If you watch movies, listen to music, or own
a phone, You’re probably familiar with subscriptions. At least, your wallet is Which, for companies, are pure gold Or, green,
I guess. Instead of selling you today, and tomorrow,
and next week, They only need to convince you once, and the money keeps coming. A steady, predictable stream of revenue. Because each customer is so valuable, they
can focus more on keeping them than doing anything and everything to get more. But it’s no longer just newspapers and magazines,
now it’s everything: Music, Movies, Food, Games, Storage, Clothes,
Razors, Makeup, Software, Cars, animal bones? Seriously - Bonebox ”includes various osteological
specimens such as skulls, claws, and teeth” for just $24.99 a month Ooo-kay?! Why does every business need to be a subscription? Where does it end? Let’s divide subscriptions into two categories. Services, like Netflix, Prime, Lootcrate,
and Spotify, kinda have to be subscriptions Sure, you can buy music and movies individually,
but here, you get everything. 40 million songs on Apple Music times the
usual dollar twenty nine would be $51 million dollars - so, yeah. Subscription boxes, which send you new things
in the mail every month, are services because they’re more about fun and surprise than
the stuff itself. And then there are products - things that
could be sold, but here are rented. And this is where things get hairy You don’t
have to be a master Googler or Binger, or DuckDuckGoer, but, boy do those sound awkward,
to find a million and a half people criticizing this business model. But it’s not actually subscriptions they’re
angry about, nobody’s complaining about Netflix or Spotify, it’s really this second
category - especially software. When companies want to reach in your wallet
every month until you die for what could be a simple, one-time purchase, it feels a lot
like a cash grab, And, sometimes, it totally is. Adobe switched to a monthly fee precisely
to increase profit. But it’s not always so simple, Even when
they seem unnecessary, subscriptions can be good for everyone, including you and I. Companies usually don’t explain why, and
when they do, it’s easy to see as just an excuse to make more money, but there is a
why. And since my thing is taking complicated,
controversial topics and trying to explain them in too little time - let’s get to it… The idea of a rental is nothing new, we rent
apartments, and cars, and if you live in Alaska, where there are still 6 Blockbusters, movies. Hashtag SomeoneTellAlaskaAboutNetflix But, nobody wants to rent, say, their lamp. When you don’t have to, why would you? Owning is just simpler, and usually, cheaper. Losing what we already own is especially frustrating. Apps like Ulysses and Autodesk were a one-time
purchase, then one day, you get an email: I know you already bought this, but if you
want to keep getting updates, now it costs $5 a month. k thanks bye. Ulysses was absolutely flooded with 1 star
reviews. Probably the most life the Mac App Store’s
ever seen… And fifty thousand people signed a Change.org
petition against Adobe. Which, as we know, is very effective…at
spamming your email But here’s the problem: The way most people
think about software just isn’t realistic. Remember that lamp? what if every year you got this popup: Hey,
you need to update to a new version of your house. If you don’t, it’ll be vulnerable to burglars. Sometimes it goes smoothly, sometimes it permanently
changes your wall sockets. Maybe to these cute little ones from Denmark. And you think, What the heck? I bought that lamp and now it’s suddenly
incompatible with my house for reasons completely beyond my control? The house is your operating system, the lamp,
your software. Programming may seem like build once - collect
profit forever, but if an app isn’t updated, it dies. Technology just moves way too fast. Knowing this, do you really want to own that
lamp? Truly owning software means owning all its
bugs and future incompatibility. Maybe your answer is yes, we’ll get to that
later. But me, if I really depend on something, and
there’s a chance it’ll break in a year, well, I’d rather rent it from someone who
maintains it. Fixing bugs is like Sisyphus endlessly pushing
his boulder up the mountain only for it to fall back down. You can’t expect developers to do that forever
just because you gave them 99 cents three years ago. You might say “Obviously these apps don’t
need subscriptions because they did just fine before” - but the truth is, they mostly
didn’t… Big companies always find a way to earn a
profit, Adobe has the power and prominence to ask $53 a month, and make billions doing
