For a long while now we've grown accustomed to subscribe to TV providers and online platforms like Netflix. For a certain monthly or annual fee we get access to tons of content, and for a bit more money we get access to even greater perks. This has proved to be an immensely profitable business, given how many other platforms have spawned and their popularity, but it also comes with the threat of spreading into other businesses.

We've seen this in videogames, not only with Game Pass but also with season passes and similar things. We pay for a game that is incomplete, and sometimes it's intentionally incomplete so they can sell the cut content separately. And looking back in time, online games with fees have been around us for nearly three decades so it was just a matter of time they expanded on this to include everything we currently have. Videogames were the first to lose this battle, with TV being the second one.

There's debate about which one will be the third one, but I'll throw my two cents and say the automotive industry. Normally they'd sell a car, the customer decides which extras do they want and let's go. The we had the leasing, where you were just "renting" the car for a limited period of time before deciding if you stick with it or not by paying one last quota, a system which has been demonstrated time and time again costs more money to the customer than simply acquiring it even without that last quota. And now, subscriptions have come to automobiles. You heard it right: extras for your car are now subscription-based.

Tesla, for example, has announced its autonomous driving system will no longer be sold and will instead be a subscription. But as always, they haven't been the first ones and surely won't be the last ones. German marque BMW launched in 2022 a subscription for heated seats, a feature already existing in their cars but blocked (how exactly, I ignore it) unless you subscribe. Another German giant, Mercedes-Benz, announced a subscription service so their cars would accelerate 20-25% faster, thus confirming they sell their cars with capped performance only available if you subscribe for a mere $100 a month. Crossing the oceans, Japanese marque Toyota launched a subscription so their models from 2018 to the present day could be remotely started.

As you can see, the world is turning into a very crazy place. You outright buy a good that ends up being blocked unless you subscribe, thus emulating the intentionally cut content in videogames we saw before. This suggests the question that the future is turning into a place where we will apparently own nothing, because subscriptions are invading all kinds of businesses. And as long as the sheeple abides and these experiments turn to be profitable, they'll be copied and expanded upon because companies nowadays only care about maximizing profits regardless of the services or goods they offer or their quality.

There are reported cases of furniture subscription, so you could change it every now and then to fit modern trends. And we also have the wise words of Jeff Bezos, who recently said that in the future PCs wouldn't be sold but rather rented to the big companies like Microsoft, therefore corrupting the Personal Computer as we've always known it. Sincerely, I'm even scared of what other barbarities I might find if I investigate this subject further.

Following this, we're doomed to not own anything in the future and thus we will have nothing unless we can rent it, or afford a subscription to be licensed to use it for a limited while. Whereas enterprises are exacerbating their profits with these subscriptions, both for the greater income they receive as well as for cutting costs (infrastructure, customer service...), customers are in the losing end as always.

It's no wonder piracy is on the rise, given how the official companies treat us. And piracy will appear in the rest of businesses in the form of unofficial garages, stores or whatever that don't abide by the "official settings". Yet those who pursue this piracy are viewed as the devil, when all they're doing is trying to survive amidst rising prices for cut content, coupled with the difficulty of landing a good job with a decent salary to cope with the increasing costs of life in general.

I wish this fever of subscriptions would implode or that people would open their eyes and realize that these subscriptions aren't the cheap commodity we're told but rather all the contrary. Not sure how much of a part plays in here that I'm turning into a grumpy old man, but what's certain is that this is not progress in any way other than for the companies behind these dirty tricks.

This might be one of the most frustrating things about "modern society". You don't own anything anymore. You can purchase the opportunity to use something but once that time runs out then you don't get it anymore.

My family has actually bought a DVD player and started scrounging up old movies and tv series on DVD so that we have some options if the internet is down or if we get tired of using a subscription to watch something. I'm also not opposed to just downloading something if I can't find it easily. That hasn't bothered me for a long time now.

I won't cave to the subscription model of everything. I'll buy used things if I have to in order to avoid it at this point. I'm surprised at the people who pay over $100 for video streaming for all the platforms. At least be smart and only pay for 1 or 2 and watch what is on there and then move one when you run out of content.... do people forget how much cable used to cost and you didn't get to pick what was on?

I also don't play new video games anymore so the idea of paying for a video game subscription of any kind is insane to me. I'll pay for a finished game (well after the original release date) if it's good. That's it.