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).

      • CthulhusIntern [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        I don't even think Porky likes this, because surely he also wants to watch all the shows and hates paying more for streaming services? Not enough to stop him from jacking up the prices himself though.

        • bigboopballs [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          because surely he also wants to watch all the shows and hates paying more for streaming services?

          what are you talking about? billionaires hate paying a couple extra bucks for streaming services?

    • CatUser@discuss.tchncs.de
      hexagon
      ·
      1 year ago

      Oops, I didn't mean to generalize, although I admit I did it by mistake.

      I don't mean that most users of subscription services see that now they are going to pay more for the same service and celebrate, but that many times they either don't know (or don't care, maybe they can afford it) or they don't do anything, I mean, I know that as users we can't do anything but how is it possible that most people agree with that? I guess the extra value does not exceed having to migrate services, recommendations, learn something new, etc.

      • LaGG_3 [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        I think a lot of people have it as a reoccurring bill on their credit card and don't pay attention to it.

        I budget and reconcile my family's shit every month, but I think that's relatively rare lol.