The reason subscriptions are not such a great idea

Posted by Alex
Oct 23, 2019 at 05:29 PM

Yeah guys, it’s not a politics forum. Cut the crap, please.

Back to the topic. Subscription model is pushed down on customers by the business for mainly one reason: money. It’s the way to generate constant guaranteed revenue. Yes, subscription services may appear to be more convenient to the customers, but using them carries certain risks and drawbacks. For instance:

1. The service can be terminated at any time on behalf of the owners.
2. You generally, can’t opt-out of the changes to the service if you don’t like them.
3. There’s constant privacy risk to the customers’ data.

That’s why, after being burnt once, for the purpose of PIM I’m leaning towards off-line standalone applications. I want to have full control of my data. I don’t want deal with the problem a closing service (or dealing with new changes I don’t like), which means somehow exporting the data, finding another service, and importing the data there. I don’t want to fear for the privacy of my data. I don’t want my life to depend on some remote services I have no control of. Standalone software doesn’t have these issues. You can stick with a version you like and keep using it for a long time.