#Subscription business model

[newmediaandmarketing]

The Decline of Subscription Models: Reasons and Impact on Businesses and Consumers

In the past decade, subscription models have revolutionized how we consume media, use software, and shop for everyday items. The allure of predictable monthly revenue for businesses and the promise of convenience for consumers made subscriptions a win-win situation. However, the shine is starting to wear off, and both companies and consumers are reevaluating the value and sustainability of this…

[newbusinessideas]

10 Profitable Subscription Business Ideas for Guaranteed Success

🔥 Ready to level up your hustle game? 💼 Check out our Top 10 Best Subscription Business Ideas and kickstart your journey to success! 🚀 Join the movement now! #BusinessIdeas #subscriptionbusiness #recurringrevenue #businessopportunity

Subscription business models operate by selling a product or service to customers, who then pay a recurring subscription fee either monthly or yearly. Essentially, the goal is to generate revenue by having a single customer make multiple payments over time for continued access to a product or service, as opposed to paying a large one-time fee upfront. In recent years, subscription-based business…

[sopuu]

What do you use to animate? Also do you use premium medibang?

i used to use adobe animate but my licence expired recently so i’m looking to try toon boom/sb pro!

and i just use regular medibang (i didn’t even know premium was a thing??)

[jameszhall]

Why the Subscription Model Is Failing And What’s Replacing It.

Let’s be honest:

Most of us are one more subscription away from losing it.

Netflix. Spotify. Canva. Your email software. Your fitness app. That thing you subscribed to three months ago and forgot how to cancel.

💳 It’s death by monthly payments — and people are over it.

We used to love subscriptions. Now, they feel like tiny financial traps with slick logos.

If you're a founder, creator, or small business owner still clinging to the subscription model — this is your friendly wake-up call. It's not 2015 anymore.

Here’s why the subscription model is quietly burning out… and what’s stepping in to replace it.

😵‍💫 People Are Subscribed to Death Subscriptions used to feel like freedom. Now they feel like another unpaid bill.

According to surveys, the average person manages between 8–12 active subscriptions. That’s a full-time job just to remember what you’re paying for.

We don’t want more things we forgot we signed up for.

We want flexibility, transparency, and most of all — control.

💔 The Love Affair Is Over — Here's Why

Subscription Overload It’s not just Netflix anymore. It’s groceries, dog toys, digital planners, and “AI tools you’ll totally use one day.”

Our brains (and bank accounts) are maxed out.

Surprise Charges = Instant Regret Nothing sparks rage like seeing “$29.99 - RECURRING” on your bank statement from something you haven’t touched in months.

People don’t want to be tricked. They want to opt in, not get trapped.

One-Size-Fits-All Doesn’t Fit Anyone Anymore Sometimes you want the product. Just… not forever. Or every month. Or automatically charged without warning.

We want à la carte, not “eat this forever or else.”

🚩 If You’re a Business, Watch These Red Flags: Customers ghosting your free trials before they convert

Sky-high churn after month two

Constant “how do I cancel?” support tickets

Trust issues from people scared to enter their credit card info

If this is happening, it’s not just you. It’s the model.

🔁 So What’s Replacing Subscriptions? Here’s what the smart businesses are pivoting to:

Pay-Per-Use (a.k.a. “Only When I Need It”) People are happy to pay — just not for things they might use.

Examples:

Buying individual AI credits instead of a monthly plan

Paying for a single video edit, design, or fitness class when needed

👉 It’s permission to not commit — and people love that now.

One-Time Payments with Upsells Let me buy it once. If I love it, I’ll come back for more.

Examples:

Notion templates

Digital downloads with optional add-ons

Lifetime licenses for software

This feels like a breath of fresh air to consumers who are tired of slow-dripping money every month.

Memberships > Subscriptions People don’t just want access — they want to belong.

Examples:

Exclusive communities (Slack, Circle, Discord)

Creators on Patreon with behind-the-scenes content

Private workshops, live calls, and shared wins

It’s not just content — it’s connection.

Freemium With Real Value Let people use your product first. Blow them away. Then make upgrading a no-brainer.

Examples:

Canva, Notion, and ChatGPT

Tools that give real value before asking for a dime

This builds trust. And trust → long-term customers.

