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I have been using Headspace and Calm.com. While the services are valuable, I have hard time justifying buying a subscription with a monthly cost for something t

by seren 10y ago

I have been using Headspace and Calm.com. While the services are valuable, I have hard time justifying buying a subscription with a monthly cost for something that is basically some guided meditation mp3. Compare buying a meditation book with a few guided meditation track for 20$, or subscribing to an app with a recurring cost of 70$/year, I don't really see the added value. Can someone shed light on what I am missing ?

contingencies 10y ago
App has social/word of mouth buzz, is instant gratification, and is easy to pay for.
DigitalJack 10y ago
I've got some audio from Jon Kabat-Zinn, and sometimes I use it when meditating, sometimes not. However, people pay for stuff sometimes for the psychological effect. For example, we pay to have someone clean our house. But the day before they come to clean, we pre-clean. It keeps us accountable to not letting clutter take control. I listen to the Kabat-Zinn audio, not so much for the instruction, but that it helps keep me "on the cushion" for a longer duration. Without it, I'm more likely to get distracted and stop early to do something else. So sometimes that is the actual value, the accountability. It's an intangible value.
PatentTroll 10y ago
Yup, I actually paid for two of these services before I realized they're just audio content. Great business for them, bad product for me.
- icc97 10y ago
  There is the free 10 day content as well as a 30 day money back guarantee.
brianbreslin 10y ago
Spotify has some tracks in there on guided meditation as well.
coderholic 10y ago
[Disclosure: I'm CTO at Calm] With Calm, there's new content every single day with our Daily Calm meditation. We've got more daily content coming soon too. In addition to the content people also like us for our tracking features and daily reminders, which people consider valuable.
- bitsoda 10y ago
  Ironically, the completionist in me would be stressed out knowing there's new content waiting for me everyday. I'd feel compelled to listen to the day's new audio track before it has a chance to pile up over a week, which makes for good business, but would personally stress me out and ruin the whole point of Calm and similar mindfulness services. I'm probably just a weirdo edge case, though :]
  - icc97 10y ago
    I quite agree. I like the repetitive edge of Headspace. Although I have to say that I don't feel compelled to do all of it. I know it's not a test and if I push myself to do things then it lessens the benefit.
  - coderholic 10y ago
    You're definitely not a weirdo edge case, I think we all feel something like that around email, facebook notifications etc, and it's something we very consciously want to avoid in our product. Each Daily Calm session is available for that day only, so you either listen to it or you don't. If you do come back to the app every day there's something fresh for you if that's what you'd like (you can of course to a regular session too). If you don't use the app on any particular day, no big deal, there's no backlog of content for you to stress about catching up with!
    - OJFord 10y ago
      > Each Daily Calm session is available for that day only, > so you either listen to it or you don't. I'm really not in the target audience at all, but doesn't that make the situation described by the parent commenter _worse_? "Agh! Better listen quick or it's gone forever!"
coldtea 10y ago
>Can someone shed light on what I am missing ? The fact that there are people that make enough money, or not care enough about money, to prefer the convenience on just clicking "subscribe" on an app they downloaded and like, over searching for meditations books with meditation tracks on CD, ripping it to your phone, etc. For more pinching-penny types, they could also expect the app to offer more/different tracks over time too.
nogbit 10y ago
I'm sure it's very popular in the west. Traditional mindfulness meditation requires only your body, that's it. Leave it to marketing to make you think you need to create a perfect environment (clothes, smells, sights, sounds, tools) in order to meditate.
icc97 10y ago
1. The thing that makes headspace worth it for me is Andy Puddicome. I'm British and listening to his vaguely northern accent is very calming. It's a fine balance whether you find listening to the same voice every day irritating or helpful. 2. It depends on how stressed you are. I felt an immediate difference in calmness at the end of each headspace session. This was almost immediately worth it for me to spend $70 on. All I need it to do is give me one extra hours work done from being calmer to make it worthwhile. 3. Also there's laziness of having everything setup for you. I wouldn't keep it up if I had to read my own way through and make my own path. Headspace makes it very easy just to follow a guided path but with some choice. A lot of it is using the same techniques in slightly different ways. Calm's CTO's comment about having new content each day I don't find very important. I know this is a very long term thing (i.e. decades of learning), so I know each section requires a lot of practice and repetition. I'm happy to repeat sections and practice until I get the full benefit.
gyardley 10y ago
You're missing just how easy it is to write a quick script that downloads all the content and stores it on your hard drive. Subscribe for a month, write the script in an hour or so, unsubscribe, and you're done. I did this for one of these services and the most annoying thing was correcting the inconsistent names they gave their audio files. You can do this with anything - works great with programming screencasts, for example. If it's the type of service that regularly updates, you can just resubscribe for a month once in a while to grab the new stuff.
- huehehue 10y ago
  This sounds like stealing
  - fokinsean 10y ago
    You seem new around here, welcome to the internet.
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    Yeah, stealing. I downloaded HackerNews once and no one else could see it until they made a new one. /s Potentially copyright infringement, YMMV. If you only consumed the articles once then a time-shifting Fair Use or Fair Dealing (or similar) case might be made.
WA 10y ago
You don't miss anything. The whole point of guided meditation is to get you in the habit to meditate and to tell you what to focus on (breath, body sensations, rising and vanishing of thoughts and emotions). New content on guided meditations? Sounds like the exact opposite of what one tries to achieve. Also, best phrase from the article: the meditation and mindfulness industry Somehow absurd.
finid 10y ago
Chanting the word HU 5-minutes every day will probably do more for you than those services. And it doesn't cost a penny to learn how to chant it.

by seren 10y ago

contingencies 10y ago

App has social/word of mouth buzz, is instant gratification, and is easy to pay for.

