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We keep paying anyway, because they've got us right where they want us.
Back in the day, you'd buy a CD, a game, a copy of Word 2003, and that thing was yours "forever" -- or at least until you switched computers or your music taste moved on.
Now you blink and discover that everything is a subscription: movies, TV shows, music, the gym, your car, razor blades, cat food, courses, IDEs, design suites, servers... and if you're not careful, even your couch will hit you with a monthly fee just for sitting near it.
The corporate sales pitch had sounded real smooth for years: "these aren't expenses, they're services," "pay only for what you use," "it's the natural shift from CAPEX to OPEX." It looked great on the PowerPoint. In practice, you're at the end of the month with your wallet sweating, staring at the list of charges and thinking: "who the hell is this person charging me $7.99 every month since 2021, and why do I keep inviting them?"
Here's what I'll cover: subscription fatigue, how we went from renting movies to renting our entire lives, the glorious moment when BMW tried to charge a subscription for having a warm butt, the "enshittification" that Cory Doctorow describes, and what you can do beyond just giving up and crying in front of your bank statement.
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Title The subscription model sucks
We keep paying anyway, because they've got us right where they want us.
Back in the day, you'd buy a CD, a game, a copy of Word 2003, and that thing was yours "forever" -- or at least until you switched computers or your music taste moved on.
Now you blink and discover that everything is a subscription: movies, TV shows, music, the gym, your car, razor blades, cat food, courses, IDEs, design suites, servers... and if you're not careful, even your couch will hit you with a monthly fee just for sitting near it.
The corporate sales pitch had sounded real smooth for years: "these aren't expenses, they're services," "pay only for what you use," "it's the natural shift from CAPEX to OPEX." It looked great on the PowerPoint. In practice, you're at the end of the month with your wallet sweating, staring at the list of charges and thinking: "who the hell is this person charging me $7.99 every month since 2021, and why do I keep inviting them?"
Here's what I'll cover: subscription fatigue, how we went from renting movies to renting our entire lives, the glorious moment when BMW tried to charge a subscription for having a warm butt, the "enshittification" that Cory Doctorow describes, and what you can do beyond just giving up and crying in front of your bank statement.
Work type Article
Tags opinion, software engineering, blog, software development, programming
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Registry info in Safe Creative
Identifier 2603044762880
Entry date Mar 4, 2026, 11:56 AM UTC
License Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0
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Author. Holder Lino Figueroa Villar. Date Mar 4, 2026.
Information available at https://www.safecreative.org/work/2603044762880-the-subscription-model-sucks
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Registration: 2603044762880
