Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Businesses

'Subscription Captivity': When Things You Buy Own You (motherjones.com) 126

Posted by EditorDavid from the cancel-culture dept.
A reporter at Mother Jones writes about a $169 alarm clock with special lighting and audio effects. But to use the features, "you need to pay an additional $4.99 per month, in perpetuity."

"Welcome to the age of subscription captivity, where an increasing share of the things you pay for actually own you." What vexes me are the companies that sell physical products for a hefty, upfront fee and subsequently demand more money to keep using items already in your possession. This encompasses those glorified alarm clocks, but also: computer printers, wearable wellness devices, and some features on pricey new cars.

Subscription-based business models are great for businesses because they amount to consistent revenue streams. They're often bad for consumers for the same reason: You have to pay companies, consistently. We're effectively being $5 per month-ed (or more) to death, and it's only going to get worse. Industry research suggests the average customer spent $219 per month on subscriptions in 2023. In 2024, the global subscription market was an estimated $492 billion. By 2033, that figure is expected to triple.

Companies would argue these models benefit consumers, not just their bottom lines. For example, HP's Instant Ink program suggests you will never again find your device out of ink when you need it most. The printer apparently knows when it's running low, spurring automatic deliveries of ink to your home for $7.99 per month if you select the company-recommended plan. But if you cancel the subscription, the printer will literally hold hostage the half-full cartridges already sitting in your printer. The ransom to use it? Re-enroll... The company has added firmware to its technology that deliberately blocks cheaper, off-brand cartridges from working at all...

"There's even a subscription service that enables you to track and cancel your piling subscriptions — for just $6 to $12 per month."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

'Subscription Captivity': When Things You Buy Own You More

'Subscription Captivity': When Things You Buy Own You

Comments Filter:

  • Subscription is a non-starter for me (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20, 2025 @02:44PM (#65871535)

    Something you have to buy and then continue pay in perpetuity instead of a fixed cost only of buying outright? No. Something where they can just raise the monthly price at their own discretion? No. Something that they can stop supporting and cut off at any point in the future, or go bankrupt and no more support? No. Something where they can introduce unwanted features or reduce functionality with updates? No.

    There is nothing attractive about that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      It's not even about the subscription fees for me. This produce (like virtually all internet connected appliances) simply does not do anything I want done. What the hell is wrong with people who want "special effects" on a fucking alarm clock?

      • What the hell is wrong with people who want "special effects" on a fucking alarm clock?

        I have an alarm clock that lets you set multiple alarms and choose the special effect you want when it goes off. The choices are 1) blaring noise, 2) play what's connected to the audio-input jack (designed for CD-in), 3) play one of the many available AM or FM broadcast radio stations. You may know it by its common name, "radio alarm clock."

        But it doesn't have a network connection. It doesn't need one. I wouldn't use it if it had one. If I was forced to use it, I would get a different alarm clock.

        Oh, i

    • By setting the criteria you may be setting yourself up for a greater expense, especially given some content. Sure something physical like your security camera not working is one thing, but something such as entertainment consumption is quite another.

      Take Spotify for example. With its library of 100 million songs you would have to put together a considerable expense to purchase it outright. And if the breath of the library isn't a metric for you, then how about the fact that a Spotify subscription costs abou

  • Is it most efficient (in a common-sense way) for me to have a CD player in a new car, but is it more economically efficient for car companies to eliminate the CD player (and make it so you have to resort to using an antenna to send a radio wave if you want to use the car's built-in speakers) so I have to subscribe to Sirius XM to get any kind of swing jazz, which doesn't even play the best stuff like Lunceford and Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong?

    Why is economic efficiency so often at odds with enginee

    • Why is economic efficiency so often at odds with engineering efficiency?

      I'm not sure that they are at odds in your example. What you're asking for is not efficient by either measure, if most people want (or are willing to accept) streaming. It's not efficient for anybody to cater to esoteric tastes, even if they're good tastes.

      • "It's not efficient for anybody to cater to esoteric tastes, even if they're good tastes."

        Remember when the promise of technology was the long tail? Why is it economically inefficient yet engineeringly easy to put CDs in new cars?

