These days it seems like everyone is selling subscriptions rather than actual products. From Photoshop to BMW charging a heated seat subscription it is becoming increasingly harder to just pay for something once and be done with it. Don’t get me wrong, I think the subscription model has a place, but it shouldn’t be that way for everything. If I’m using a companys own infrastructure then fair enough. I pay for a World Of Warcraft subscription because when I log in to the game I am using their servers. But I don’t like that model being applied to everything.
Some people defend this practice by arguing that there’s nothing wrong with paying for an extra feature. But the thing is, BMW aren’t adding an “extra” feature to the car if you subscribe. The car already has this feature, they are just implenting a completely unnecessary restriction on the product because of the company’s greed. Imagine if you bought a physical book from Waterstones, and the woman on the till then said you can only read one chapter each day unless you get an “unlimited reading” subscription. Once you’ve bought a product, it’s yours and you should be free to do what you like with it. Companies should not be allowed to impose artificial and unnecessary restrictions on what you do with your own property.