In the age of subscription overload a lifetime subscription sounds great in theory. No credit card numbers to update. No renewal notifications. In reality a lot of things stand between you and actually receiving the service(s) you expect.
Katherine Hamilton writing at the Wall Street Journal looks at some cases where ‘lifetime’ subscriptions were anything but. She writes:
“But a lifetime isn’t always as long as you think, and beyond the simple math of how many years it takes to come out ahead on the deal, there is fine print. The terms can translate to less value than you might have expected. Companies can change benefits after you sign up. And some memberships get discontinued.”
I suppose none of this should be surprising. One the revenue is in the door there is little incentive to perform up the letter (and spirit) of the agreement. In short, caveat emptor. In short order, Nike and Amazon have announced plans to brick some of their products. And EV maker Fisker recently went bankrupt. If the company who made your electric, rolling computer goes under there is no prospect for future system updates. This is likely why Fisker’s remaining inventory is changing hands so cheaply.
It’s not just physical products with embedded software that are at-risk to rot. Recently it was announced that Paramount Global was going to pull the archives of MTV News and Comedy Central offline. You might think what is the big deal? But for those people who worked on those programs it is a big deal. Also who knows is being lost in terms of culture and history.
Even when a website does go offline, that doesn’t mean weird stuff can’t happen. The long gone Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) has been taken over and is now live as some sort of AI-written spam blog. Former writers of the site have seen their bylines being used for new, robot-generated content. Not great.
The bottom line is there are no guarantees. Nothing is forever. Younger generations, with a few exceptions, have shunned physical media. Lifetime subscriptions are, at best, contingent on the goodwill and solvency of the issuer. Hardware products with embedded software are a crap shoot. And websites can disappear at a moment’s notice or re-launch with zombies at the helm. So the next time you hit ‘purchase’ understand what you are signing up for.