        • Why is it economically inefficient yet engineeringly easy to put CDs in new cars?

          What does "engineeringly easy" mean exactly? I mean the construction of CD players is certainly a solved problem, but so is the construction of 8-track players. CDs aren't quite 8-tracks but they're well on their way in that direction.

          Is it engineeringly easy to make 8-track players an option for new cars? What would be involved in maintaining the supply chain for 8-track players and all the parts that go into them, at sufficient scale to make it cheap enough to be worth founding a company to market them

          • What if an 8-track enthusiast engineer designed cars such that 8-track users could plug a player in to use the car's speakers?

            Why ignore the article which is about pushing consumers away from standalone tech like CD players (still popular and significantly more so than 8-track) to force subscriptions on us? Why deliberately make it hard to plug a CD player in to the speakers, if they refuse to provide CD players like they got us used to?

            • Ok I'm still working to figure out exactly what you're on about... my example was simply pointing out that just because a technology is established from an engineering perspective doesn't mean there's sufficient demand to accommodate it in the design of a large monolithic product like a car. In fact the more "established" a piece of engineering is, probably the older it is, probably the less demand there is for it. But these are generalities.

              Why not include an audio jack in every car? They could but they

        • It is economically inefficient because even if CD players are fairly cheap to produce, the number of people who want them is still not large enough to justify their inclusion.

          Both of my family's cars are 2012s. So, both have CD players. I have never used them.

    • I don't know why you'd really want to mess with CD's in a car. I have all my music (mostly from CDs) on my phone and stream it via BT to the car.

      • How can I rip CDs to a phone? Why isn't it more efficient, except economically, to put a CD player in new cars? Is there really no demand or are they forcing subscription audio on us like it was AI?

        • You don't rip them to the phone. You rip them to a computer and copy them to the phone. Then you don't have to mess with CDs which you're driving.

          • What if my computer has no CD drive? Do you see how inefficient, expensive, and impractical this is becoming?

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

              What if my computer has no CD drive?

              Buy an external one for $20. That's probably one month of your internet music subscription.

              expensive

              The word you are looking for is cheaper

              inefficient

              You could have ripped 5 albums whilst reading this article and comments. Just do it each time you are sitting down to read Slashdot and it will be done in no time.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by Sloppy ( 14984 )

              If you don't have a CD drive, then you don't get to rip CDs. You'll have to acquire your files some other way. And/or buy a CD drive.

              • As a nomad traveling around with a phone and ancient Surface I hardly use, do you see how having a built-in CD player like cars used to have and which I got used to is much more convenient, and the decision to take it away seems much more to do with power and selling subscriptions than practical engineering capability?

                • Re: (Score:3)

                  by Sloppy ( 14984 )

                  As a nomad traveling around with a phone and ancient Surface

                  Ugh, I think no matters what happens, you lose. If your car has a CD player and is the main place where you usually listen to music, then it seems you would need to keep your CD collection in the car too, and that puts an upper limit on its size. Between the back seats and trunk, I could maybe fit a dozen or two beer-cases-repurposed-as-CD-boxes, but it would completely take over those spaces. And keeping even that small of a subset of the collecti

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Sloppy ( 14984 )

          How can I rip CDs to a phone?

          You don't. You rip them to your fileserver at home, and run a subsonic-API server on that. The phone connects to it over a VPN, and a subsonic API player plays it to the car with bluetooth.

    • Ordinarily competition would prevent this kind of nasty rent seeking because there would be competitors that would sell viable products without the nastiness

      Billionaires have dominated our economy and they do not like capitalism. They do not like it one bit.

      So you have a lot of trust and duopolis and monopolies. You have six or seven companies that make basically everything you buy except a handful of silly artisanal crap.

      Under Joe Biden in America Lina Khan was working on multiple antitrust cas
      • Billionaires have dominated our economy and they do not like capitalism. They do not like it one bit.

        You keep saying that, over and over without providing the slightest bit of evidence to back your claim up. But has it ever occurred to you that capitalism is what allowed them to become billionaires in the first place?
        • And Donald Trump keeps fucking kids but hey what are you going to do right?