DigitalJack 10y ago

I've got some audio from Jon Kabat-Zinn, and sometimes I use it when meditating, sometimes not. However, people pay for stuff sometimes for the psychological effect. For example, we pay to have someone clean our house. But the day before they come to clean, we pre-clean. It keeps us accountable to not letting clutter take control. I listen to the Kabat-Zinn audio, not so much for the instruction, but that it helps keep me "on the cushion" for a longer duration. Without it, I'm more likely to get distracted and stop early to do something else. So sometimes that is the actual value, the accountability. It's an intangible value.

PatentTroll 10y ago

Yup, I actually paid for two of these services before I realized they're just audio content. Great business for them, bad product for me.

icc97 10y ago
There is the free 10 day content as well as a 30 day money back guarantee.

brianbreslin 10y ago

Spotify has some tracks in there on guided meditation as well.

coderholic 10y ago

[Disclosure: I'm CTO at Calm] With Calm, there's new content every single day with our Daily Calm meditation. We've got more daily content coming soon too. In addition to the content people also like us for our tracking features and daily reminders, which people consider valuable.

bitsoda 10y ago
Ironically, the completionist in me would be stressed out knowing there's new content waiting for me everyday. I'd feel compelled to listen to the day's new audio track before it has a chance to pile up over a week, which makes for good business, but would personally stress me out and ruin the whole point of Calm and similar mindfulness services. I'm probably just a weirdo edge case, though :]
- icc97 10y ago
  I quite agree. I like the repetitive edge of Headspace. Although I have to say that I don't feel compelled to do all of it. I know it's not a test and if I push myself to do things then it lessens the benefit.
- coderholic 10y ago
  You're definitely not a weirdo edge case, I think we all feel something like that around email, facebook notifications etc, and it's something we very consciously want to avoid in our product. Each Daily Calm session is available for that day only, so you either listen to it or you don't. If you do come back to the app every day there's something fresh for you if that's what you'd like (you can of course to a regular session too). If you don't use the app on any particular day, no big deal, there's no backlog of content for you to stress about catching up with!
  - OJFord 10y ago
    > Each Daily Calm session is available for that day only, > so you either listen to it or you don't. I'm really not in the target audience at all, but doesn't that make the situation described by the parent commenter _worse_? "Agh! Better listen quick or it's gone forever!"

coldtea 10y ago

>Can someone shed light on what I am missing ? The fact that there are people that make enough money, or not care enough about money, to prefer the convenience on just clicking "subscribe" on an app they downloaded and like, over searching for meditations books with meditation tracks on CD, ripping it to your phone, etc. For more pinching-penny types, they could also expect the app to offer more/different tracks over time too.

nogbit 10y ago

I'm sure it's very popular in the west. Traditional mindfulness meditation requires only your body, that's it. Leave it to marketing to make you think you need to create a perfect environment (clothes, smells, sights, sounds, tools) in order to meditate.

icc97 10y ago

1. The thing that makes headspace worth it for me is Andy Puddicome. I'm British and listening to his vaguely northern accent is very calming. It's a fine balance whether you find listening to the same voice every day irritating or helpful. 2. It depends on how stressed you are. I felt an immediate difference in calmness at the end of each headspace session. This was almost immediately worth it for me to spend $70 on. All I need it to do is give me one extra hours work done from being calmer to make it worthwhile. 3. Also there's laziness of having everything setup for you. I wouldn't keep it up if I had to read my own way through and make my own path. Headspace makes it very easy just to follow a guided path but with some choice. A lot of it is using the same techniques in slightly different ways. Calm's CTO's comment about having new content each day I don't find very important. I know this is a very long term thing (i.e. decades of learning), so I know each section requires a lot of practice and repetition. I'm happy to repeat sections and practice until I get the full benefit.

gyardley 10y ago

You're missing just how easy it is to write a quick script that downloads all the content and stores it on your hard drive. Subscribe for a month, write the script in an hour or so, unsubscribe, and you're done. I did this for one of these services and the most annoying thing was correcting the inconsistent names they gave their audio files. You can do this with anything - works great with programming screencasts, for example. If it's the type of service that regularly updates, you can just resubscribe for a month once in a while to grab the new stuff.

huehehue 10y ago
This sounds like stealing
- fokinsean 10y ago
  You seem new around here, welcome to the internet.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Yeah, stealing. I downloaded HackerNews once and no one else could see it until they made a new one. /s Potentially copyright infringement, YMMV. If you only consumed the articles once then a time-shifting Fair Use or Fair Dealing (or similar) case might be made.

WA 10y ago

You don't miss anything. The whole point of guided meditation is to get you in the habit to meditate and to tell you what to focus on (breath, body sensations, rising and vanishing of thoughts and emotions). New content on guided meditations? Sounds like the exact opposite of what one tries to achieve. Also, best phrase from the article: the meditation and mindfulness industry Somehow absurd.

finid 10y ago

Chanting the word HU 5-minutes every day will probably do more for you than those services. And it doesn't cost a penny to learn how to chant it.