💡 If You’re Building Something, Ask Yourself: Can someone try this without committing long-term?

Can I deliver value up front, with no strings?

Would I want to pay for this every month — or would I rather own it?

Your answers might surprise you.

🧠 TL;DR: Subscriptions Aren’t Dead, But They’re Not Beloved People aren’t anti-paying. They’re anti-feeling tricked. Anti-hidden fees. Anti-commitment.

We’re shifting from: ❌ “Pay me forever.” to ✅ “Let me earn your trust — and your next transaction.”

💬 Subscriptions = predictable revenue. Flexibility = sustainable revenue.

Businesses that adapt to this shift? They’ll win big. With customers who are actually happy to pay.

✨ If you're building something right now: You don’t have to scrap subscriptions completely. But it’s time to get creative with how you deliver value.

Make it flexible. Make it clear. Make it worth paying for — on the customer’s terms.

[evenmorecrows]

yknow i dont really have a backup social media if (when, i suppose) tumblr goes down. i guess i could flee to bsky but ive just never enjoyed any kind of twitter-esque layout... i could revitalize my neocities but of course thatd just be My website. i could try to find forums for my interests but these interests change so rapidly thatd id never be anywhere for long.

[quickkflash]

FTC Distributes $2.8 Million in Refunds to Victims of Deceptive ‘Free Trial’ Scheme

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced the distribution of more than $2.8 million in refunds to individuals misled by a fraudulent “free trial” scheme orchestrated by Apex Capital Group and its associates. This initiative marks the culmination of a legal battle that commenced in 2018, targeting deceptive marketing practices in the personal care and dietary supplement sectors.

The FTC’s 2018 complaint against Apex Capital Group, alongside Phillip Peikos, David Barnett, and various affiliated entities, unveiled a complex operation exploiting online consumers. Marketed under the guise of “free trial” offers, the products were instead sold at full price, with consumers unknowingly enrolled in ongoing subscription plans. This deceptive practice ensnared countless individuals into unauthorized financial commitments, leveraging an intricate network of shell companies and straw owners both domestically and internationally to process payments.

The fraudulent operations, which began in early 2014, saw a range of personal care items and supplements pushed onto unsuspecting consumers. The scheme persisted until November 2018, when a court order, prompted by the FTC, effectively halted the deceptive activities.

In the aftermath of this legal victory, the FTC is dispatching 153,940 refund checks to affected consumers. Each recipient is advised to cash their checks within 90 days, as indicated. This refund process is a significant step in providing restitution to those impacted by Apex Capital’s unscrupulous business practices.

[thegrowthfile]

[bob3160]

Is FREE Truly FREE - Slack

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A sexy, skinny defeat device for your HP ink cartridge

Animals keep evolving into crabs; it's a process called "carcinisation" and it's pretty weird. Crabs just turn out to be extremely evolutionarily fit for our current environment:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-animals-keep-evolving-into-crabs/

By the same token, all kinds of business keep evolving into something like a printer company. It turns out that in this enshittified, poorly regulated, rentier-friendly world, the parasitic, inkjet business model is extremely adaptive. Printerinisation is everywhere.

All that stuff you hate about your car? Trapping you into using their mechanics, spying on you, planned obsolescence? All lifted from the inkjet printer business model:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

That GE fridge that won't make ice or dispense water unless you spend $50 for a proprietary charcoal filter instead of using a $10 generic? Pure printerism:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#filtergate

The software update to your Sonos speakers that makes them half as useful and takes away your right to play your stored music, forcing you to buy streaming music subscriptions? Straight out of the HP playbook:

https://www.wired.com/story/sonos-admits-its-recent-app-update-was-a-colossal-mistake/

But as printerinized as all these gadgets are, none can quite attain the level of high enshittification that the OG inkjet bastards attain on a daily basis. In the world championships of effortlessly authentic fuckery, no one can lay a glove on the sociopathic monsters of HP.

For example: when HP wanted to soften us all up for a new world of "subscription ink" (where you have to pre-pay every month for a certain number of pages' worth of printing, which your printer enforces by spying on you and ratting you out to HP over the internet), they offered a "lifetime subscription" plan. With this "lifetime" plan, you paid just once and your HP printer would print out 15 pages a month for so long as you owned your printer, with HP shipping you new ink every time you ran low.