          What did you think I was actually going to treat a comment is stupid as yours with the slightest bit of respect?

          If you are too soul searingly stupid to use Google long enough to find the damage billionaires are doing to your life then frankly I do not know how it is that you've gotten this far without being eaten alive by puppies.
          • If you are too soul searingly stupid to use Google long enough to find the damage billionaires are doing to your life then frankly I do not know how it is that you've gotten this far without being eaten alive by puppies.

            Sorry, but you're the one making the claim that billionaires hate capitalism, so it's up to you to provide the evidence, not me. And, even if you're right that they're damaging my life (And that's another claim that you need to provide proof for.) that's not proof that they hate capitali

            • He's basically leaning into classic Maoist thought: If any person isn't useful to him personally, then they're either a counterrevolutionary, or at best a distraction from the revolution. Either way, they need to be flogged in public, if not executed, and have all of their stuff taken away.

              • That may or may not be true, but in either case it doesn't matter. What does matter is the fact that it's up to him to prove that billionaires are anti-capitalism, not me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      Most cars have Bluetooth so you can connect your smartphone or other device to play even Louis Armstrong.
    • I find it to be far more efficient to load music onto my phone and play it through the car's stereo. CDs are far less efficient and less safe.

      It is convenient for a person whose audio collection is still primarily on CD, but it is not more efficient. Common sense dictates that the most efficient approach is to focus on what the bulk of consumers will be using, and that will be streaming, radios, and things connected via bluetooth.

  • And this is why I will never again own an HP printer. I just bought a Canon printer after decades of owning HP products.

    • Brother clears.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      There's like a dozen different ink cartridge gimmicks HP uses to fuck over consumers. In my case one had to press a "confirm" prompt every time one printed if the color cartridge was past an alleged expiration date even if I was only printing in black-and-white.

      HP used to have a good reputation, then seemed to turn evil on a dime. Was there a board meeting where they had a "let's be evil" vote and it passed?

    • I few weeks ago my HP OfficeJet 8720 ran out of ink. Replacing the cartridges was going to cost more than $200 for the "XL" size. I said NO.

      Instead, I bought an Epson tank inkjet printer, and love it. It works just as well as a regular inkjet, but ink costs less than 10% compared to cartridges. Consumer Reports has a nice writeup. https://www.consumerreports.or... [consumerreports.org]

      I'm not going back.

  • Ah, the “I had no choice but to buy this thing and pay this subscription” victim mentality rears its ugly head.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      And this hasn't been news for at least 10 or 15 years. Must have been a slow day with a deadline.

    • It's the same for folks that whine about paying for those "extras" subscriptions for their fancy new cars. I would never agree to such a thing and won't buy a car I can't drive without paying an ongoing tithe to the manufacturer. I won't buy a car that I can only be maintained at a dealership either.

      As for the printer example, I switched to a Brother printer years ago and have been able to purchase cheaper aftermarket toner without a hassle.

      Best,

    • Why do so many engineers who should know better build the subscription software for thoughtless finance guy bosses focused on revenue stream over something the engineer himself wants to use? Why do engineers so eagerly toss common-sense efficiency away to do whatever their greedy, selfish bosses tell them?

  • Buyer beware.

    The whole consumer economy is turning into sticky snare traps everywhere, and it won't stop until people start refusing to buy these items.

    And, it's going to get worse with the current regime in power. We're going back to the wild west in the consumer marketplace.

    Find and read those user manuals before you by items such as these. If you can't find a user manual, don't buy the product.

    Seek out real user testimonies, avoid the SEO-placed crap at the top of the search results.

    Buy plain-jane produc

  • When the company has an ongoing cost - such as they have to make new content every year, then it makes sense for you to pay an ongoing cost each month.

    But when the company has no mandatory ongoing cost it makes ZERO sense to pay them rent.

    And fixing the mistakes in their software is not a mandatory ongoing cost. It is at best an optional one - and by some standards should be free. When you are fixing your mistakes you do not charge others for it.

