Everything Is a Subscription Now
We used to buy a thing and own the thing. Now we rent the thing, monthly, forever. Add yours up below. Bring something to sit on.
By Sean "SAMX"
There was a time when you bought a thing and then you had the thing.
A record. A game. A program on a floppy disk with a manual thick enough to stop a door. You paid once. It was yours. You could lend it, sell it, lose it under the bed and find it in six years.
Now everything is a subscription.
The list keeps growing
Music is a subscription. Movies are three or four subscriptions, because no single one has the thing you want. The photo storage is a subscription. The password manager is a subscription. The software you write with is a subscription. Some cars have features you already paid for that only turn on with a subscription.
Each one is "just a few dollars a month." That's the trick. Nobody ever decides to spend a few hundred dollars a month on rentals. It shows up one small charge at a time.
You don't own it
The bigger problem isn't the money. It's that you stop owning things.
When a streaming service loses the rights to a show, the show disappears. When an app shuts down, your stuff can go with it. When the price goes up, you pay it or you lose access to everything you built up inside it.
Renting isn't always bad. Some subscriptions earn their keep. The problem is when renting becomes the only option, and when nobody adds it up.
Do the math once
So add it up. Open your bank statement, find every recurring charge and put them in the calculator below. Be honest. Include the one you forgot you had.
Then ask one question about each: would I sign up for this today, at this price? If the answer is no, cancel it. If the cancel button needs a password and a survey, see my other rant.
Nothing on this page is financial advice. It's arithmetic.
