I would love to hear more about what you think subscription models add to the economy, and the future. As the majority of views I've seen is that a subscription based model, where the customer doesn't own anything (such as books, games, DVDs, etc), but has to continually pay to access them, is exploitative of the customer, and forces us into neverending consumerism. I assume you see subscription models differently, as you have said that's what you want to focus on, and as I know you are far more into collectivism than the majority of companies.
Well this was kind of my way of bridging that gap—why can't a subscription model mean the customer still owns something?
Right now, there's no doubt that a subscription is a better revenue source for an artist than a one-time payment. But it's not as good for the customer who has to keep paying forever. That's why I think those benefits should accrue and come with permanent ownership. Essentially what I'm trying to create here!
Yes, I love supporting artists in this way when I can, though I still prefer having the option to buy their word separately, especially as I can't afford to support everyone I want to every month. I was more wondering about your thoughts regarding how we've become a subscription culture, particularly for larger companies (such as Amazon), and ways that subscriptions can be good or bad for the economy.
Ah, I don't really have a fleshed out thesis on that. But off the top of my head, a couple things: Claude will disrupt subscriptions. (I've been able to get rid of most of mine because I was able to make my own version with Claude). Also, subscriptions wouldn't be as bad if inequality wasn't as bad. (The lowest tier of Netflix got worse because there were people willing to pay more to avoid a worse version.) Also subscriptions would be better for the economy if they were benefiting community owned companies (and came with ownership!).
But then there's the caveat: There's a world where "no one buys anything and everyone rents everything" *could* be a good thing if that's because we collectivelly own everything. But without that, it's a bad thing.
Thanks for your viewpoint. Like you I think subscriptions, particularly for artists is a great option (it's why I really appreciate patreon), though I have complicated views regarding things like Netflix - I appreciate it as a consumer, but I also understand it isn't a profitable business model (particularly when every company has created their own competing platforms), and it's hard to tell whether it's had a positive or negative effect on the movies and TV shows that get made (personally overall I think negative, as shows rarely get more than 2 seasons now, because they're too expensive to produce, not giving time for more viewers to find them).
Regarding everything being a subscription because everyone owns everything, that's effectively what tax was created for. Unfortunately the people don't decide what it gets spent on, so instead of being poured into public education, transportation, food systems, etc, it primarily seems to go to war ('defense') efforts.
As someone who finds AI in its current system highly unethical I won't be using it for anything when possible, but it's always interesting to learn how others are using it, and I am certainly intrigued to see how it will change things. Though I'm sure as soon as it's become a necessity to navigate life, it will also become subscriptions.
Yeah, I'd have to do more research to address subscriptions as a whole on the economy. Taxes as a way of mitigating it, or using it for good, are, like you said, not really accomplishing that goal in the US. But then I'd like to bring all taxation local rather than national....
I would love to hear more about what you think subscription models add to the economy, and the future. As the majority of views I've seen is that a subscription based model, where the customer doesn't own anything (such as books, games, DVDs, etc), but has to continually pay to access them, is exploitative of the customer, and forces us into neverending consumerism. I assume you see subscription models differently, as you have said that's what you want to focus on, and as I know you are far more into collectivism than the majority of companies.
Well this was kind of my way of bridging that gap—why can't a subscription model mean the customer still owns something?
Right now, there's no doubt that a subscription is a better revenue source for an artist than a one-time payment. But it's not as good for the customer who has to keep paying forever. That's why I think those benefits should accrue and come with permanent ownership. Essentially what I'm trying to create here!
Yes, I love supporting artists in this way when I can, though I still prefer having the option to buy their word separately, especially as I can't afford to support everyone I want to every month. I was more wondering about your thoughts regarding how we've become a subscription culture, particularly for larger companies (such as Amazon), and ways that subscriptions can be good or bad for the economy.
Ah, I don't really have a fleshed out thesis on that. But off the top of my head, a couple things: Claude will disrupt subscriptions. (I've been able to get rid of most of mine because I was able to make my own version with Claude). Also, subscriptions wouldn't be as bad if inequality wasn't as bad. (The lowest tier of Netflix got worse because there were people willing to pay more to avoid a worse version.) Also subscriptions would be better for the economy if they were benefiting community owned companies (and came with ownership!).
But then there's the caveat: There's a world where "no one buys anything and everyone rents everything" *could* be a good thing if that's because we collectivelly own everything. But without that, it's a bad thing.
Thanks for your viewpoint. Like you I think subscriptions, particularly for artists is a great option (it's why I really appreciate patreon), though I have complicated views regarding things like Netflix - I appreciate it as a consumer, but I also understand it isn't a profitable business model (particularly when every company has created their own competing platforms), and it's hard to tell whether it's had a positive or negative effect on the movies and TV shows that get made (personally overall I think negative, as shows rarely get more than 2 seasons now, because they're too expensive to produce, not giving time for more viewers to find them).
Regarding everything being a subscription because everyone owns everything, that's effectively what tax was created for. Unfortunately the people don't decide what it gets spent on, so instead of being poured into public education, transportation, food systems, etc, it primarily seems to go to war ('defense') efforts.
As someone who finds AI in its current system highly unethical I won't be using it for anything when possible, but it's always interesting to learn how others are using it, and I am certainly intrigued to see how it will change things. Though I'm sure as soon as it's become a necessity to navigate life, it will also become subscriptions.
Yeah, I'd have to do more research to address subscriptions as a whole on the economy. Taxes as a way of mitigating it, or using it for good, are, like you said, not really accomplishing that goal in the US. But then I'd like to bring all taxation local rather than national....
That Claude plugin is awesome! Really cool to see how powerful these tools are in the hands of non-technical business owners. Congrats on the launch!