    The issue is that crappy companies that made sucky products

    • I subscribe to almost nothing by design. I try to only use what I can self-host or provide.

      The idea of a music subscription or a heated seat subscription is insane to me; like you I'd buy a heated seat cover rather than subscribe.

    • When the company has an ongoing cost - such as they have to make new content every year, then it makes sense for you to pay an ongoing cost each month.

      But when the company has no mandatory ongoing cost it makes ZERO sense to pay them rent.

      .

      Yep, like BMW charging to use your heated seats.

  • Don't buy it or if when you receive it it requires an account send it back.

  • Cars require you to buy gas or electricity. Flashlights require batteries (especially pre-LED ones). Smartphones require you to buy connectivity (or mooch for it). The list goes on.

    The main difference is vendor lock-in. I can buy gas or electricity from a company other than the one that sold me the car.

    Either way though, if I don't pay up every month, my device is pretty useless except as an paperweight or status symbol.

    • Exactly. Gasoline, mains power, and batteries are standardized. So are LTE, 5G NR, and Wi-Fi. Compare what Mike Masnick of Techdirt and other Internet user freedom advocates have called "protocols, not platforms." [knightcolumbia.org]

      Though even if there were no cryptographic lockdown of these "smart" devices' system software to interact only with the vendor's server, one big obstacle to running your own server (with proverbial blackjack and hookers) is that so many Internet providers nowadays block inbound TCP connections. T-M

  • And this is just Explicit subscriptions. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Saturday December 20, 2025 @03:29PM (#65871617)

    There are also stealth subscriptions.

    Example: Google arbitrarily bricking Nest thermostats 1st and 2nd Gen to encourage purchase of Updated version (while the old devices still do go online in order to upload your data; they are artificially rendered useless). . That new hardware cost is a disguised subscription.

    IoT hardware vendors have been doing this for quite a while -- often by discontinuing updates to Fix security defects their product was shipped with.
    Or pushing out a deliberately customer-hostile update to lock features the product had been sold with.

    • If ending support violates an "implied warranty for fitness" the seller or manufacturer could owe you a refund depending on what legal jurisdiction you are in.

      Arbitrary bricking or arbitrarily removing features that were marketed at the time you bought it could also be grounds for damages, depending on where you live.

      Arbitrartion requirements notwithstanding, the companies could still be on the hook for lawsuits from goverments on behalf of their residents, particularly if a state Attorney General thinks he

      • If ending support violates an "implied warranty for fitness" the seller or manufacturer could owe you a refund

        Which is why Google waited several years to brick early Nest and Revolv thermostats: the factory warranty had expired.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          You don't rely on their generosity for the warranty, you rely on the law.

          I'm the UK it says that things must last a "reasonable length of time". For a thermostat you would be looking at at least 10 years, arguably more due to the high cost.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
            The limit is 5 years, assuming the 2017 changes harmonised Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland used to be up to 6 years, IIRC). Thermostats in general aren't that expensive, maybe just Nest, but the law is based on expected durability, not price, and in theory, you could claim for a 10 pence washer if it failed early. However, getting people to honour the sales of goods acts is another matter. Even quoting the law doesn't always work but issuance of Small Claims Court proceedings does. B

          • For a thermostat you would be looking at at least 10 years, arguably more due to the high cost.

            Well, the Nest 2nd gen thermostat was sold from 2012-2015 (when it was replaced by the 3rd gen), and support ended in 2025, so, 10 years.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        If ending support violates an "implied warranty for fitness" the seller or manufacturer could owe you a refund depending on what legal jurisdiction you are in.
        So far We don't see any lawsuits against the manufacturers doing this that have done this, And they keep getting more and more brazen.

        However, in most cases they do this on units they have already stopped sales for, and the products come with express warranties that have expired.

        The warranties have "expired" as far as they are concerned a certain numb

    • There's nothing arbitrary about this. The API was depreciated, the data sent online isn't anything to do with the API. And above all, precisely zero Nest thermostats have ever been bricked. None. They all continue to work just fine as a thermostat even if you can't control them with your phone. They even retain their smarter features such as person detection. The core functionality is run locally. And given the current thermostats support Matter they also can't be discontinued remotely since Matter works lo

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        They all continue to work just fine as a thermostat

        They do not continue to work "just fine". The product you bought was called a Nest Learning Thermostat. The remote control function by app was always a critical part of the product, and the reason you paid $300 for a Nest instead of $10 for a mercury switch t.stat.

