One thing that bothers me personally is that nowadays everything is a membership, but what bothers me most about the subscription model is the fact that the price goes up and up indefinitely and many people really don't mind paying $2 or more a month.
I mean, let's take for example the case of Netflix (I know the image is old, but I couldn't find anything better), where it went from costing $7.99 in 2014 a month to $15.99 in 2019, literally double, and it will surely keep going up and up, if this trend continues and it surely will soon people will be paying $30 a month without any problem.
I understand that a market like Netflix (to follow the initial example) is an expensive market to maintain, both for equipment, staff and licenses and it is obvious that the economy is not the same in 2014 as it was in 2019, but how are people ok knowing that the price doubled in 5 years? If that continues in 2024 the price would be $30, and if it was people would still be fine paying it.
I don't use Netflix but I understand why people use it, both because of the recommendation algorithm and the simplicity, but damn, if in a year they say they are going to raise the price $5 a month people would be happy to pay it and I don't understand it, much less those who pay several memberships of the same type (Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, etc).
You'll understand it when you realise that capitalism doesn't just encourage pursuing profit, it encourages pursuing growth.
The "profit" being pursued under capitalism is not the profit of the company itself but instead the profit of the capital-owners with a stake in the company. These people make their profit not from the company being in the black but by the company GROWING. Thus meaning it increases its overall value on the capital markets.
Companies eventually reach a saturation point at which their growth in terms of customers hits a peak, they have acquired all of the customers and aren't likely to acquire more. When this growth avenue closes they must turn to others to continue "growing" the value of the business for the investor class. This is achieved through measures like cost cutting, reducing staff, and installing incredibly bullshit monetisation schemes that either succeed or kill entire businesses in their attempt to continue their growth.
It has nothing to do with "expensive market to maintain". They aren't doing it because they need more money. They do it because they need more growth.
This is also the reason every game you play and liked once upon a time is progressively going more and more to shit.
This is the worst part for me personally. All of my favorite game franchises have been destroyed, and only indie devs will ever make anything similar again.
Enshittification takes over everything after reaching a certain audience size.
Either a product is intended to appeal fantastically to a niche audience, catering specifically to being the very best thing in that niche to a near art-level of mastery, or a product is consistently watered down to reach the largest audience possible, and at the point it reaches the peak of that audience it must then be cannabilised into pieces for maximum profit.