More and more things are becoming available as rental or subscription services. If this is a good thing or not still has its debatable points.
We are seeing an increase in services like this in recent years. Almost everybody knows about netflix. Yeah that is where a lot of it started. (At least for me in my mind) And really if you are a movie fanatic it is a service that pans out well for you. Pending you actually watch and return the movies you can definately get your monies worth. That is also the kicker though. You are paying the fee each month no matter what. So if you only get one movie that month you paid $10 for that movie. So it has its possitives and negatives. Where netflix I think is getting it right is the offering of instant streaming to your computer and other devices. That is most helpful for those who are even to lazy to return it by mail (which is my case sometimes.... after a long day I just don't feel like taking it to the post office... excuse yes, but it happens). I believe netflix is one of the good ones out there. The service isn't ridiculously priced and it also has instant streaming (although the selection could be better but I think it will be with time.) If you keep the movie for a long time though you basically paid enough in the long run to buy it.
You also have one for video games. I have not tried Gamefly out but it is very similiar to Netflix. With Microsoft being the pieces of crap they are (thats another blog) I don't think I will be trying this any time soon, but likely will in the future. It just won't be the near future. This can be useful because instead of buying that 60 game you can rent it and see if you like it. If you do not... well then you saved yourself some money and can move on to preview another title.
The you have games that charge a fee to play. Subscription games most notably world of warcraft. It is a good game. However I don't believe this one is worth $15 a month. There are many reasons I have this opinion, but I will name a few here. One is you still have to pay $60 for the game and then pay for each expansion. They should not do that if they are going to charge you each month. It should be a free download. Next reason is they could at least have a program that if you have been a loyal customer for a few years you get the expansion for free. Or maybe buy the original get the expansions for free. All in all this subscription does not offer much reward. At least with Netflix and Gamefly you can get a lot of return on your hard earned money. This well basically you are making the folks at blizzard rich and making other companies say hey we should do that too. I believe that in the end would kill the gaming world.
You also have software companies doing it. Many antivirus companies have doing it for years. $50 a year for that years updates. Not to bad. But I don't like it. Basically because they scare people into thinking they need all this security when all they do is email and surf the internet. Sorry a free version is good enough if that is all you do on your computer. They get a lot of money off of the paranoid people in my opinion.
There is talk the next version of Microsoft office may go to the subscription based type of service. I don't like this but it can be helpful in some ways. They then would be responsible for the security keeping it updated, etc. Falling back on them and not the user. Which if you know anything about the general computer user ... well they aren't good at mainting much of anything on their computer (sorry didn't mean to hurt anyones feelings but its true) However I still don't like it. I think microsoft needs to lower their office software 50% across the board. Also if they do this service they should not charge for the software. Or if they do it should not be much.
Now for what got me on this rant. An article in Fortune Magazine about Zipcar. This service is basically like a rental car service, however it has a lot more draw to it. I heard about this about 3 years ago but did not pay much heed to it. Now perhaps the caption "The Netflix for Cars" got me reading about it. It made me realize how we are starting to go to rental/subscription based business models. It made me think about possitives and negatives about this type of model. One of the possitives about Zipcar is that you do not have car insurance. Thats right you can forgo that $200 to $1000 dollar a year annoyance. Now zipcar charges an hourly rate and you have to pay close attention to the terms of service etc. (like you must not smoke in the cars.... fine for me cause I am not a smoker) Others are starting to take notice of zipcar. Hertz is offering one called connect and there is a non profit one I believe called iGo. One downfall is these models if I'm not mistaken only work well in compacted areas, aka big cities. Don't think it would make a lot of money in small towns. You never know though but I believe it will remain that way. Another benefit is that you are sharing the car. In theory that might cut down on pollution, etc. It will also cut down on the amount of cars sold.... we know how that effects things. Just ask Detroit.
My question to you is what do you think about the move to these subscription based business models? Good or bad, and why?
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