Here's a company, Zuora, whose CEO states it outright in a way that's just a little too one-size-fits-all for me to ignore:
OUR VISION: THE WORLD. SUBSCRIBED.
Customers have changed. They’re looking for new ways to engage with businesses. Consumers today have a new set of expectations. They want outcomes, not ownership. Customization, not generalization. Constant improvement, not planned obsolescence.
In the old world (let’s call it the Product Economy) it was all about things. Acquiring new customers, shipping commodities, billing for one-time transactions. But in today’s new era, it’s all about relationships. More and more customers are becoming subscribers because subscription experiences built around services meet consumers’ needs better than the static offerings or a single product.
Our vision is “The World Subscribed” where one day every company will be a part of the Subscription Economy® (a phrase coined by our CEO, Tien Tzuo and author of the best selling book Subscribed).
As consumers wave goodbye to ownership, join us as we help companies win on their journey to usership!
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Thoughts
I've thought about how the SAAS model is taking over to the point where consumers will no longer own anything.
While there are advantages to subscriptions, eventually consumers can only subscribe to so many services, and the constant output of liquidity exceeds the value of the service or the consumer's capacity.
Noone subscribes to a fork or a spoon. Subscribe to snacks, subscribe to razors, subscribe to your underwear. Oh, dammit, my subscription ran out and now I'm hungry, scruffy, and free-balling.
Imagine if self-driving cars become the norm, and the cost of ownership is so high that the average person has no choice but to subscribe. What a pain in the ass.
Not that far-fetched, actually. Look at the housing market. The low inventory has home prices so high they are out of reach, and as a result rentals are also through the roof, so to speak. The consumer is completely compromised.
Remember when Marx talked about workers owning the means of production? Well, that applies to a lot of things.
The model makes sense sometimes, but the big benefit is to the owner, who stays liquid. Another key point - consumers sign up for many services and often forget about them, so they continue to renew, even when they aren't using the service. It's just lost in the credit card every month. How does this drive dominance of the model in the marketplace? When it becomes the standard, it ultimately creates a class gap.
At the same time, there are instances where the subscription actually makes a product or service more accessible.
But, it's not just about affording the service. It's also about privacy and true ownership. Back to the car example. Insurance companies are pushing to track our driving as an incentive to lower our rates. What about our phones? There are many ways that we forfeit our rights through tracking. When we own something, we do what we want with complete privacy and without certain limitations.
Obviously, there are plenty of great subscription services that make sense - my question is where to draw the line, what is the consumer capacity, and what's the future?
Infrastructure. Hey, Chile, Argentina, Nigeria...China can get you into the 21st century with their new infrastructure "subscription" service (not that it's a subscription, but think outside the box). Once they get a foothold on you, they own you. Generally speaking, at what point does this service become a tactic for dominance and ownership. It's kinda predatory, long-term. I think that's called 'loan-sharking'. Whether the interest is about money or strings attached, there's a price to pay for convenience.
And what about currency? Are we subscribing to something that shifts and slides around because there's no standard? What about the blockchain? Does it really impose limits or is it so subject to speculation that it's all over the place? Are we subscribing to new forms of currency? I'm not sure if I "subscribe" to the concept of digital currency. I'm pretty sure we could extend this kind of scrutiny to a lot of things.
I might like to subscribe to a girlfriend, but a wife and kids? Sounds like a ponzi scheme.
Surely, God offers a subscription plan, but I think I subscribed and forgot about it, my bad. I thought I needed my privacy. Dammit, I should've renewed. It's easy to treat one's conscience like a telemarketer, screening and not returning calls.
What's left? Body or mind subscription? I wouldn't rule it out - be it via genetics, mecha, or metaverse. The soul might seem more complicated, but one might say it's already exchanged on a regular basis.
Could there be such a thing as a subscription service that offers a super-fun-pack approach to archetypes on the promise of seamless, regular upgrades? The notion of "new" archetypes is a paradox, isn't it? I'm pretty sure anything perceived as something new under the sun is just a subcategory of something that's always been.
Timelessness. Wait...a subscription to time! Who owns and vends time? Time is money, but one cannot print more time. Well, I guess the closest thing is credit. Tick tick tick. i.e. borrowed time. Here comes that shark.
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