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Agreed, it's usually nothing to do with the fact they weren't viable before, it's just that subscriptions are more profitable. With cost of living crisis and s

Agreed, it's usually nothing to do with the fact they weren't viable before, it's just that subscriptions are more profitable. With cost of living crisis and such, soon enough though it won't be able to last. People are already cancelling one of the biggest main subscriptions they have (netflix). Also I fear this is really changing society. Many years ago, as you got older you got into a better place in life because you had saved up and bought all the stuff you need and slowly aqquired good equipment and everything you need. Now our lives are full of tech that needs to be replaced every couple of years, heck even now headphones have gone wireless, your headphones needs replacing every few years and now with more and more things being subscription, it's fine when your are young, but your not able to save so much as your constantly having to replace/buy new stuff, when your older what happens? You don't have the same stuff you would have built up in the past, you need to keep paying for it all.

K0balt 4y ago
This is a much bigger deal than most people appreciate.
pakitan 4y ago
> Also I fear this is really changing society. Many years ago, as you got older you got into a better place in life because you had saved up and bought all the stuff you need and slowly aqquired good equipment and everything you need. Your grandfather's wheelbarrow didn't need replacing every 2 years but he also didn't have Netflix. You can easily have your grandfather's lifestyle by buying a future-proof wheelbarrow and cancelling your Netflix subscription.
- williamtrask 4y ago
  Believe it or not the wheelbarrow was considered modern technology at one point. Software is fixed cost to create and near-free to distribute. Sure there are tiny cloud costs for running things and maybe you need a couple engineers to fix bugs, but the subscription pricing model doesn’t fit this.
  - SQueeeeeL 4y ago
    Yeah, your grandfather was still respectable to the average person in his class/social group. Now it's really hard to imagine someone being able to engage socially without having technology of some form.
  - jdbernard 4y ago
    Fixed cost to create, sure. Not fixed cost to keep up to date, running on the current version of OS, hardware. The basic design of a simple wheelbarrow has not needed to change since its invention. A wheelbarrow made 30 years ago will still work just fine. Almost no software written 30 years ago will still work on modern systems without someone doing additional work to support it. And for the few that do, no one wants to run the 1990s version. They want to run the 2020s version.
- jagged-chisel 4y ago
  Are future-proof wheelbarrows being made now? If the trend of lower quality power tools has reached wheelbarrows, you probably still have to replace one every few years.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    They're only slightly lower quality, but now you rent them in kg/m increments. Once your account is empty, the wheelbarrow will be disabled until you recharge through the app. If you're done with the wheelbarrow, you should just leave it on the sidewalk. I'm sure someone will pick it up.
safety1st 4y ago
It's certainly cause for concern but I would say the major change over the years has been that in addition to buying good and reliable things that last (and maybe are expensive), you can also buy cheap crappy stuff that breaks down. To use headphones as an example you can still go get a pair of wired Sony headphones that will have great sound and last for a decade for $50. I just did. (Or you can spend more and get even better.) I've also bought $15 Chinese Bluetooth earbuds that were janky and dead in less than a year. Sometimes the simple, older, reliable stuff is better. You can build a desktop PC that will last you for a decade with occasionally upgrading components. Now you can do it with a Framework laptop too. Personally I bought a nice i7 laptop about a decade ago and will only get around to retiring it this year, it stopped being my main workhorse several years ago but has been great as a secondary living room entertainment machine. I don't need the latest greatest, I play a lot of retro and indie games and watch movies at picture qualities that video snobs would sneer at, but that gets back to whether you want to develop expensive tastes or not. Not that life has fundamentally become unliveably expensive. There are some places where cost of living really is a serious problem - homes, health care, education. But a lot of this I feel is really about younger generations having voracious consumer appetites, like an absolutely off-the-charts, record-setting desire for luxury and status. A lot of it is driven by a heightened sense of needing to keep up, look good on Instagram etc. which is a whole other can of worms. Do you really need to keep up with the rat race, the Joneses, the latest fashions etc.? Maybe it's different now, but the Boomers went through their own version of this, they had their big hippie anti-materialism movement in the 60's (and then by the 80's they seemed to have forgotten all about it).
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  > But a lot of this I feel is just the younger generations having voracious consumer appetites (and a lot of it is driven by a heightened sense of needing to keep up, look good on Instagram etc. which is a whole other can of worms). I think a big part of this is just how much better advertising has gotten, basically cementing consumer goods as required to the average person. Add on to that how good high quality laptops are specialized goods for those who spend their lives obsessed with tech (i.e. the framework laptop). If you walk into Walmart or BestBuy, your options will be severely limited to products which aren't built to last. I can't blame anyone for feeling confused when it comes to which products to buy.
feanaro 4y ago
What happens is that you'll have to use less stuff and learn to be content with it. What this means for the endless, exponential "consumer" ideology is that it isn't sustainable in the long run. This should be blindingly obvious but for some reason many people weren't or aren't seeing it.
- xg15 4y ago
  There is a difference though between "making the most of what you have" and "navigating a growing amount of deliberate, arbitrary restrictions". Only because you can't afford a subscription won't mean that people will stop trying to upsell. Instead you'll be constantly confronted with all the things you're supposedly missing out on, will be stuck with purposely annoying workflows and generally will feel like constantly using the shareware version of everything. That's not a future I personally look forward to.
  - feanaro 4y ago
    Maybe in the short term, but I'm talking about a somewhat longer time frame where the entire world will realize exponential growth is no more. Eventually there will be no more upselling because there will be no one left to buy it.
dwighttk 4y ago
>nothing to do with the fact they weren't viable before, it's just that subscriptions are more profitable. more profitable is more likely to be viable in more future situations
spaceman_2020 4y ago
> your headphones needs replacing every few years This part is absolutely bonkers to me and absurd that we’ve accepted it. I’m an amateur music producer. Many producers I know, even pros, use headphones that are years old, some even decades old. Most of the bestselling models haven’t changed at all in decades. You can use them for years and the only parts you need to replace are the ear cushions and cable. Most manufacturers even build them with replaceability in mind with detachable cups and cables.
- golergka 4y ago
  Different headphones are suited for different use cases. I have AKGs for the studio, Pioneers for DJing and airpods for traveling and video calls. And if there was a more durable version of airpods, I wouldn't buy it anyway because I expect to lose them sooner than they would break anyway.

