Rise of the Monthly Subscription Services

Everyone has bills to pay. Rent, groceries, and some kind of utility payments such as electricity/water/gas are unavoidable no matter where you live. You may or may not have a car payment, student loan payment, mortgage, and other things such as a cell phone or cable TV/Internet service. It can be disheartening to watch so much of your hard-earned money go out the window each month to these basic expenses.

As if that weren't enough, there are a number of services that have come out recently that have taken traditional consumer goods and "reinvented" them by turning the purchase cycle from "as needed" into a monthly subscription model.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, the typical American household would have had relatively few subscription services. Perhaps their local newspaper, maybe a magazine like Time or Reader's Digest, and very likely a Cable TV service. Today there are innumberable services you could be subscribing to, all with the goal of "disrupting" an established big industry.

Now instead of cable, you can pay $9.99/month for Netflix, $7.99/month for Hulu, $12.99/month for Amazon Prime Video, $15/month for HBO Now, $20/month for Sling TV, $35/month for YouTube TV, or $39/month for a PlayStation Vue subscription. Any one of them offers substantial savings over the traditional $90-$150 cable bill from Comcast, Charter, Cox, Cable One, and other providers. But if you want to watch both Game of Thrones (HBO) and House of Cards (Netflix), you must subscribe to each service, which can quickly add up.

Now instead of buying shaving razors at the drugstore as needed, you can subscribe to Dollar Shave Club or Harry's for anywhere from $9 to $21 per month for mail-order shaving supplies. Somehow men have managed to stay clean shaven for generations without having supplies "delivered to your doorstep," so I question the value add of these services.

Home security is another market quickly transitioning to the monthly-subscription model. My local cable company offers home security cameras and monitoring for $30/month ($40/month if not bundled with any other services). Nest also offers cloud-based backups of your home security cameras for $5 to $30 per month. While a home security system can help identify a burglar, these services to little to secure the home in the first place and provide peace-of-mind rather than actual security.

Adding to the monthly cost for creative professionals is online data storage and photo backup, which will run you $6 a month for Carbonite or $0.99/month with Apple's iCloud service. Adobe's famous Creative Suite has also switched to a cloud-based, monthly subscription service at $49/month for the full suite. 

Vanity services recently experienced a boom in popularity. Services like BirchBox, BarkBox, NatureBox, LootCrate, and many imitators provide a monthly box of samples and goodies for whatever you are into - makeup, pet accessories, gaming culture, or anything else you can imagine.

Finally, we come to meal delivery services. Between Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, Plated, Sun Basket, and others have created meal kits that can be assembled by people with limited to no cooking experience. These services have taken home meal preparation - historically one of the cheapest ways of eating - and turned it into a "premium" experience that costs anywhere from $9 to $12 per meal.

There is an old Chinese expression called "lingchi" which roughly translates to "death by a thousand cuts." I feel like it is very easy to sign up for a free trial for each of these services and before you know it, your bank account is being silently drained by a multitude of small subscriptions each month.

While I don't doubt that one or two of them might add real value to your everyday life, the sheer proliferation of these services during the last 5-8 years feels like an all-out war for my hard-earned dollars.

They're also not that innovative, doing the slightly modernized version of what the Sears Catalog did a century ago. Combining an existing consumer product with a monthly subscription does not make it an innovative new business model. It looks great to investors to have that Monthly Recurring Revenue, but all of these businesses are targeted towards price-conscious consumers who will jump ship to your competitor if they have a better price or offer. 

I'm not the only one who feels this way:
https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/05/09/182426256/consumers-facing-subscription-service-overload-will-only-get-more-choices
https://www.forbes.com/sites/schifrin/2016/11/03/has-the-subscription-box-boom-turned-into-a-bubble/
https://qz.com/index/1161993/americans-are-overwhelmed-by-too-many-available-tv-subscription-services/

Ironic Band Names

A few years ago, I wrote about a trend I noticed where hardcore bands were adopting these "verb-the-noun" names en masse.

Now, I've spotted a new trend among indie bands trying to come up with the ultimate ironic band name. Many of them are trying to be funny, but mostly they are just ripping off the status of a celebrity.

Take these band names for example:

• Gnarls Barkley
• Ylvis
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
• Com Truise
• Danananaykyrod
• Joy Orbison
• Hoodie Allen
• Gringo Starr
• Ringo Deathstarr
• Tiger & Woods
• Andrew Jackson Jihad
• Abraham Drinkin
• George Moshington

This is a ridiculous trend for several reasons. First of all, it's not very original. Second, basing your band on a misspelling is a terrible way to get people to find you online in the Internet age. Third, most of them are pretty childish. Fourth, it's just piggybacking on someone else's status.

I'm not the only one who feels this way:
http://breezyk.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/when-did-vowels-stop-being-cool/
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/monocle/band_names_referencing_celebrities/
http://rateyourmusic.com/board_message?message_id=3455249

The Myth of the Maintenance-Free Electric Car

Like it or not, the new age of electric cars is upon us. The Nissan Leaf, Ford Focus Electric, and Tesla Model S are the latest generation of pure electric vehicles to go on sale in the US.

Now I am not against the idea of electric cars. As a motoring enthusiast, my curiosity is piqued by anything with wheels and and engine, regardless of whether it runs on gasoline, diesel, propane, biofuel, electricity, or expensive champagne. However, there is one glaring inaccuracy about electric vehicles that I feel the need to correct.

I have read a great deal of news articles extolling the benefits of electric vehicles. Indeed, if you live in a city and primarily use your car for commuting, an electric car is a smart, environmentally sound, and efficient way to get around.

The part that gets me flustered is when a reporter claims that electric vehicles are "maintenance free." I can't tell you how many articles I've read that mention how the drivetrain in the Tesla Model S is so simple, it only has 3 moving parts. Buy one and all you will ever have to do is plug in the charger, right? Wrong.

While it's true that an electric car will never need to have its oil changed or a muffler replaced, there is still plenty of maintenance to be done.

Because it is still a vehicle that travels on the road, electric cars rely on rubber tires which must be rotated and kept at the proper pressure. By virtue of the fact that it has wheels, electric cars also need wheel bearings to help the car roll smoothly and brake pads to help the car stop - two more components which have a finite service life.

Electric cars have moving parts in the suspension and steering that use bushings which will, over long periods of time, wear out just like a fossil-fuel powered vehicle. Electric cars also have traditional car parts which are prone to breaking such as power windows, hinges, handles, and latches. Many of them have cabin air filters for the air conditioning system - another user-replaceable part.

Besides that, there are a number of specialty systems on an electric car which may need to be serviced. A pure electric vehicle will often rely on an electric powered blower motor for the heat and air conditioning. In the case of the Tesla Roadster, the battery pack is cooled with liquid, much like antifreeze/coolant in a traditional engine.

Again, I am not saying any of this to put down electric cars. Yes, I am aware that electric car owners will never have to get their hands dirty to change spark plugs and wires, an air filter, or engine oil. The traditional "tune up" will be a thing of the past. What I want to do is disspell the myth that by buying an electric car, you will be driving a magical "maintenance free" machine. There's still a lot to keep track of as a safe and responsible driver.