alt Hacker NewsHeard it here on HN: problem is paying a subscription is purely additive. eventually, inevitably, they’ll take the subscription AND sell your data, serve you ads, etc.
it being against what your payment contract states just means they’ll reinvent and rename the tiers.
Replies
Pray they don’t change the terms a second time.
From what I can tell, that's already the case for these subscriptions. They give you some extra stuff but you're still getting ads, and they are still collecting your data
If you don't pay for a product, you are a less valuable product than if you'd pay for the product.
Yeah this is the worst, never pay for something that has ads. It's teaching these companies it's ok.
It seems like there's no solution, then: companies will always chase the next dollar that allows them to exceed growth expectations on the earnings call. It seems like no matter what, anti-user behavior in pursuit of profit is inevitable.
Is there a solution to this?
This is just a copy of the YouTube model, to your point. It's not that you're going to get a premier experience. It's that you'll be spared from full enshittification. Only tech bros could possibly think making the default subscription level so bad that it would drive revenue. But here we are.
> they’ll take the subscription AND sell your data, serve you ads
Streaming services claiming prior art here.