GoKawiilMost people pick subscriptions the same way they pick snacks. Subscriptions, however, are more like roommates than Oreos. Anything you subscribe to gets a small, recurring vote on who you become.
Being conscious of this has been worthwhile throughout the modern era of subscriptions, but the rise of chatbots — which can be customized, tailored, and packaged to become even more addictive and to amplify the negative effects of subscription models — makes revisiting the issue especially important. I don’t think people think of ChatGPT as a normal subscription: it’s shiny, new, and powerful, but from a financial perspective — and from the perspective of the company’s incentives — it’s just another Netflix.
If someone offered you a magic button that gave you ten dollars now, but carried a high probability of altering your tastes, your routines, and the way you think, would you press it?
A subscription is that button.
A poignant scene from Black Mirror , “Common People”
Subscriptions versus goods
Buying a thing—like a kettlebell, a tablet, or a Chihuahua-sized raincoat—is relatively easy because you can just weigh the pros and cons of that specific item. Granted, advertising exerts a major psychological influence, and clever store layouts prove our purchasing whims are, to a large extent, manufactured. But there are straightforward strategies to overcome these psychological foibles: don’t shop when you’re hungry, wait a week before hitting “buy,” and return the items you never use.
A subscription is an access pass to some sort of good, like a selection of TV shows or warranty plan. It is inherently future oriented: you are purchasing a set of possibilities for a future time period, thereby giving your future self more choice. This gives you additional options, yes--- which is the favorable part of the equation--- but it also changes your future behavior, sometimes substantially.
There’s no clear delineation here between because all goods change your psychological makeup. The presence of a physical object doesn’t immunize you against subscription-like effects. Many physical goods are simply hardware anchors for ongoing subscriptions. My chief concern here is with the entire class of products—whether digital services or plastic and silicon—that operate as significant, continuous influences on your future behavior.
Even good subscriptions are hard to evaluate rationally
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