> I think consumers would prefer subscriptions if they understood how it aligned incentives.
Funny how consumers tend to despise them though.
The term "subscription" itself a typically a euphemism for "rental". There are a small number of companies who offer a year of updates that you get to keep forever (which makes consumers play the game of when exactly to buy to maximize the new features in that year), but most so-called subscriptions disable the software entirely if you stop paying. In other words, rental.
Long-term rental is almost always a bad deal for consumers. One of the few exceptions is housing, because many consumers can't afford to buy a house, and also houses are one of the least liquid assets you can own, if you have to move it (and yourself). Otherwise, rental is going to cost you a lot more in the long run.
Financially, rental can work well for the seller, of course, but we end up with "subscription fatigue", where the market can't sustain as many sellers, and the few rich companies get richer (which is exactly why they were "pioneered" by BigCos such as Adobe, Microsoft, and Apple).
> Funny how consumers tend to despise them though.
sure, and as an individual I behave the same way. I always want to solve my problem in the cheapest possible way. still, I can't help but notice that products with stable ongoing revenue tend to get much better support.
I think the clearest example is with games. most games get released with a pile of bugs. a bunch get fixed in a release day patch and then there are a few more patches over the next few months (when most of the sales happen). once the initial wave of sales subsides, you tend to be stuck with whatever bugs remain. cs:source had several game breaking bugs for years (defuse kit over bomb blocking defuse, defusing through walls, etc.) despite being one of the most popular FPS titles of its time. AFAIK, most of these still exist fifteen years later. csgo, which is monetized through microtransactions, gets bugs fixed almost as fast as they can be posted to reddit/youtube. microtransactions aren't quite the same as subscriptions, of course, but they generate revenue proportional to the current userbase, rather than the rate that people buy the game for the first time (which will inevitably dry up).
Funny how consumers tend to despise them though.
The term "subscription" itself a typically a euphemism for "rental". There are a small number of companies who offer a year of updates that you get to keep forever (which makes consumers play the game of when exactly to buy to maximize the new features in that year), but most so-called subscriptions disable the software entirely if you stop paying. In other words, rental.
Long-term rental is almost always a bad deal for consumers. One of the few exceptions is housing, because many consumers can't afford to buy a house, and also houses are one of the least liquid assets you can own, if you have to move it (and yourself). Otherwise, rental is going to cost you a lot more in the long run.
Financially, rental can work well for the seller, of course, but we end up with "subscription fatigue", where the market can't sustain as many sellers, and the few rich companies get richer (which is exactly why they were "pioneered" by BigCos such as Adobe, Microsoft, and Apple).