it. But many apps, some of the best apps, are
made by a single person, or a small team of them. They compete with 2, 3 million others, and
a feeling that if you can’t hold something, it shouldn’t cost anything. So, unless you trademark the word “Candy”,
seriously that actually happened, or spend millions advertising, your sales look like
this: A huge spike in the beginning, maybe some seasonal bumps, and then, almost nothing. You might make half your salary on the first
day, but by the 20th or 50th, things don’t look so good. So you have a few options: You can get more customers - Do some marketing,
keep updating the app, and cross your fingers. Or, more accurately, pray to the App Store
Gods Sometimes this can work. But the App Store isn’t like YouTube, doing
everything it can to bring audiences to your videos, Right, YouTube? Even a great app can get stuck in a corner
and never be found. And eventually, everyone who needs your app
will already have it. Plenty of happy customers, and no more income
for you. Or: if sales are so good at the beginning,
just release as many paid updates as possible. Again, sometimes it works. But it can also be a dangerous trap, because
the incentive is to release as many paid updates as you can. Just enough new features to make people pay,
but not so many that you can’t do it again in a few months. And sooner or later, it’ll be good enough
for 99% of us, but hey, gotta keep making money, so you’ll keep cramming in new, unnecessary
features. That was Microsoft Office. What I ask from Word is pretty basic: when
I press a key on my keyboard, I want that same letter to show on my screen. ahem Take notes, MacBook Pro keyboard And I guess fonts and tables and images are
cool too. But I have absolutely zero need for 3D pie
charts or smart tags, or research tools, or a talking paperclip. Actually, I take that last back, Clippy. Office was so profitable, Microsoft kept adding,
and adding, and adding, until it forgot Word is, just, ya know, a place to write stuff. At this point, I’ll just use Google Docs,
where I actually know what the buttons do. For many apps, neither option is sustainable. And even if you feel zero sympathy for developers,
it’s in your best interest to find a solution: Because if you rely on an app, for your business,
or hobby, or security, you want to incentivize its developer to care as much as you do. We can say companies should update their apps
forever, and always answer support tickets, or we can design a system where they actually
want to. For many apps, that’s a subscription - taking
what you would’ve paid upfront and handing it out over time. If developers want to keep getting paid, they
want to keep you happy. Over time, subscriptions cost more, but for
that, you’re guaranteed updates, and support, and compatibility. Plus, it rewards the apps you use the longest. In some industries, these better incentives
are even more desperately needed: For news companies, the goal is more clicks,
more views, more ads, usually the worst kind of ads. Clickbait only stops if clicks stop being
profitable, which is the promise of subscriptions like Blendle and Inkl. One price for all the articles you want. Or, a small micropayment per article, refunded
if it turns out to be clickbait. The goal is no longer to deceive you, but
keep you subscribed. Subscriptions give sites like Above Avalon,
Kottke, and Macstories freedom to make quality content on really specific topics, instead
of whatever it takes to attract huge audiences. It also lets you and I try things out, maybe
you only need a service occasionally, in which case you can subscribe only when you actually
need it. But because people think only of services
as subscriptions, products often try to argue they’re actually a service. Something like: “We store and sync your
data, which costs us money” But not very much. All this does is create distrust. Developers should be up-front: “What you’re
really paying for is longevity, which is in everyone’s best interest.” But there is a catch… One movie ticket is an entire month of Netflix,
and then some. Factor in popcorn savings, and make it a lifetime You could own one single album or every noise
ever made on planet Earth for the price of a few Cups of Coffee. But when everything is the price of one or
two cups of coffee, you can very quickly end up buying a whole Starbucks. Say you subscribe to Netflix, Amazon Prime,
Spotify, Dropbox, and BlueApron. That’s over a hundred dollars a month. Add Creative Cloud, YouTube TV, and the New
York Times, and it’s another hundred. And this is just the beginning Apple takes 30% of an app’s revenue, but
