Seems everyone has turned on to the potential of subscription based revenue, not just software and app developers.  The next iteration is apparently coming from the auto industry:

I guess I wont be buying a BMW anytime soon.  The concept of buying a car then "subscribing" monthly for features is a bit much for me.   Especially with current car prices!!!  A Ford pickup truck today cost more than my Porsche did 3 years ago!  

https://www.motor1.com/news/597376/bmw-heated-seats-subscription/

But for $138 we will play fake engine sounds for you!!  

Even my company is doing the same thing.  I had to point out to 4 different business units yesterday they had all added their own subscription to our solution but tied to their individual Business units hardware. So each piece of HW has it's own subscription.  Not a big deal when you are buying one piece of HW and one subscription.  The issue is the solution requires 4 pieces of HW which meant 4 individual subscriptions for one "solution" each piece of HW within the solution having it's own subscription.  Now you multiply 4 by the number of devices my customers deploy and all of a sudden they have 40,000 subscriptions.  It's not feasible.  

I guess this is the way the world is moving at the moment.

 

   

Now I saw a thing on the news yesterday about a subscription shoe company.  $30 a month and you can bring your old shoes that you bought through them in for recycling and walk out with a new pair.  The shoes were made out of recyclable plastic.

15 minutes ago, charliearon said:

Now I saw a thing on the news yesterday about a subscription shoe company.  $30 a month and you can bring your old shoes that you bought through them in for recycling and walk out with a new pair.  The shoes were made out of recyclable plastic.

Crazy!  I've also seen the clothes subscription services.  Maybe it's just me but I'm not a sharer.  I prefer my clothes to be mine and to know who has worn them LOL!  

What else can we monetize as recurring revenue.  Bathroom subscription?  Pay as you go?  LOL  

 

Just now, psolk said:

Bathroom subscription?  Pay as you go?  LOL 

I'd suggest pay-per-weight, much more fair and exact! It should be easy to weigh the amount of body fluid (or not so fluid) added into the circle.

"Ok, what do we have today? 630 g, that's $17.60 then, Sir! Oh and you saved 3.50 by not washing your hands today. Have a nice day!"

BMW has been toying with subscriptions for built-in features for few years now.

https://www.cars.com/articles/is-bmws-apple-carplay-subscription-a-model-for-the-future-1420699754172/

Toyota is doing the same thing now too.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/43329/toyota-made-its-key-fob-remote-start-into-a-subscription-service

Off work due to sickness so have dreaded daytime tv to watch just seen an advert for kids bike subscription…“when your child grows out of there old bike we’ll replace it for x.99 a month”…ugh I’m not even 40 but my old bikes always went to younger cousins if I hadn’t already tried to take the wheels off to try and make something dangerous out of the parts. I hate subscriptions but you can’t avoid these days 

Isn't a lease basically a whole car subscription?

A very simple phone app wanted $1/year or $20 to own, not reasonable pricing at all IMO; so I went to a different free app instead.

Regardless, I'm definitely not a fan of any of this anti-ownership trend.

 

1 hour ago, VeryBumpy said:

Isn't a lease basically a whole car subscription?

It is, but you still have the option to buy the vehicle outright, including permanent access to all features on the car. Or at least you used to. Now you could potentially buy a vehicle and still not have access to built-in features, like heated seats or remote start, unless you pony up more money to the car company. This is going too far, and I hope it doesn't catch on, though I expect the car companies to do their best to normalize it.

But Paul, you only need heated seats in the winter.  So you don't have to pay for them in the summer.

A few months ago the lease was up on my Prius.   Its value was 15,000 dollars more than the residual payment so I paid the lease off and essentially bought a car and made 15K on the deal.

No subscriptions since the car is three years old.

Noel

On 7/12/2022 at 6:04 AM, psolk said:

I guess I wont be buying a BMW anytime soon.   

I have a BMW and have liked them for a long time (until they break 😂) but I won’t be buying another one after what they did to the oversized kidney shaped grills and eliminated the signature style halo or angle eye style DRL’s. Don’t know who’s idea it was to change the kidneys but it looks horrible imho 😂😂

7 hours ago, cmpbellsjc said:

I have a BMW and have liked them for a long time (until they break 😂) but I won’t be buying another one after what they did to the oversized kidney shaped grills and eliminated the signature style halo or angle eye style DRL’s. Don’t know who’s idea it was to change the kidneys but it looks horrible imho 😂😂

Agreed, but it's nice to know that the guy who designed the Edsel Ford has finally found a new employer 🙂

Tesla started this. Its just holding installed components hostage waiting for payments. Pretty much a Rent-Seeking scheme, they are gaming things to extract more money without providing any new value in exchange.

I see it as very wasteful. Installing components and parts that may never be used or activated is bad environmentally.

I think services like On Star and Serius XM radio were the start of this.  could be wrong but thats the way I see it.

48 minutes ago, sightseer said:

I think services like On Star and Serius XM radio were the start of this.  could be wrong but thats the way I see it.

Those are a bit different in that there's ongoing costs required to support them, unlike heated seats.

Well I didnt actually read the original linked to article but since the entire thread is about 'subscriptions' I assumed "on going payments" because..."subscription".  sorry for misunderstanding.

Edited July 14, 20223 yr by sightseer