Well, eventually, HP got bored of not making you pay rent on your own fucking printer, so they just turned that plan off. Yeah, it was a lifetime plan, but the "lifetime" in question was the lifetime of HP's patience for not fucking you over, and that patience has the longevity of a mayfly:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/06/horrible-products/#inkwars

It would take many pages to list all of HP's sins here. This is a company that ships printers with half-full ink cartridges and charges more than the printer cost to buy a replacement set. The company that won't let you print a black-and-white page if you're out of yellow ink. The company that won't let you scan or send a fax if you're out of any of your ink.

They make you "recalibrate" your printer or "clean your heads" by forcing you to print sheets of ink-dense paper. They also refuse to let you use your ink cartridges after they "expire."

HP raised the price of ink to over $10,000 per gallon, then went to war against third-party ink cartridge makers, cartridge remanufacturers, and cartridge refillers. They added "security chips" to their cartridges whose job was to watch the ink levels in your cartridge and, when they dip below a certain level (long before the cartridge is actually empty), declare the cartridge to be dry and permanently out of use.

Even if you refill that cartridge, it will still declare itself to be empty to your printer, which will therefore refuse to print.

Third party ink companies have options here. One thing they could do is reverse-engineer the security chip, and make compatible ones that say, "Actually, I'm full." The problem with this is that laws like Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) potentially makes this into a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine, for a first offense.

DMCA 1201 bans bypassing "an effective means of access control" to a copyrighted work. So if HP writes a copyrighted "I'm empty" program for its security chip and then adds some kind of access restriction to prevent you from dumping and reverse-engineering that program, you can end up a felon, thanks to the DMCA.

Another countermove is to harvest security chips out of dead cartridges that have been sent overseas as e-waste (one consequence of HP's $10,000/gallon ink racket is that it generates mountains of immortal, toxic e-waste that mostly ends up poisoning poor countries in the global south). These can be integrated into new cartridges, or remanufactured ones.

In practice, ink companies do all of this and more, and total normie HP printer owners go to extremely improbable lengths to find third party ink cartridges and figure out how to use them. It turns out that even people who find technology tinkering intimidating or confusing or dull can be motivated to learn and practice a lot of esoteric tech stuff as an alternative to paying $10,000/gallon for colored water.

HP has lots of countermoves for this. One truly unhinged piece of fuckery is to ask Customs and Border Patrol to block third-party ink cartridges with genuine HP security chips that have been pried loose from e-waste shipments. HP claims that these are "counterfeits" (because they were removed and re-used without permission), even though they came out of real HP cartridges, and CBP takes them at their word, seizing shipments.

Even sleazier: HP pushes out fake security updates to its printers. You get a message telling you there's an urgent security update, you click OK, and your printer shows you a downloading/installing progress bar and reboots itself. As far as you can tell, nothing has changed. But these aren't "security" updates, they're updates that block third-party ink, and HP has designed them not to kick in for several months. That way, HP owners who get tricked into installing this downgrade don't raise hell online and warn everyone else until they've installed it too, and it's too late:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

This is the infectious pathogen business model: one reason covid spread so quickly was that people were infectious before they developed symptoms. That meant that the virus could spread before the spreader knew they had it. By adding a long fuse to its logic bomb, HP greatly increases the spread of its malware.

But life finds a way. $10,000/gallon ink is an irresistible target for tinkerers, security researchers and competitors. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but the true parent of jaw-dropping ingenuity is callous, sadistic greed. That's why America's army of prisoners are the source of so many of the most beautiful and exciting forms of innovation seen today:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/09/king-rat/#mother-of-invention

Despite harsh legal penalties and the vast resources of HP, third-party ink continues to thrive, and every time HP figures out how to block one technique, three even cooler ones pop up.

Last week, Jay Summet published a video tearing down a third-party ink cartridge compatible with an HP 61XL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ya184uaTE

The third-party cartridge has what appears to be a genuine HP security chip, but it is overlaid with a paper-thin, flexible, adhesive-backed circuit board that is skinny enough that the cartridge still fits in an HP printer.

