There are many valid criticisms of Audible, but I think membership pricing is just something that will suit some people more than others. Personally, I have no

There are many valid criticisms of Audible, but I think membership pricing is just something that will suit some people more than others. Personally, I have no trouble buying on average one book per month. I think that the ability to accumulate credits offers quite a lot of flexibility. Instead of being forced to buy one book every month, I can opt not to buy a book this month, but instead buy two books next month. Although it is annoying that you lose all your credits if you cancel, there are plenty of books to spend them on. And I don't think it's entirely reasonable for Audible to hold on to your credits for eternity – since you could redeem them at any point, they'd have to keep a pot of money sitting around for paying rights holders. Imagine if something happened and a huge amount of people decided to redeem all their credits all at once – without a huge amount of cash set aside, Audible could have trouble fulfilling all those orders. So I think the pricing system isn't so bad, but the DRM situation is very disappointing.