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Sustainable Minimalists

Subscription Services

Sustainable Minimalists

Bleav + Stephanie Seferian

Kids & Family, Leisure, Parenting, Home & Garden

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2022

⏱️ 22 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Many of us signed up for entertainment (streaming television! date night in a box!) and regular home delivery of essentials (toothbrushes! groceries! toilet paper!) at the start of the pandemic. If you're like me, these days you may find yourself signed up for 10 or more subscription services. Subscriptions can be time-saving and convenient, and specialty ones make great gifts. But if you aren't receiving the value you expect from the subscription in question, it's simply a colossal waste of money and resources. There are other drawbacks to the recurring payment model as well, and on today's short and sweet episode I'm uncovering them.   Here's a preview: [7:30] 5 disadvantages to subscription services that you may not have considered [8:45] What do recurring charges mean for our data and privacy? [12:30] Subscription services and the concept of sunk cost [18:00] One incremental action step for listeners to save money   Further reading: The Rise Of The Subscription Model (via Forbes)     * Join our (free!) community here. * Find your tribe. Sustainable Minimalists are on Facebook, Instagram + Youtube. * Email me and say hello! MamaMinimalistBoston@gmail.com   Our Sponsors:* Thank you to LifeStraw! https://lifestraw.com/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/sustainable-minimalists/exclusive-content

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Well, hello and welcome back. My name is Stephanie Safarian and you're listening to

0:04.2

episode 268 of sustainable minimalists, a twice-weekly show about intentional

0:10.3

and eco-minimalist living. Oh my goodness, how have I done this?

0:14.0

268 times.

0:16.0

Here's the 268 more.

0:18.0

On today's show, we are discussing the rise of subscription services

0:22.0

and the implications of recurring payment models.

0:28.0

That sounds really boring, but it's going to be fun, I promise.

0:31.4

Back when I was a kid in the 90s, the most common subscriptions were newspapers

0:35.8

and magazines. You pay up front for the year and then the newspaper and the magazine. They

0:40.3

come regularly until you call to cancel.

0:43.0

For a long time the subscription model

0:47.0

stayed in its lane.

0:49.0

They stayed confined to industries

0:51.0

where it naturally belonged, like magazines and newspapers.

0:55.0

But then suddenly, everybody hopped on the subscription bandwagon.

1:00.0

It became a thing that every company was doing for the simple fact that businesses caught on to the fact that the subscription model makes them more money.

1:11.0

The pandemic too did really help the subscription economy and that's

1:16.9

because first of all many businesses through a Hail Mary to stay afloat

1:22.1

they switched to a subscription model, and then many businesses

1:25.8

were shocked and surprised in a good way when the subscription model made them more money

1:31.4

than the traditional model.

...

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