K0balt 4y ago

This is a much bigger deal than most people appreciate.

pakitan 4y ago

> Also I fear this is really changing society. Many years ago, as you got older you got into a better place in life because you had saved up and bought all the stuff you need and slowly aqquired good equipment and everything you need. Your grandfather's wheelbarrow didn't need replacing every 2 years but he also didn't have Netflix. You can easily have your grandfather's lifestyle by buying a future-proof wheelbarrow and cancelling your Netflix subscription.

williamtrask 4y ago
Believe it or not the wheelbarrow was considered modern technology at one point. Software is fixed cost to create and near-free to distribute. Sure there are tiny cloud costs for running things and maybe you need a couple engineers to fix bugs, but the subscription pricing model doesn’t fit this.
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  Yeah, your grandfather was still respectable to the average person in his class/social group. Now it's really hard to imagine someone being able to engage socially without having technology of some form.
- jdbernard 4y ago
  Fixed cost to create, sure. Not fixed cost to keep up to date, running on the current version of OS, hardware. The basic design of a simple wheelbarrow has not needed to change since its invention. A wheelbarrow made 30 years ago will still work just fine. Almost no software written 30 years ago will still work on modern systems without someone doing additional work to support it. And for the few that do, no one wants to run the 1990s version. They want to run the 2020s version.
jagged-chisel 4y ago
Are future-proof wheelbarrows being made now? If the trend of lower quality power tools has reached wheelbarrows, you probably still have to replace one every few years.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  They're only slightly lower quality, but now you rent them in kg/m increments. Once your account is empty, the wheelbarrow will be disabled until you recharge through the app. If you're done with the wheelbarrow, you should just leave it on the sidewalk. I'm sure someone will pick it up.

