusdnkl212• 3 years ago

For instance Netflix charges you for the next month you'll be using it.

Yes, and if you didn't use it for the next month you could "freeze" the subscription for the user. Basically as if the user cancelled it on the last day. It should be easy for the user to continue it since the payment method is already setup and authorized. Send an email like "Hey, we noticed you haven't been using our service lately. We went ahead and cancelled your subscription. Welcome back anytime."

For what it's worth my perspective is for a service that is free to use, but subscribers get extra "free" stuff. Basically the purpose of subscription is to get loyal customers who do not use competitors.

pintxo• 3 years ago

You could just re-pay the subscription fee for unused months?

Even if you’d keep the transactions fees, it would still be quite user friendly.

yetanother123452• 3 years ago

Idea: You pay a fixed fee at the start of the month. This is your subscription.

With it comes a right to a certain amount of consumption. Every individual item of consumption will then have a set price.

If you use all, you've paid precisely. If you use more, you'll pay a little extra next month. If you use less, you'll get refunded next month.

This way payment follows consumption, it is transparent, and it can be implemented technically.

jonathankoren2• 3 years ago

That’s because subscriptions aren’t about providing a product, it’s about creating stable cash flow. Literally every subscription product could be charged on a per item basis, but they don’t because they want to create stable cash flow.

Subscriptions are just the gym membership model, where they hope people forget about it. Or when it comes to SaaS, the ransomware model. (“Those are some fine files you got there. It would be a shame if anything happened to them.”)

paxys7• 3 years ago

Slack does exactly this, but then it makes business sense for both parties because they can tell a company "buy licenses for all your employees, but don't worry we won't charge you if they send less than N messages a month". When dealing with individual consumers the service doesn't really have any incentive not to charge you.

dangus2• 3 years ago

I know the article didn’t intend to come across this way, but I couldn’t help feeling like this article is a little bit condescending to the customer.

Is it accusing the common person of being unable to evaluate whether something has value to them? I think all of us know the dynamics of subscriptions and are relatively clear-eyed about their value.

Just ask the average person how they feel about price increases at Netflix and Disney+ and you’ll hear very reasonable arguments being made.

The author seems to believe that the vendor wanting your money and getting it from you is a big trick and a scam. Or, we can call it an exchange of goods and services.

Then the article turns toward time-productivity guilt tripping. “If you like watching TV you’re wasting your life.” Maybe we should be upskilling and side hustling instead! Or, perhaps now is the time to point out the vast selection of activities and hobbies that cost way more money than most subscription services.

And, yes, a lot of consumer subscriptions feel cheap because they are cheap. You can’t even get out of a grocery store one time for less than $50 these days, so spending $50-100 for an entire year of something does look petty darn good in comparison.

coldtea2• 3 years ago

Is it accusing the common person of being unable to evaluate whether something has value to them? I think all of us know the dynamics of subscriptions and are relatively clear-eyed about their value.

The self-dellusion about the above is how subscriptions, advertising, and all kinds of BS snakeoil get people.

dangus2• 3 years ago

How cynical. Is it really hard to imagine a subscription service with an ROI?

This is exactly what I didn’t like about the article: it seems to universally categorize all subscriptions to be toxic time-wasters, but really they come in all shapes and sizes.

It’s pretty snobby to say that anyone with a subscription is in a state of self-delusion.

bachmeier• 3 years ago

Subscriptions are cheap on the face value.

I always evaluate subscriptions based on their cost over five years, since that's a reasonable amount of time to use services and products. In other words, the opportunity cost of a $5/month subscription is a $300 pressure washer or $300 worth of shirts. I don't get the subscription unless I'd be willing to pay the full $300 right now.

MandieD4• 3 years ago

How I try to approach any new subscription or habit: what would it cost (within an order of magnitude) to fund this expense for the rest of my life - how much would I need in savings to keep this up? I multiply annual amount by 25, any monthly amount by 300 (12 months times 25, assuming 4% long term investment returns). I know that’s only a very rough approximation, but it gives me a longer term way to think about that “oh, it’s just two fancy coffees each month!”

