I think we have to look at why everything became a subscription based model before we even talk about how the model is being abused now. When I was a kid, everyone was a pirate. Napster and Limewire were king because. Buying movies and music was absurdly expensive and extremely inconvenient. Amazon didn't exist and if your local record store didn't have something good luck. If you were in a smaller town, good luck getting a movie if Wallmart or your local mom and pop didn't have it (if you even had a Wallmart). But then Hollywood Video and Blockbuster ended up eating into the video pirating because let's be real, we only are going to watch that movie once and then it sits in storage. Now you have racks and cabinets full of tapes and disks. (My brother even had his car window smashed in where someone stole his entire CD collection) It was bulky and inconvenient, so renting made things easier. Music was the same way. But services like Napster weren't just free, they were FAR more convenient. That's why Spotify has taken over and to this day won. Convenience. I think Benn Jordan (The Flashbulb) did a good video talking about the music side of this argument (including software), so I'll let his video say more[0].
There's a second problem that has led to our hardware crisis. Where hardware is cheaper than ever but if you don't attach a subscription model some manufacturer in China will sell the same thing 10x cheaper than you. See Boston Dynamic's robotic dogs. Reverse engineering hardware is pretty easy, see K-13 missile[1].
The problem today, is that now EVERYTHING has become a subscription based model and we're basically back to where we were before (notice the resurgence in piracy lately?). So I think the problem is that we learned a lesson but we didn't learn THE lesson, of what people are actually after. I don't think our modern video streaming services are much different than buying cable in the past.
So I think the trillion dollar question is: what is the new model that learns THE lesson? But that has a lot of sub-questions, including what it is actually that people want. Surely convenience and accessibility is one, but that's clearly not all. Though the solution to this may be impossible, because no one wants to centralize everything into a single player (and I'm not convinced that's a great idea either, despite the success of services like Pirate Bay, Napster, and PopcornTime).
I think we have to look at why everything became a subscription based model before we even talk about how the model is being abused now. When I was a kid, everyone was a pirate. Napster and Limewire were king because. Buying movies and music was absurdly expensive and extremely inconvenient. Amazon didn't exist and if your local record store didn't have something good luck. If you were in a smaller town, good luck getting a movie if Wallmart or your local mom and pop didn't have it (if you even had a Wallmart). But then Hollywood Video and Blockbuster ended up eating into the video pirating because let's be real, we only are going to watch that movie once and then it sits in storage. Now you have racks and cabinets full of tapes and disks. (My brother even had his car window smashed in where someone stole his entire CD collection) It was bulky and inconvenient, so renting made things easier. Music was the same way. But services like Napster weren't just free, they were FAR more convenient. That's why Spotify has taken over and to this day won. Convenience. I think Benn Jordan (The Flashbulb) did a good video talking about the music side of this argument (including software), so I'll let his video say more[0].
There's a second problem that has led to our hardware crisis. Where hardware is cheaper than ever but if you don't attach a subscription model some manufacturer in China will sell the same thing 10x cheaper than you. See Boston Dynamic's robotic dogs. Reverse engineering hardware is pretty easy, see K-13 missile[1].
The problem today, is that now EVERYTHING has become a subscription based model and we're basically back to where we were before (notice the resurgence in piracy lately?). So I think the problem is that we learned a lesson but we didn't learn THE lesson, of what people are actually after. I don't think our modern video streaming services are much different than buying cable in the past.
So I think the trillion dollar question is: what is the new model that learns THE lesson? But that has a lot of sub-questions, including what it is actually that people want. Surely convenience and accessibility is one, but that's clearly not all. Though the solution to this may be impossible, because no one wants to centralize everything into a single player (and I'm not convinced that's a great idea either, despite the success of services like Pirate Bay, Napster, and PopcornTime).
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7EHRpnJICQ
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-13_(missile)