5 ms·

I don't see the correlation to apartment renting. For me, it's more of like magazine subscription. If you don't renew, they can just stop sending you magazines

by dannyr 16y ago

I don't see the correlation to apartment renting. For me, it's more of like magazine subscription. If you don't renew, they can just stop sending you magazines. With apartment renting, you continue to use the service/product. If you stop paying your rent, they need to kick you out of your apartment. If you don't renew, what is the cost for Zipcar since you can't avail of the service anyway?

barrkel 16y ago
I expect the cost to Zipcar is that they rely on oversubscription and underuse, a bit like porn sites.
- physcab 16y ago
  I guess it depends who you are but wouldn't porn sites be overuse and undersubscription?
  - barrkel 16y ago
    No. As I understand it, porn sites depend on recurring subscriptions that people forget to cancel. If it were overuse and undersubscription, they wouldn't be profitable.
    - jarin 16y ago
      This is true. As I said in the porn thread, I used to work at a large porn company. One time we had about 3 weeks of significant intermittent downtime, due to a really bad server migration. I suggested that we send out an email to the subscribers offering a one-month credit if they wanted it, and the management looked at me like I was crazy. When I asked why, they explained that if we sent an email like that out, it would remind the members to cancel their subscriptions. That was a big part of my inspiration to create the "iTunes Store for porn" application.
eli 16y ago
If you stop paying rent, they don't just kick you out, they try to get the missed payments back too.
- uxp 16y ago
  The apartment analogy is a very poor one for this argument, especially when one would theoretically continue living in an apartment while they stopped paying for it. This author, Fred Stutzman, clearly stated he quit using the service sometime between "last year"(2008) and March of the following year, 2009.
  - z92 16y ago
    > The apartment analogy is a very poor one for this argument A magazine subscription is a better analogy. If you don't renew you don't get the service.

by dannyr 16y ago

barrkel 16y ago

I expect the cost to Zipcar is that they rely on oversubscription and underuse, a bit like porn sites.

physcab 16y ago
I guess it depends who you are but wouldn't porn sites be overuse and undersubscription?
- barrkel 16y ago
  No. As I understand it, porn sites depend on recurring subscriptions that people forget to cancel. If it were overuse and undersubscription, they wouldn't be profitable.
  - jarin 16y ago
    This is true. As I said in the porn thread, I used to work at a large porn company. One time we had about 3 weeks of significant intermittent downtime, due to a really bad server migration. I suggested that we send out an email to the subscribers offering a one-month credit if they wanted it, and the management looked at me like I was crazy. When I asked why, they explained that if we sent an email like that out, it would remind the members to cancel their subscriptions. That was a big part of my inspiration to create the "iTunes Store for porn" application.

eli 16y ago

If you stop paying rent, they don't just kick you out, they try to get the missed payments back too.

uxp 16y ago
The apartment analogy is a very poor one for this argument, especially when one would theoretically continue living in an apartment while they stopped paying for it. This author, Fred Stutzman, clearly stated he quit using the service sometime between "last year"(2008) and March of the following year, 2009.
- z92 16y ago
  > The apartment analogy is a very poor one for this argument A magazine subscription is a better analogy. If you don't renew you don't get the service.