10 EUR/month? 3000 EUR purchase.

Given how subscription prices have increased well beyond inflation, I should perhaps change that multiplier to 400 or 500…

paxys7• 3 years ago

I'm curious what purchases you can even justify with this mental model. Is a $50 dinner at a restaurant once a week worth it (60K+ USD over your lifetime)? What about a night at the movies with the family (easily 50K-100K+ total)? The two fancy coffees you mention are themselves multiple thousands worth.

giantrobot3• 3 years ago

Not the GP but I think you're misapplying the logic. When it comes to food, need to eat it. A $50 dinner's real cost is the delta between it and what your mean cost of dinner.

Buying or subscribing to an optional thing is different. You could live without adding numbers as a service. You could live without a calculator. You could still do arithmetic and even calculate the value of those things based on the time they could save you.

cxr2• 3 years ago

Is a $50 dinner at a restaurant once a week worth it

The obvious answer is "no". You seem to have something else in mind.

MandieD4• 3 years ago

If I get used to it and would be unhappy if I weren't able to maintain that habit: yes, and that's a small part of why we don't go out to eat on a regular basis - the larger parts being that most restaurant food is remarkably unhealthy, and that I'm a good cook who enjoys both the ingredients shopping and preparation. For the same money and level of hassle (especially now with a 3 year old), we could either have a mediocre restaurant meal, or excellent steak or salmon with fancy vegetables at home.

episteme• 3 years ago

This is just a way of making the purchase seem bigger than it is. In that 25 years if you took home 50k EUR annually you would earn 1,250,000 EUR. Reducing that to 1,247,000 for 25 years of value feels much less life changing.

You also won't be tied to the this one thing, if it's Netflix today it would be some other form of entertainment later.

at_a_remove• 3 years ago

I got a separate credit card and have been slowly pushing my subscriptions to it.

Cupprum4• 3 years ago

The only subscription i have (except for energies and flat which are basically subscriptions as well) is for my choice of music. Because of the convenience factor. What would be an alternative? Buying albums? I am not familiar with any nice platforms for this.

dinvlad3• 3 years ago

Bandcamp, for example (and there are a few smaller ones like it). It will be more expensive than streaming subscriptions, but knowing how poorly artists get compensated by these (and how the payout per stream further dilutes over time), makes one see the whole streaming model as corrupt. It led to artificially lowered expectations on what music should cost among the general public, and now of course it has become very hard to compete with the streaming platforms because of this altered consumer behavior.

Cupprum4• 3 years ago

Do you personally use bandcamp? Do you really own the album once you buy it? Can you download the music if bandcamp would cease to exist?

BeetleB2• 3 years ago

Buy mp3s?

I never subscribed to Spotify etc - I always bought mp3s (well, at least after they became DRM-free). It's relatively cheap. Spotify is currently charging $15/month. I can buy 11 mp3s for that amount. That's almost the amount of mp3s I buy in a year (because I've already bought most of the ones I like).

Also, when I buy it, I never have to worry about the streaming service dropping the music I like.

Cupprum4• 3 years ago

But which platform do you use for this. How do you discover new music? Do you have to upload the music manually to your device? Do you use some platform which automates this? My point is, that the streaming services are really convenient in this case. And that i mostly pay for the convenience.

gnicholas11• 3 years ago

Anyone have tips on how to convince family members to ditch streaming services? I feel like a boiled frog over here, with Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime. I’d be happy to ditch any of these for 6 months at a time, but can’t get buy-in. Would love to know if others have faced similar challenges (and what has worked for them).

alphabettsy5• 3 years ago

Why do you want to convince them? Is it because you pay for it?

If they use the services regularly then you’re fighting a losing battle.

gnicholas11• 3 years ago

It’s partly because of the cost, but partly because I don’t think the kids should get accustomed to always having everything at their fingertips, paid for up-front. I would rather they get used to dealing with tradeoffs, and understanding that there is a cost to these services.

