Subscriptions are indeed becoming the most common way of monetising online services, but there are potential problems looming from the provider's POV.
Currently, I pay a subscription for three services: Photoshop, Netflix and Spotify. That costs me approx AU$45 per month, AU$540 per year.
That's the limit I am prepared to pay at present and it means that I now forego using a number of online services that I would like to use, such as newspapers and current affairs blogs, which I have used before they went behind a paywall, because I do not wish to pay even more on top of that AU$540.
I will shortly cancel my Netflix subscription due to the very limited content available in Australia for people like me - it's simply not worth it. I also tried a newspaper subscription for a while, but found that, because I'm not interested in bat & ball sports , celebrity gossip or advertising masquerading as travel news, I could read the sections I was actually interested in within a few minutes.
It's easy to see how the subscription business model could hit a ceiling, when more and more people realise that, by paying $10 per month here, $15 there, another $12 for this and $15 for that, you could end up handing over $100 per month quite easily - much more if you include something like Foxtel TV.
In essence, I have no problem with the subscription model, but so far at least, I'm finding it rarely represents value for money.
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