for long-term subscriptions, now only 15. So more and more businesses are going to make
use. For movies alone, there’s already Netflix,
Amazon, Hulu, HBO, Showtime, and soon, Disney, and Apple. So, not everything can or should be a subscription. Things you use only occasionally and don’t
rely on have no reason to be, or should at least have another option for
people who fall into that category: The app Sketch finds a good balance - One
upfront price, with one year of updates. You can treat it like a subscription, or you
can not. Another solution is Bundles - one price for
multiple subscriptions. Setapp, for example, does this with mac applications. And more companies will follow: Apple could
have one for Apple Music, streaming video, iCloud storage, maybe some other things. Amazon Prime has shown how well this strategy
can work. Students get Spotify and Hulu together for
less than either separately. Or, how about a subscription to be a great
student, on topics like physics, computer science, and problem solving? Brilliant helps you learn new things in a
way that you actually understand, not just memorize for the next test. Last term I took a math class covering some
differential equations, all pretty vague and theoretical, but after looking at the lesson
on Brilliant, I really wish I had known about it. It starts by explaining why the concept actually
matters, and what it’s all about, with visuals, and questions to give you instant feedback. If you answer incorrectly, Brilliant doesn’t
just mark your answer red and move on, it helps you understand how to get it right. If you’re a student, or like learning new
things, find a topic that peaks your interest and dive in. I recommend Computer Science Algorithms - it’s
pretty interesting, and gives you a peak at how our technology works. And speaking of subscriptions, it’s really
the ideal: premium is one low price, they keep adding new topics all the time, and you
have the freedom to jump around to learn exactly what interests you most. You can support PolyMatter by going to the
link in the description - brilliant.org/Polymatter. And the first 200 people to use that will
get 20% off the annual premium subscription. Thanks to Brilliant, and to everyone who gives
it a try.
I have shifted back to FL Studio when my subscription expired. I was there since pre release using Bitwig and was a full on supporter. But some of the bugs that have been there since the beginning, is still there. If your project grows in size, the more unstable Bitwig becomes. And it's not cheap tbh. I can't keep up the denial anymore, Bitwig is just a sketchpad and it's awesome fun to play with. But would you genuinely trust it, say, in a live environment infront of thousands? I can't even finish projects with it, it won't save states properly on a massive project. It gets crashy. And even updates can affect the outcome of your projects. Yes, your project with the same save file can sound different on two different versions of Bitwig. That should not be.
I will keep playing with 2, but I don't think I will want to fork out again for it. My own hype for Bitwig has since died. I was never a big supporter for the subscription model, and I thought I would give it a chance. It never panned out the way I hoped. Some well hidden bugs are still there, and I don't think Bitwig will ever reach a Stable and reliable build.
The work don’t on bitwig since I have been using it. First release of bitwig 2 has been awesome and I am happy that I can support the work financially. I wonder if continuing supporters could have there pet issues prioritized when it comes to updates. Prob a bad idea but might be cool
But this does not really seem to apply? It is not a subscription that you have to pay for every month and eventually cancel, but in case of Bitwig you pay for an upgrade once, you receive it and it includes 12 months of further upgrades on top of that. Plus, you are to keep it, if you don't renew, you can still use what you bought, just as like you bought version 2 and decide not to buy 3 when it comes out?
tl;dw: Subscription models pressure developers to support their software, fix bugs, sustain a community. However, it doesn't pressure them to add many new features.
As the video creator points out, Bitwig (Like Sketch) found a way that rewards them for both keeping the support coming and adding new features.
That is an extremely biased video. If a great product is made it will profit without a sub fee, FL Studio is a great example of this. Bitiwg went sub because they put a product in a crowded market that doesn't completely keep up with competition and is losing money. Now the loyal users are footing the bill.