By: Nicole Magas, Opinions Editor
Just last month my computer did the thing that I hate the most: it updated. I had been dreading this particular update for a while as it locked me out of all of the programs that I frequently use until I paid the exorbitant ransom for the privilege of using my laptop as more than a $3,000 hotplate. As if my monthly bills weren’t already choked full of a dozen different subscriptions to various entertainment streams, now I also have to add subscriptions to basic utility software.
Some of my programs were kind enough to only ask for a one-time payment to open and re-access all the data that I’d already blithely stored in them — previously free of charge. Others have slipped down the dark road of the piecemeal economy, wherein users are slowly bled dry over the course of many months by the thousand tiny knife cuts made by the subscription payment model. These subscription-based pricing models require customers to pay a set amount at regular intervals for products or services.
It’s no secret that the tech industry has been slowly shifting from one-time software license purchases to monthly subscriptions. This went largely unnoticed when the demand for the monthly pound of flesh– er, subscription fee — was exclusive to Adobe’s Creative Suite. It only affected the creative types after all, and if anyone is rolling in solid gold bathtubs of cash, it’s those damn artists. However, over time, even basic software like Microsoft Office has prodded customers down the subscription plank by removing more affordable one-time purchase options.
So what’s the big deal? Softwares update at a rapid pace, and it’s only fair that tech companies are paid for providing cutting-edge features on their services. While setting aside the fact that newer doesn’t always mean better, one glaring problem with a mass migration to the subscription model is that it creates huge barriers to entry — especially for young people who are increasingly being sucked down the whirlpool of non-standard employment.
Consider striking out on your own and starting a small niche magazine. We’ll call her Alpaca Monthly. You don’t have the budget for print, and besides, you’re environmentally conscious, so digital it is! Even before you factor in the cost of design, labour, and licensing those sweet, sweet alpaca pics, the subscription fees for the platform software alone can run between several hundred and several thousand dollars. PER MONTH. And that’s even if you choose to avoid Adobe like the capitalist plague it is.
And programs like Adobe and Microsoft in particular have become so ubiquitous as file formats that they can be likened to utilities in the software world. This makes it next to impossible to collaborate on projects when members of a team are forced to use cheaper or free alternatives over more standard monthly subscription software services.
Millennials take a lot of heat for destroying countless pillars of consumption with our inabili– er, refusal to spend our mountains of disposable income. But comparatively, little outrage is being raised over the way that the shift to subscription payment models is making it even harder to save for that pipedream of retirement before 75.
And if you’re sitting comfortably in bed, scoffing at me and saying, “This doesn’t affect me! Me and my seven roommates pool our pocket change each month and share passwords between us,” then I hate to break it to you, but we’re quickly losing that slight advantage, too.
