Subscriptions, subscriptions

Achnahaird Bay, Assynt

The model

The curse of today’s service and tech society, subscriptions perniciously nibble away at every bank account the world over. Comfortably and silently handled by your chosen platform or payment processor, effortlessly picking your pockets in return for your chosen features. When I say nibble, the monthly rates charged by some for, I dunno, a pretty watch face for your kid, soon threaten household bills when considered annually. “In-app purchases” has become a by-word for “avoid like the plague if you can”.

If it’s free - you’re the product, as the old saying goes. But free isn’t what most of us expect. Just a fair price to meet need/demand.

Recurring revenue

Companies have always sought annually licensed, repeat income in the Business to Business world. It looks well on a balance sheet. Great big one-off contracts feel great at the end of year party, until the poor sales team realise that they have to do the same again next year, and the year after, just to stand still. Shifting that recurring revenue model down to consumers, who previously, perhaps would have committed to a favourite magazine every month, makes a lot of sense. The problem is that it shifts the in-app purchase to a similar level of financial priority as the rent. Once locked-in, it can be incredibly hard to wean oneself off. When did you last seriously consider going without your Microsoft Office account?

Poor us

For photographers, much of the financial pain is felt in the purchase and upkeep of equipment. And we love it. Our gear is truly important to us, but it isn’t what makes a photographer; our eyes, our creativity, our technical skill and often, our luck, are far more critical. But as with most professions, there are other costs. Ignoring the truly exorbitant cost of print production and framing for a moment, simply storing and processing digital images attracts monthly fees that only grow with success.

For many small businesses and creatives, this time of year, as the plusses and minuses are spelled out in glorious black and white (a splash of red if you’re using that Excel licence), the cheeky little subscription fees total up. Some service providers, like the host of this site, Squarespace, do the relatively decent thing and offer an annual licence for those who can afford it at a bit of a discount over the monthly fees. A very few, like Serif, with their Affinity range of design and image-processing products, still offer a one-off purchase option for their software. It’s a brave and laudable approach in a cut-throat world, but my sense is that the big boys will eventually win, and our household and business budgets will continue to expand those pre-committed subscription lines.