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Thank you for this. It made me laugh and makes HN feel like HN. As I read the blog entry, I was struck by how much apprehension I had about the particular sub

by bhauer 8y ago

Thank you for this. It made me laugh and makes HN feel like HN. As I read the blog entry, I was struck by how much apprehension I had about the particular subject (Zuora and subscriptions) and not the theme (making a compelling sales presentation). I was tempted but decided to refrain from adding a comment about the subject and how much I find the "Subscription Economy" disappointing. After all, railing about an incidental matter from a submission rather than its point would be HN comments in a nutshell. So many of us here do it, myself included. But I was happy—and not really surprised—to see the point had already been made and all I had to do was upvote. But here I am writing a reply to say that it provided me a good chuckle this morning as we get back to work after a holiday break. Back to the ol' grind in the Subscription Economy, eh?

lmg643 8y ago
I am also heartened that the #1 and #2 comments on here retain the voice of sanity. I think this piece and the pitch it references are borderline abuse of the history and context of subscription businesses. I see the current trend in subscriptions as largely a revolution in pure technology service businesses, where subscriptions are a rational way to pay for them (dropbox, github), along with software producers and their customers maturing to the point that they can mutually acknowledge the need for up-to-date and evolving core capabilities, such as Windows and Office, which can reasonably be seen to require recurring support which has value. (But you can still get a lot done with non subscription versions of Word 2003 etc). Newspapers, telephones and cable TV have long been subscription based. Subscriptions alone obviously were not able to save newspapers from crushing deflation in their ancillary revenue models of classified ads, which they lost to craigslist and others. Cable TV to date has been much more successful in evolving and preventing disruption in those ancillary lines (pay per view etc) and has maintained a subscription model. As an aside - everyone thinks Netflix is so wise with their current subscription strategy, I am a paying streaming customer myself, but the number of times of late that Netflix does not have the movie I actually want to watch, but Amazon's pay-per-view model does, makes me realize there are limits to the subscription approach as well. Netflix's model of creating content to justify their subscription is going to stop working eventually, content is a "long tail" type problem and their strategy of self-funding content is going to be increasingly unworkable within a few years.
- ponyfleisch 8y ago
  > Netflix's model of creating content to justify their subscription is going to stop working eventually, content is a "long tail" type problem and their strategy of self-funding content is going to be increasingly unworkable within a few years. How so?

by bhauer 8y ago

lmg643 8y ago

I am also heartened that the #1 and #2 comments on here retain the voice of sanity. I think this piece and the pitch it references are borderline abuse of the history and context of subscription businesses. I see the current trend in subscriptions as largely a revolution in pure technology service businesses, where subscriptions are a rational way to pay for them (dropbox, github), along with software producers and their customers maturing to the point that they can mutually acknowledge the need for up-to-date and evolving core capabilities, such as Windows and Office, which can reasonably be seen to require recurring support which has value. (But you can still get a lot done with non subscription versions of Word 2003 etc). Newspapers, telephones and cable TV have long been subscription based. Subscriptions alone obviously were not able to save newspapers from crushing deflation in their ancillary revenue models of classified ads, which they lost to craigslist and others. Cable TV to date has been much more successful in evolving and preventing disruption in those ancillary lines (pay per view etc) and has maintained a subscription model. As an aside - everyone thinks Netflix is so wise with their current subscription strategy, I am a paying streaming customer myself, but the number of times of late that Netflix does not have the movie I actually want to watch, but Amazon's pay-per-view model does, makes me realize there are limits to the subscription approach as well. Netflix's model of creating content to justify their subscription is going to stop working eventually, content is a "long tail" type problem and their strategy of self-funding content is going to be increasingly unworkable within a few years.

ponyfleisch 8y ago
> Netflix's model of creating content to justify their subscription is going to stop working eventually, content is a "long tail" type problem and their strategy of self-funding content is going to be increasingly unworkable within a few years. How so?