Streaming services are undoubtedly one of the biggest revolutions in the media industry over the last few decades. At the beginning of the 21st century, linear television dominated the world. If we wanted to watch a selected movie or series, we had to have access to the specific channel that broadcast it. However, these channels were not offered individually, but in cable or satellite packages. And it involved the need to pay a high monthly subscription fee.
The emergence of platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and HBO GO has completely changed the rules of the game. The TV schedule no longer matters. We – the viewers – started creating our own schedule. We finally started paying for what we actually watch.
This, in turn, led to the phenomenon of cord-cutting, i.e. mass resignation from cable TV offers in favor of streaming services. Data from Statista.com show that in the US the number of households that do not use cable TV increased from 18.8% in 2014-2023. up to 60 percent
Unfortunately, we quickly learned that streaming services turned from a blessing to a curse. Their offer began to fragment. Today, you won't be able to watch the popular Netflix series on the Max platform, and you won't find a movie available on Apple TV+ on Disney+. There is no platform that would collect the most interesting films and series in one place.
There is not and there will not be, because exclusive productions are the main weapon in the hands of rival media concerns. A weapon to “encourage” us to pay for a monthly subscription.
Big business loves subscriptions. The reason is obvious
We live in a world where almost everything is available on a subscription basis. It started with the above-mentioned streaming services, but the trend was quickly picked up by companies operating in completely different industries. Zuora data shows that in 2012-2020 businesses operating in subscription models increased by 435 percent. In mentioned During this period, corporations offering subscriptions increased their revenues approximately 5-8 times faster than the revenues of companies from the S&P500 stock exchange index.
According to the Juniper Resarch research centerin 2022 the global subscription market was already worth PLN 275 billion dollarsand it is expected to reach USD 1.5 trillion by 2028, with an average growth of 18 percent per year.
It is therefore not surprising that the number of products and services offered in the subscription model has been growing exponentially in recent years. We pay subscriptions for films and series (Netflix, Disney+), music (Spotify, Tidal), video games (Xbox Game Pass), electronic editions of newspapers, but also, for example, for printer ink (HP+ service), package application office space (Microsoft 365), coffee in the store (Żabka) or cloud storage for photos. This is still not the end, because the subscription model also increasingly offers clothes and underwear, hygiene products and even contraceptives.
This subscription trend has also reached automotive companies. In 2020, the idea of ​​BMW aroused considerable controversy. The German concern proposed that the equipment of its cars (e.g. air conditioning) be offered on a subscription basis. Of course, the manufacturer did not intend to remove the air conditioning from the cars of customers who stopped paying subscriptions. After all, it can be turned off remotely by sending appropriate instructions to computer on board. Today this idea surprises no one. For example, Audi offers in the subscription model not only air conditioning, but also, for example, cruise control.
You can also “turn it off” remotely, e.g. printer ink cartridges. This is how the HP Instant Ink service, i.e. “subscription printing”, works. When we stop paying the subscription, the cartridges will automatically block (they are protected by the DRM system), even if there is still ink in them.
Subscription for games, coffee and underwear. How much do we pay for all this?
According to a study conducted by CNETthat in 2024, the average American adult pays for all sorts of things subscriptions $91 per month, that is, over $1,000 a year (about PLN 4,000).
In recent years, the 'creeping subscription trend' has led to customers paying monthly or annual subscriptions for services they do not want. Moreover, companies increase the prices of services, often without informing customers about it or hiding it under the guise of introducing additional functions. The average amount we pay for memberships and subscriptions will continue to rise
– we read in the CNET report.
The numbers provided by CNET are quite conservative anyway, because a study by C&R Resarch published at the end of last year shows that that Americans pay as much as $219 per month (or almost PLN 900) for subscriptions.
Comprehensive research on the subscription economy has not been conducted in Poland so far. At this point, I can only use an anecdotal example, my own. While preparing this text, I decided to count how much I pay for subscriptions and – to put it mildly – I am a bit terrified by it.
I currently pay for the following services:
- Amazon Prime – PLN 50/year,
- Apple One – PLN 49.99/month,
- Audioteka – PLN 25/month,
- HP Smart (printer ink) – PLN 23.99,
- Max (former HBO Max) – PLN 19.99/month,
- McFit (gym) – PLN 39/month,
- Netflix – PLN 49/month,
- PlayStation Plus – PLN 37/month,
- Orange Flex (mobile phone) – PLN 35/month,
- Play (internet and TV) – PLN 124.99/month,
- YouTube Premium – PLN 25.99/month.
In total, this amounts to approx. PLN 435 monthly. And it would be even greater if I had not recently canceled several other subscriptions, including: Disney+ or Viaplay. Moreover, the resignation itself often turns out to be quite a complicated process.
I encountered such difficulties, among others, when I tried to get rid of my subscription to “The Wall Street Journal”. While it took me 60 seconds to purchase access to articles published in “WSJ”, the cancellation process took several days. It turned out that I couldn't just cancel the subscription by clicking the “Cancel” button. I had to contact the customer service office by phone (sic!) and then explain to the call-center employee why I dare to give up access to such a useful service.
Ultimately I succeeded, but it cost me a lot of nerves. Suffice it to say that at one point I was considering blocking my payment card, which would probably have solved my problem much faster.
Luckily US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently come down hard on this type of nefarious practices. The new regulations that the committee is currently working on, will require service providers to introduce a “Click-to-Cancel” policy, which will allow consumers to cancel a given subscription with one click.
In Poland, fortunately, I have not come across such extreme methods of “customer retention” as in the case of “WSJ”, which is due to the fact that the EU the law is more pro-consumer than the American one. But even in our backyard there are questionable practices. A few months ago I gave up access to the Viaplay platform. Recently, while reviewing the transaction history on the card, I realized that I was still paying for a subscription to this service. It turned out that in order to unsubscribe after clicking “Cancel”, you had to click through several screens. Well, a fool pays twice.
How to control your subscriptions?
There are several ways to manage dozens of subscriptions and avoid a situation in which we pay tribute every month for a service we do not need or – even worse – we forgot about.
First of all, it is worth regularly monitoring your account history and transactions on our payment and credit cards. Thanks to this, we will detect unwanted payments quite quickly and we will be able to cancel them immediately.
Secondly, it is worth installing one of the subscription management applications on your smartphone (e.g. Bobby, Billbot or Spendee). These types of tools allow us to organize all our subscriptions. Thanks to them, we can easily check how much we actually pay each month for access to all our services.
Thirdly, it is worth using common sense. We don't have to use all the services at once, especially since large corporations are increasingly fighting for our time, bombarding us with dozens of movies, TV series, books, games and music albums. Do you want to watch the new season of “Stranger Things”? That's great. Buy a Netflix subscription, watch all the episodes of the series, and then… cancel it.
Nowadays, we can opt out of most services literally from month to month. And it is definitely worth taking advantage of this opportunity. We owe nothing to Netflix, Disney and Amazon. Let's pay for what we actually use.