This flexible circuit board has its own little microchip. Summet theorizes that it is designed to pass the "are you a real HP cartridge" challenge pass to the security chip, but to block the followup "are you empty or full?" message. When the printer issues that challenge, the "man in the middle" chip answers, "Oh, I'm definitely full."

In their writeup, Hackaday identifies the chip as "a single IC in a QFN package." This is just so clever and delightful:

https://hackaday.com/2024/09/28/man-in-the-middle-pcb-unlocks-hp-ink-cartridges/

Hackaday also notes that HP CEO Enrique J Lores recently threatened to brick any printer discovered to be using third-party ink:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/hp-ceo-blocking-third-party-ink-from-printers-fights-viruses/

As William Gibson famously quipped, "the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed." As our enshittification-rich environment drives more and more companies to evolve into rent-seeking enterprises through printerinisation, HP offers us a glimpse of the horrors of the late enshittocene.

It's just as Orwell prophesied: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a HP installing malware on your printer to force you to spend $10,000/gallon on ink – forever."

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/30/life-finds-a-way/#ink-stained-wretches

Image: Jay Summet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ya184uaTE

[vulpixhoney]

people keep comparing the WatcherTV move to Dropout (for obvious reasons) but I cannot emphasize enough how vastly different the circumstances between the companies is. like astronomically different

• Watcher does not have the years of experience that Dropout/CollegeHumor did. CH as a company formed in 1999. They've been doing sketch comedy since the early 2000s. they were a company, like an actual company with offices and departments and everything. Watcher hasn't even existed for 5 years

• Because CH has been established for that long, not only do they have an established connection to the industry, but they have an established fan base already. People that knew about and were fans of CH for over a decade, before Dropout was even a thought in someone's head.

• When Dropout was in its infancy, CH was still under their parent company IAC, they weren't roughing it completely on their own the way that Watcher is. They were later dropped by IAC, but having that connection and funding in the vulnerable start was important

• CH was still posting sketches and skits on YouTube for free while filling out Dropout's catalog. They didn't hard shift into exclusively subscription based, they continued doing both for the first couple years in order to help get Dropout established. Even now, they still occasionally post full episodes for free on YouTube, including whole seasons of Dimension 20

• They have a large rotating cast that they move between multiple shows. They have a variety of content and a variety of entertainers to be guests on shows. Watcher has 3 guys which the occasional guest

• A big part of this transition is because Watcher's episodes have a high production cost. That's what they claim. That it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to film one episode of Ghost Files. but why?? why does it cost that much?? I get cost of travel for talent and crew but hundreds of thousands of dollars per episode?

• When IAC dropped CH and they went bankrupt in 2020, they only had 7 employees. When Sam Reich bought the company, they only had 7 employees. not twenty five. I'm not advocating for laying off people, but maybe they shouldn't be payrolling more people than they can afford

• also. Sam Reich is very vocal about how Dropout surviving and succeeding was nothing short of a miracle. They didn't get that success because the business model works, they got that success from years of networking, hard work, and pure luck

[forgottenbones]

Hardware Store CEO: We're Rebranding (For Some Reason)

[dappermouth]

What happened to your Society6 store? It seems like there's a lot less designs available than there used to be. I was hoping to get some tapestries but everything is gone...

Wow! This ask made me go check out my Society6 shop — and you’re right, it’s pretty much all gone! So, here’s the story on that for anyone who hasn’t heard:

Society6 decided that their outsized profit from artists wasn’t cutting it — they now require artists to pay a monthly subscription for the privilege of letting Society6 profit off of them, while foisting additional shipping fees onto the artist and reducing their payments on top of that. I had heard some months back that they were planning to switch to a subscription model, and it looks like since I didn’t pay up, they permanently deleted everything except 10 random pieces of art from my shop. They did this without notifying me at all (classy!) after years of making tens of thousands of dollars off of my work — but weirdly, this is kind of a relief for me?

My cut of Society6 sales were already a laugh even before the proposed changes (I make more money from someone dropping like $20 at my personal print shop than I do from someone buying $100+ of my stuff from Society6) but the tapestries and blankets were so cool and I loved how much people enjoyed them, so I kept my art available there. They've deleted nearly all of my work now, so I'll go finish the job and close out my account for good.