They do use the services regularly, but it’s not clear why they couldn’t shift behavior to use just two at a time, for example.

scarface_74• 3 years ago

I always hate this sentiment. It’s just the opposite of what you see on Reddit on r/cordcutters

“How can I help my 80 year old parents save $30 a month by getting rid of cable and getting streaming services and dealing with something that is more complicated”

They are grown most likely intelligent adults. Leave them alone and let them live their lives.

gnicholas11• 3 years ago

Huh? I’m talking about my household, not someone else’s. I’m also not looking to add complexity by shifting someone from a technology they’re familiar with to something new. I’m looking to get rid of a service for a while, then bring it back.

paxys7• 3 years ago

How about - let them live their lives the way they want. They are not children, and a few $10/mo subscriptions isn't the end of the world.

gnicholas11• 3 years ago

As I mentioned in another reply, this is about my family. This is not about people who live in a different household (and some of them are actually children).

samtho5• 3 years ago

If you’re trying to save a bunch of money by ditching 3 $10-20 monthly services, you’re probably targeting the wrong thing.

If $60/mo for the household prevents even just two unplanned outings per month, (which the cost per each would likely start at $60) is that not a cost saving measure in itself?

The biggest things besides housing that people often pay are car payments, insurance for your vehicles, and utilities. Where can you save there instead? If saving is important to you then maybe ditch the car payment and get something you can pay for in cash, replace the old furnace for a high efficiency heat pump, etc.

gnicholas11• 3 years ago

As I mentioned in another reply, this isn’t just about saving money. Sure, I don’t want to throw money away if possible, but it’s also about educating our kids about tradeoffs and not spoiling them.

crimsontech2• 3 years ago

Assuming this is kids (like my situation) work out how much you are spending on subscriptions for stuff and give them the money instead, if they want to spend it on subscriptions they can.

I think it's a good idea personally, it allows them to be in control and think about money a bit more. We don't have half the subscriptions we once had, but it's not like I can't buy Netflix for a month if there is something I really want to watch.

qrohlf• 3 years ago

renew it and cancel it immediately

This is the way I use most subscription products. There are a lot of pieces of software that I think do actually make sense to charge a subscription for rather than a one-time payment; almost all the software I use daily in 2023 has some kind of server-side component or ongoing maintenance/development costs and I don't mind paying for that. It's the auto-renewal aspect and all the dark patterns associated with cancellation that I really despise.

One thing that I do now is try to use iOS to initiate subscriptions as much as possible, since the Apple-mandated subscription mechanism there lets me easily and immediately cancel auto-renewals for a new subscription as soon as I sign up for it.

I don't love that the walled garden approach seems to be the only way to restore sanity here and would love to see something standards-track and cross platform emerge for signing up for, listing, and cancelling software subscriptions in one place as part of the functionality provided by your OS. Basically, "passkeys for subscriptions". Maybe someday!

paulpauper• 3 years ago

subscribe, download the archives, and then cancel

l3x4ur1n2• 3 years ago

Is this a problem for people? Like, do they not know how much they pay for subscriptions? I have detailed knowledge of every service I pay for and I seriously don't understand the issue.

loloquwowndueo• 3 years ago

You’re probably more conscious and organized than the majority of people.

metabagel• 3 years ago

This feels like a humble brag.

Yes, lots of people don’t track their money that well. There’s an industry devoted to helping people do better at tracking their money.

One of the problems is that subscriptions aren’t consolidated. You might subscribe to streaming services individually or through a third party, such as Roku or Apple. And then of course, there are other types of subscriptions, such as music, news, patreon, recurring political contributions, and substack.

Another issue is that you might subscribe to a service which you are excited about, but you don’t actually end up using it, and you forget about it entirely.

And probably the main problem is that a lot of people don’t review their credit card statements rigorously.

l3x4ur1n2• 3 years ago

Ah, I see. I didn't want to brag, if that's how it felt. When I was at a low point in life, I learned to monitor all my expenses and keep money on short leash. I can understand someone who never had to deal with that kind of situation never learned the skill and might have problems with keeping track of subscriptions. Thank you for the elaboration.

crimsontech2• 3 years ago

I seriously don't understand the issue.

You don't understand it because it doesn't impact you?

I keep an eye on my subscriptions too, mainly because my banking app automatically categorises outgoings so they are easy to keep track of.

It is easy for subscriptions to pile up though, at one point last year I had three subscriptions to different on-demand training and book repositories. I realised I hadn't used them for three months and cancelled them all.

