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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

That works because they didn't lock the subscription yet.

Compare subscription to Netflix vs. buying a movie on a DVD (and maybe ripping a personal backup copy). The former is a subscription - you stop paying (maybe because of financial emergency), no movie. The latter is a one-time purchase, after which you keep the thing you bought forever (so when shit hits the fan, you still can cheer yourself up with your favourite movie.

I know I definitely prefer buying over renting/subscribing. Businesses prefer the reverse. It's a conflict of interest.

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However, with Netflix, if you do have disposable income again in the future, then you can restore you position exactly. But if you had to sell your DVD collection due to a financial emergency, the cost of replacing it is greater.

It doesn't work with things like cloud storage. Stop paying, you lose your data. It also assumes that Netflix in this example wont go out of business.

The mental model is what is different. I pay X per month for Y value per month. Rather than, I pay X now for Y value forever. I may not use that Y value now, I may use it in 12 months time (for example, I still have DVDs in sealed packaging because I thought I needed the value up front).

Then I use Audible where I subscribe for X credits and once I use it on a book, I can use it indefinitely. I like that middle ground.

However, with Netflix, if you do have disposable income again in the future, then you can restore you position exactly.

If the business is still around.

>However, with Netflix, if you do have disposable income again in the future, then you can restore you position exactly. But if you had to sell your DVD collection due to a financial emergency, the cost of replacing it is greater.

You could also never sever your Netflix subscription and still lose access to your favorite movie because their licensing agreement ran out.

Even in your example, ownership wins out because you have the -option- to sell your residual assets in a financial emergency. There's nothing you can resell with your Netflix subscription money since you're just paying for the temporary privilege to watch a movie you don't own that might not be there tomorrow.

Compare subscription to Netflix vs. buying a movie on a DVD (and maybe ripping a personal backup copy).

That's a good comparison, because it makes clear that both approaches can have merit.

For content I'm likely to enjoy watching or listening to again in the future, I too would always prefer to have a permanent copy. The medium doesn't really matter, but having the control does.

However, I've also seen a lot of content on services like Netflix that I enjoyed watching once but maybe wouldn't ever want to watch again. I got to watch it for far less money than I would have had to pay to buy a permanent copy, but Netflix still got some money from me in return. This was a mutually beneficial arrangement.

I was using The Economist as an example of a general point: just because something is good for a business, it doesn't follow that it is bad for consumers 'by definition' (as claimed by the commenter to whom I replied).

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