Anyway, it’s disappointing, but Society6 has chosen to suck profoundly at this point in time. Totally scummy treatment of the artists whose work is the foundation of their entire business model. I’m lucky enough to have a supportive audience and never relied on Society6, but I feel badly for artists whose livelihoods have been impacted by this. (If you’re one of those artists, know this: you deserve better compensation for your hard work than what S6 is giving you!)

OK, with all that said — I’m bringin’ tapestries back, baby! They can’t keep this cowboy off the range! Right now I’ve ordered samples from some different places to compare quality, and once I’ve settled on a manufacturer I‘ll be making them available at my print shop. I’ll post on my socials when I’ve sorted it out!

[dragongirlsnout]

Go Badge-Free: Tumblr is a multimillion dollar company that doesn't need your loyalty!

Some users ("many" by Tumblr's own unsourced metrics) might want to support Tumblr with something similar to regular donations. Great news! You don't need to, it's a multimillion dollar company, and its parent company, Automattic, was valued at around 7.5 billion dollars in 2021 as stated by none other than Tumblr's Elon-Musk-wannabe CEO himself! Tumblr isn't going to go broke any time soon, and any money you waste on it will just convince staff that the garbage fire they're currently tossing the site into is profitable!

Enter the power of not giving a fuck about useless badges and shitty merch of stolen memes. Everyone with a brain knows auto-renewable subscriptions aren't the way to a "user-led business model", and again, you don't need to show your support for a massive multimedia platform despite whatever their embarrassing ad campaigns that just want money may tell you!

How it works—or doesn't:

Tumblr doesn't care about the users, whether you're giving them money for nothing or not! So take the initiative yourself. Send them negative feedback about the pointless UI updates. Give Tumblr a 1-star rating on the app store or play store. Disable your badges. Block intrusive ads (and potentially dangerous flashing ones). Style the dashboard to look less like a 1 : 1 clone of Twitter. Install additions to fix basic site functionality.

Seriously, who is buying subscriptions besides staff:

The subscription badges do nothing. Nada. Zero. That is, unless staff decides to lock basic functionality behind a subscription in the future, so make so to make it flop before then.

Pricing:

A year's subscription for a useless cosmetic badge costs you $30 USD. Cheaper than Twitter Blue, sure, but it sure does a whole lot less! Meanwhile, fixing your own user experience and complaining to staff is permanently on sale for the low, low price of free. Spend your money on a nice treat instead!

More details:

I don't know how else to put it. This subscription service sucks ass.

That's all for now. No idea who exactly would buy a badge subscription of all things in the first place that staff probably designed in 5 minutes. Maybe someday Tumblr's will figure out how to interpret actual human behavior and user desires, but that day has yet to come. Stay weird, and Tumblr is not your quirky friendly hellsite company <3

[staff]

Tumblr Supporter badge: Show your loyalty with Pizazz

Many of you have asked for a way of supporting Tumblr that works like regular donations. Well, this is that, with a little whimsy thrown in for good measure. Imagine. A badge that gets shinier and shinier with your continued support—and helps Tumblr stay Tumblr. 

Enter the Tumblr Supporter badge. Part of a move towards a more user-led business model, this is a new auto-renewable subscription that allows you to wear your support of Tumblr in style. 

How it works:

The Tumblr Supporter badge is a special badge that works like a recurring donation subscription service. As a supporter, you get a specially designed badge based on how long you have been supporting Tumblr in this way. Your supporter badge will evolve from Steel to Copper, Gold, Platinum, and, eventually, Oil Slick. As your support continues, you will collect these badges at each milestone, to be displayed as you choose on any of your blogs.  

There are two subscriptions, monthly and yearly: 

Monthly: Start at Steel and progress through the different badges at each milestone, eventually reaching the coveted Oil Slick.

Yearly: Start at Platinum (it's like you've jumped ahead a year. Look at you, cheating time). You'll progress straight to Oil Slick at your next payment milestone after a year.

Pricing:

Tumblr Supporter Monthly: $2.99

Tumblr Supporter 3 Months: $7.99 ($1 OFF)

Tumblr Supporter 6 Months: $15.99 ($2 OFF)

Tumblr Supporter Yearly: $29.99 (15% OFF)

More details:

This monthly or yearly subscription will renew automatically at each interval unless you choose to cancel. 

