I dunno what was in a ringtone subscription. I used to work at a ringtone company, and it was $1-$3 per ringtone ($1 for monophonic, $2 for polyphonic and $3 for wav/mp3/whatever; which yeah, is more than a high quality download from iTunes... But $25/month is a ton of money.

Even with free ringtones, I'd send myself about three if I got a new phone. These days, I just keep a copy of the Nokia dubstep ringtone on hand in case I turn the ringer on, but it doesn't happen.