Many gyms relie on subscribers not using the facilities, they are commonly oversubscribed. Cancelling something like a gym subscription, or a meditation app has some amount of guilt associated with it too, like you failed to achieve what you imagined when you first signed up.

alphabettsy5• 3 years ago

I use Privacy.com because it allows me to lock or limit the card and use a unique one for each site or service. Has been working well for the last few years.

Cupprum4• 3 years ago

Many banks provide this feature out of the box no?

jonathankoren2• 3 years ago

Yup. I’m pretty sure, he’s paying a middle man to just do what his bank will do for free.

alphabettsy5• 3 years ago

Mine doesn’t. I’m not aware of any major banks that do in the US actually.

daoudc• 3 years ago

Here's an alternative for streaming services that I've been trying out: buy second hand DVDs, rip them, then serve them with Plex. You can get 5 DVDs for £10 which is more than I can watch in a month, and less than I'd pay for Netflix, and the choice is huge, even if I restrict myself to these cheap ones.

trevyn• 3 years ago

Let me guess, you have also sworn fealty to your Lord and Master the King?

paxys7• 3 years ago

Meh. The answer to the "subscription trap", much like every other money problem, is simply – create a budget and stick to it.

I genuinely don't consider dropping $15/mo on Netflix and another $10 on HBO a problem because I get an incredible amount of value from them. I am also not going around subscribing to ten more useless services every day. And if I do pay for something but feel like I don't need it any longer I hit the cancel button. It's really not that difficult of a process to manage.

Blaming subscription services for your high credit card bills is like buying too many designer shoes and blaming the shoe store. Maybe it's instead time to acknowledge that you have a spending problem.

irrational• 3 years ago

I’m not sure if I have any subscriptions or not. I don’t subscribe to Netflix or Spotify or the like. But isn’t my internet bill, cell phone bill, my water bill, my electric bill, etc. basically a subscription?

neogodless• 3 years ago

Tend to be called utilities. Recurring bills regardless. Internet shifted from being an entertainment subscription to more of a utility.

paulryanrogers• 3 years ago

By some definitions, yes. Utilities though are usually paid based on usage whereas many luxury services are paid ahead of time and regardless of use.

andsoitis• 3 years ago

causes you to spend more time scrolling than actually watching content.

This is not actually true. While scrolling to find something to watch is frustrating, people have a low tolerance for it and so switch to another service, continue with something that they have been watching anyway, or decide to entertain themselves in some other way.

nonrandomstring• 3 years ago

Subscription is a trap for the company not the customer,

Subscriptions are a "convenient" (whenever you hear that word run for the hills) way to receive payment. So what happens? It becomes the only way to take payment, because companies are fooled into seeing other methods as "too expensive to process" and not worth accepting. They prioritise subscriptions over individual sales.

For example, I will most always give to charity on the spur of the moment. I am ready to put my hand in my pocket for a childrens' charity, veterans' fund, cancer research or whatever.

That rarely happens now, because nobody will take money. Main charities are not at all interested in that, they want to get people hooked into a subscription contract. I will beg the collector to take a handful of cash coins or a note, but they say "sorry we can't handle cash". That's insanity on a stick, right there.

They don't want £5. They want £5 per month. And I will not do that on principle, for all the good reasons given in TFA, plus some others. One strong objection I have is that subscriptions involve a bank, and the banking industry is a hive of unethical scumbags. If I want to give to charity that's a transaction solely between me and the charity, not some data collecting parasites.

So they end up getting nothing, because they want too much.

That's a genuine tragedy, so sad, because whatever apologetics fanboys of the "convenient, cashless society" spout, at the end of the day it's a clear triumph of stupidity, greed and laziness over common sense.

I am sure subscriptions harm many other businesses in the same way as charities.

dave333• 3 years ago

Subscriptions as entertainment are usually good value compared with going to a movie theater or show or especially a concert or sporting event. So there is economy built in. If the monthly budget needs tightening a la Sense and Sensibility then maybe limit subscriptions to one per category - one streaming service, one newspaper subscription and so on. Amazon Prime is a cross-category value that checks a lot of boxes at once. I subscribe to several things but I would never ever consider paying Starbucks prices for something I can brew at home for 35 cents.

The Subscription Trap

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