If you cancel your subscription or a payment fails, you'll still have your badge, but it won't show up unless/until you restart your subscription. If/when you do so, you'll pick up right from the badge level you were at when you ended your subscription.

This is currently being rolled out for mobile and web in English. We’ll be rolling out to other territories in the coming weeks.

That’s all for now. We hope you enjoy this new badge as much as we enjoyed coming up with it, so we can keep making odd little tchotchkes for you to enjoy. Stay weird, Tumblr <3 

[dandelionsresilience]

whether the internet becomes an intolerable surveillance state, ubiquitous subscription model, or unusably ad- or AI-ridden shithole, I think we need to remember

how to do things offline

either on your personal hard drive (just because it’s an app doesn’t mean the information is stored in your device) or on paper. I’m not saying the collapse of the internet is imminent, and I’m not suggesting we do everything completely without technology, or even stop using it until we have to. (to be clear, I also don’t think the internet will just blink out of existence, suddenly stop being a thing at all; rather I think it might continue to lose its usefulness to the point where it’s impossible to get anything done. anyway) but some people may have forgotten how we got by before the internet (I almost have!), and the younger generation might not have experienced it at all.

I figure most people probably use the internet mainly for communication with friends and family, entertainment and creation (eg. writing), and looking up how to do things, so here’s how to do those things offline:

First and most importantly, download everything important to you onto at least one hard drive and at least one flashdrive! files can get corrupted and hardware can get damaged or lost, but as long as you keep backup copies, you have much-closer-to-guaranteed access versus hoping a business doesn’t decide to paywall, purge, or otherwise revoke your access. I would recommend getting irreplaceable photos printed as well

download and/or print/write down:

anything important to you - photos/videos, journals, certificates, college transcripts

contact info - phone numbers and/or addresses of friends/family (know how to contact them if you can’t use your favourite messaging app), doctors (open hours would be good too), veterinarians if you have pets, and work

how-to’s - recipes (one, two), emergency preparedness (what do I do if… eg. I smell gas)

other things you might google: cleaning chemicals to NOT mix, what laundry tag symbols mean, people food dogs and cats can and can’t eat, plant toxicity to pets

and know offline ways to find things out - local radio station, newspaper, a nearby highway rest area might have a region map, public libraries usually have a bunch of resources

also, those of you who get periods should strongly consider not using period tracking apps! here’s how to track your period manually

free printable period tracker templates (no printer? public libraries usually charge a few cents per page, or you can recreate it by hand)

moving on to entertainment, you can still get most media for free! it’s completely legal to download your favourite movies to your own personal hard drive, you just can’t sell or distribute copies (not legal advice)

movies: wcostream.tv (right click the player) - the url changes every once in a while but usually redirects; I recently noticed that it’s hiding a lot of movies behind “premium,” so it may or may not work anymore | download youtube videos

music: how to get music without streaming it | legal free downloads

games: steamunlocked.net - doesn’t have every game and can be slow to update, but very reliable

books: free online libraries | legal free downloads

otherwise passing time:

active outdoor games

for road trips (social verbal games)

for when power’s out

for sheltering in place (not all offline, but good ideas)

board games (often found at thrift stores)

ad-free customisable games collection (mobile)

read, write, draw, or whatever your craft is, sing, dance, clean, reorganise, take a bath

go outside - excuses include napping (if safe), eating, reading, finding cool plants/animals/rocks, playing with the dog

places to go include:

zoos and museums can be surprisingly cheap

parks and nature preserves

library, mall, or game shop

and a few miscellaneous things for good measure:

time budgeting | household management

how to use a planner | I’ve had success with visually blocked-out schedules like these

please add on if you have any other offline alternatives to common uses of the internet!