        An API change is an arbitrarily unnecessary change specially designed to create incompatibility to use as an excuse.
        As noted: the functions of a thermostat have not changed. And if in fact an

  • I refused to be nickel and dime for hardware I buy, that said I certainly have my subscriptions:
    Cellphone (2 lines, unlimited data): $145
    Home internet: $88
    Streaming video: $55
    Online newspapers: $45
    Audio books: $12
    Total: $345/$112 per month; or $4140/$1344 per year

    The second figure excludes Internet. It could be argued cellphone and home internet are necessary instead of discretionary since I work from home. But those other subscriptions use them too. The internet obviously isn’t used solely ju

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      That's a ridiculous amount to spend on phone service. There are prepaid plans with unlimited data for a fraction of the cost. And unless you're tethering or streaming, you probably don't need unlimited.

      • It all depends on ones situation. I use it to work remotely several times a work.

        The plan also includes HBO Max and the cost of a new iPhone pro with a TB of storage over 3 years at zero percent interest. Take those out and it is would be more like $95/month for two lines. I am sure even cheaper exists. But the speeds and coverage are likely to be less too.

        I like to go out to the middle of nowhere from time to time. The major carriers have way better coverage in remote areas. I switched to a major carr

  • What vexes me are the companies that sell physical products for a hefty, upfront fee and subsequently demand more money to keep using items already in your possession.

    really? doesn't vex me at all. abstaining from buying such shit just takes a handful of braincells and nobody ever forced me to do so. that these products thrive just speaks of the geographic concentration of suckers in the world.

  • I've reached the age and mental state where I can fully opt out of anything that asks for a subscription. I have only one exception - seamless cloud backup. That's it. No car features, no smart IoT, no printer ink that I can't third party... if my laser printer fails I'll buy a used one that takes knock off toner. If new cars all demand subscriptions them my subscriptionless 2019 Camry will be my last new car.

    The world can swing in that direction, but I don't need to stay in the seat. Nor does anybody else.

  • I bought about $2,000 of software, and another $500 in games. I do buy software, but no, I will not rent it.

  • Seriously. If you do not actually look at what you buy before doing it, you will get shafted at least on part of your purchases. That insight is as old as humanity. I see some are still ignorant regarding that issue.

  • Seems like whining to me. You chose to buy the product. And if it does not live up to your expectations, there is always the trash can.

  • ...that requires access to a server in order to function
    The cloud is a trap
    Run away

    • You mean, like a computer or a smartphone?

      They are basically useless without a connection to the cloud. Every website and most apps, depend on it.

  • >"A reporter at Mother Jones writes about a $169 alarm clock with special lighting and audio effects. But to use the features, "you need to pay an additional $4.99 per month, in perpetuity."

    Yeah, and who is stupid enough to buy it?

    >"Welcome to the age of subscription captivity, where an increasing share of the things you pay for actually own you."

    Not me. I don't buy junk like that. Never. And once consumers eventually wise up and stop buying such junk, it will stop. They will start reading specs a

  • If they're not making it clear to people at purchase that the advertised price is not the full price, it's straight up bait and switch (the advertised price is the bait; the subscription and additional revenue stream is the price switch).

  • I don't buy Subscription-based things to start with. HP's Instant Ink program was 1 big trap and why I bought a Brother Laser printer.
  • Installed 2 houses (not mine) with Arlo motion-activated cameras. You get a cloud link for each camera with real-time vids. And also a week of storage. But after a year we can't connect anymore and the shit smell seem to imply that problems would stop with the 10$/mo subscription. Fuckers. I know bandwidth and storage ain't free, but that's what it says when you buy them.

  • "Thank you for your subscription but we got sold, bankrupt, or disinterested."

Slashdot Top Deals

Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70!

Close