Comment by EvanAnderson
Comment by EvanAnderson 17 hours ago
> The long term revenue hit you get from pissing off your customers is nearly impossible to measure or attribute.
As people become accepting of this practice I worry there won't be a long-term hit.
Tech consumers don't understand what kind of services actually warrant a subscription because there's a recurring cost to the provider (renting CPU or storage capacity) versus those that are just rent seeking (ahem-- "recovering development costs").
I was heartened when mainstream media was up-in-arms over auto manufacturers trying to charge monthly fees for features like heated seats or remote start. I worry that consumers can't identify those kinds of gouging behavior with technology and will just accept and normalize these practices.
There’s only a long-term hit to the extent that there are alternatives without these practices. (This could be a less-terrible competitor, a different category of product, or just going without.)
If every car company charges a subscription for seat heaters, then maybe this will drive a few people who are on the fence to not buy a car at all, but it’s going to be a very small effect. If there’s a competitor that sucks less, the impact will be greater.
If there’s is no such competitor, then this behavior leaves an opening for one. But it’s a total crapshoot as to whether any company will actually seize the opportunity.