A trend I first noticed maybe a decade ago has continued unabated. Companies of all kinds have been shifting their business models. Rather than paying just once to purchase a product, they want me to pay every month in perpetuity for the privilege of using it. Or rather than charging me when I need a service, they want me to pay monthly to be able to access that service when I need it. Either way, the monthly charges ensure those companies a constant, predictable revenue stream that doesn’t rely on finding new customers.
Software developers want to charge me a monthly fee to use a smartphone app rather than just selling it to me. Microsoft will still, grudgingly, sell me a copy of Office, but they’d much prefer that I buy a subscription to Office 365. My electric and gas utility wants to me pay monthly for a Worry-Free Protection Plan rather than hire someone to fix a broken appliance.
In some cases I’m pleased with these arrangements. I happily pay each month for a couple of apps I use every day because I want to make sure the developers stay in business and continue to invest in improving them. And I unprotestingly pay Amazon for a Prime membership that gets me two-day shipping at no additional cost and access to their streaming video service. But Amazon also suggests that I sign up for a Kindle Unlimited subscription that would give me access to as many books as I can read. The catch is that the books I most want to read are typically not included.
One subset of this trend consists of companies that offer to charge me a monthly fee in exchange for not showing me ads. Depending on the cost, that can seem like a fair trade. After years of watching most of our TV from the DVR and fast-forwarding through the commercials, sitting through 10 or 15 minutes of ads while watching a single episode of Star Trek: Discovery would make me want to shoot myself, so my wife and I pay an extra five bucks a month for an ad-free subscription to CBS All Access.
But while we subscribe to what seems like a ridiculous number of video streaming services, I have no interest in making a similar investment in music streaming. I prefer to buy the songs I like and have access to them forever; I don’t want to be hostage to Spotify or Apple Music to be able to listen to them.
On the flip side of that sentiment is the idea of buying movies. With rare exceptions, I have no interest in re-watching a movie I’ve already seen, so why would I pay $20 to own a movie when I can rent it for $5.99? But at least Warner Brothers isn’t trying to get me to pay them every month just so I’ll be able to watch Wonder Woman 1984 when it comes out.
After I bought a new printer recently, I was taken aback when HP suggested I sign up for an ink subscription. It turns out the new printer is capable of notifying HP when my cartridges are getting low so they can send me new ones. That might have been OK if I were then billed for each cartridge they sent me, but that’s not the deal they wanted me to sign up for. They wanted me to pay them a flat monthly fee regardless of how little ink I used. Given the fact that, like many other people, I’m increasingly dispensing with paper in my home office, I was pretty sure I would have ended up on the wrong end of that arrangement.
I wonder how far this will go. Will the time come when leasing is the only way to obtain a new car or smartphone? How much of my paycheck will be allocated to recurring monthly charges for things I used to be able to buy outright? Only time will tell.