[pingpongchef]

Subscriptions are an overused pricing model. Businesses love subscriptions because they love recurring revenue. The desire for RR pushes businesses to pursue products the fit the revenue model rather than solving customer problems. Consumers notice their bills stacking up with subscriptions and start to question the value they're getting for their subscription fees.

Some examples off the top of my head:

1. Grubhub's Plus, https://www.grubhub.com/plus

2. The majority of streaming services

3. Stitch Fix's recurring fix

4. Video game industry subscriptions (too many to dig into)

NYT's slavish devotion to a subscription model follows this pattern. They want to get subscriptions so they structure offerings to fit. Compare to a platform like Substack, where they offer a rich ecosystem with just a few different price models. I've believed for some time that news media like NYT overvalue their current offerings and need to innovate. Doesn't seem like they're interested.

Don't take my statement to claim all subscription offerings are bereft of value. Simply that there are so many lazy offerings that subscriptions are better as a signal of waste than value.

[oska]

Excellent comment