safety1st 4y ago

It's certainly cause for concern but I would say the major change over the years has been that in addition to buying good and reliable things that last (and maybe are expensive), you can also buy cheap crappy stuff that breaks down. To use headphones as an example you can still go get a pair of wired Sony headphones that will have great sound and last for a decade for $50. I just did. (Or you can spend more and get even better.) I've also bought $15 Chinese Bluetooth earbuds that were janky and dead in less than a year. Sometimes the simple, older, reliable stuff is better. You can build a desktop PC that will last you for a decade with occasionally upgrading components. Now you can do it with a Framework laptop too. Personally I bought a nice i7 laptop about a decade ago and will only get around to retiring it this year, it stopped being my main workhorse several years ago but has been great as a secondary living room entertainment machine. I don't need the latest greatest, I play a lot of retro and indie games and watch movies at picture qualities that video snobs would sneer at, but that gets back to whether you want to develop expensive tastes or not. Not that life has fundamentally become unliveably expensive. There are some places where cost of living really is a serious problem - homes, health care, education. But a lot of this I feel is really about younger generations having voracious consumer appetites, like an absolutely off-the-charts, record-setting desire for luxury and status. A lot of it is driven by a heightened sense of needing to keep up, look good on Instagram etc. which is a whole other can of worms. Do you really need to keep up with the rat race, the Joneses, the latest fashions etc.? Maybe it's different now, but the Boomers went through their own version of this, they had their big hippie anti-materialism movement in the 60's (and then by the 80's they seemed to have forgotten all about it).

SQueeeeeL 4y ago
> But a lot of this I feel is just the younger generations having voracious consumer appetites (and a lot of it is driven by a heightened sense of needing to keep up, look good on Instagram etc. which is a whole other can of worms). I think a big part of this is just how much better advertising has gotten, basically cementing consumer goods as required to the average person. Add on to that how good high quality laptops are specialized goods for those who spend their lives obsessed with tech (i.e. the framework laptop). If you walk into Walmart or BestBuy, your options will be severely limited to products which aren't built to last. I can't blame anyone for feeling confused when it comes to which products to buy.

feanaro 4y ago

What happens is that you'll have to use less stuff and learn to be content with it. What this means for the endless, exponential "consumer" ideology is that it isn't sustainable in the long run. This should be blindingly obvious but for some reason many people weren't or aren't seeing it.

xg15 4y ago
There is a difference though between "making the most of what you have" and "navigating a growing amount of deliberate, arbitrary restrictions". Only because you can't afford a subscription won't mean that people will stop trying to upsell. Instead you'll be constantly confronted with all the things you're supposedly missing out on, will be stuck with purposely annoying workflows and generally will feel like constantly using the shareware version of everything. That's not a future I personally look forward to.
- feanaro 4y ago
  Maybe in the short term, but I'm talking about a somewhat longer time frame where the entire world will realize exponential growth is no more. Eventually there will be no more upselling because there will be no one left to buy it.

dwighttk 4y ago

>nothing to do with the fact they weren't viable before, it's just that subscriptions are more profitable. more profitable is more likely to be viable in more future situations

spaceman_2020 4y ago

> your headphones needs replacing every few years This part is absolutely bonkers to me and absurd that we’ve accepted it. I’m an amateur music producer. Many producers I know, even pros, use headphones that are years old, some even decades old. Most of the bestselling models haven’t changed at all in decades. You can use them for years and the only parts you need to replace are the ear cushions and cable. Most manufacturers even build them with replaceability in mind with detachable cups and cables.

golergka 4y ago
Different headphones are suited for different use cases. I have AKGs for the studio, Pioneers for DJing and airpods for traveling and video calls. And if there was a more durable version of airpods, I wouldn't buy it anyway because I expect to lose them sooner than they would break anyway.