It's a facet of current business. They're ALL trying to give us subscriptions for everything. The "subscription" created by the Gillette safety razor wasn't out

It's a facet of current business. They're ALL trying to give us subscriptions for everything. The "subscription" created by the Gillette safety razor wasn't outrageously priced or terribly wasteful compared to modern blades, and was a fairly good idea over cut-throat razors. Modern product (as opposed to service) subscriptions exist to extract more cash from the consumer rather than a real tangible benefit (I don't count the marketing benefit). Printer ink (especially HP as the ink cartridge usually contains the print head too), coffee pods (complete with DRM!), air fresheners (at least one brand has DRM here too), sealed laptop and phone batteries and dozens of others are designed to get lock in and more sales/profit. Other industries and products are adopting the same model. Ties in well with the materials used in consumer products to ensure they need periodic replacement. eg 60s Hoovers were rubbish, but could easily last 50 years, current Hoovers are far better vacuums thanks to Dyson, but are near (or past) end of life by 5 years as the plastic is disintigrating. They're often real terms cheaper, but now objectively too cheap, and there's no better made alternative offered. Even premium brands are now "cheap". It's a profligate waste of money, packaging and environment. If a product isn't under this model it's easy to get the feeling it's only because they haven't figured out how to get away with it yet. I'd prefer a saner balance on most of these things.