[grimrester]

i am really so sorry to continue harping on about the watcher entertainment streaming service. but this kind of stuff (internet content as a business & marketing it as such) is truly my obsession, and i think i will implode if i don't talk about some of the takes i'm seeing.

i'd like to emphasize again i don't have strong feelings about watcher either way. i like ghost files, i watch mystery files sometimes, i watched worth it back in the buzzfeed days. i don't watch any of their shows religiously.

anyway, here's the main things i keep seeing crop up and my thoughts on each:

"watcher has 25 employees they have to pay, and employing people in this economy is good, so we should be banding together to pay them."

employing people is good if you currently have the capacity to pay them. i checked watcher's linkedin page, and many of their employees were hired within the last year or two. if they hired people they cannot pay with the business model they had before, something is seriously wrong with their internal bookkeeping/decision making. it means they either didn't know they couldn't pay these people long term, or they did know and were content with risking newly hired employees' livelihoods on a huge content pivot in the next year.

of note is that none of their employees' titles have anything to do with managing the finances of the company. they are the size of a small business but have no one aside from the figureheads of the company in charge of their finances.

this is the kind of company decision making that leads to downsizing and layoffs, which can be devastating. but you know what's worse than laying off a portion of your staff? laying off everyone because your business is going under.

"not everyone can afford the subscription, but those who can should pay it to support the watcher team."

no. $6/month for a couple hours of content (depending on what shows you actively watch and the natural fluctuation of their release schedule) is a fundamentally bad value. i can pay that much for a few movies on amazon. i can pay that much for dropout, if i want to support a smaller business instead.

and to be totally frank, even if people do sign up, i don't think they'd get enough to compete with the amount they get through patreon/sponsorships. and the fact that they didn't know how many of their subscribers would realistically sign up is a bad sign.

a pretty good conversion rate of free to paid subscribers of a service or content is 3% (usually accomplished through a free trial). given the very poor reception of the announcement, let's say about 1% of their 3 mil youtube subs pay for their service. that's 30k people paying for their new platform. that's $180k a month in their pocket.

(they currently only have 12k subs on patreon so we are being generous here.)

a sponsorship deal (based on my googling, i have less direct experience with this) is anywhere from $10-50 per 1000 views. they've gotten about 1 mil views on their last few videos. 3 mil subs is nothing to shake a stick at, but let's say they're on the lower end of the payscale at $25 per 1000 views. that's $25k a video, $100k a month if they release 1 video a week. their lowest patreon tier is 5 bucks, so even if all their subs are at that tier, that's another $60k, so $160k total. it's entirely likely they're bringing in much more than that when you factor in merch, adsence, etc.

did anyone on their team crunch numbers on how many people would need to sub to make the switch worth it? did anyone do market research on how many people they could convert to paid users? because if not, if they really didn't have a game plan for this, the subscription service was always doomed to fail.

"this was their only option to continue making the content they want to make, with the production value they want."

i watched their announcement video. a key point in that video is that they have done sponsored videos and that's what used to pay for their content, but they did not like the amount of creative control the sponsor had over the content.

look, i get that's no fun. we'd all love creatives to be able to make whatever they want. but when you are a small business with a team of employees relying on you, you have to think about making money, sometimes at the cost of creative liberties.

and they had so many other options to make money for the projects they want to make without jumping to a subscription platform.

they could have started actually promoting their patreon, and maybe done some restructuring of the tiers. why not a highly produced, special series just for patreon members? or a special high-budget episode of each series, while the main series is lower budget?

bite the bullet and continue taking sponsorship deals on some less-produced shows, while axing sponsorships from the ones the crew feels more passionate about.

schedule larger, blowout-production shows only when they can be afforded. this is what Notorious Amongus Guy streamer jerma does. he saves up for big productions like his baseball or dollhouse streams, so he can really get creative with them.

they had other options and they've tried very little, especially when you compare them to other content house business at similar scales. try guys and good mythical morning both put out significant content with significant staff, and have had to diversify their income streams with auxiliary products, shows with widely varied levels of production, etc. but it seems to be working for them. watcher has merch and that's about it, and seems to only want to increase the production quality of ALL their shows.

really, all this just boils down to a terrible business decision. it's hard to say if the watcher team is working with a consultant or anyone outside of their team, but they certainly don't have anyone internally who is experienced with running a business like this. to me, it seems very much like they got in a room together and did some extremely optimistic income ballparking with no research behind it.

and that might have been fine for three dudes running a channel alone, but if they're a business, they have to start making decisions like one.