@@RealShaktimaan I guess the marketing portion should be better regulated. Lot of subscription services have sketch marketing and contracts. Also, some practices should be looked at like easy to subscribe but hard to get out interfaces. I'd not say turn subscription illegal, but some types seem to not add anything and have no reason to be one and the "free" market is failing to react to them. Maybe what can become a subscription should be more specific.
imagine if everybody was like you XD but most ppl love subs as she mentioned when sales force and ms office started doing this. boo on those ppl who can afford paying for something they don't use every sec.
@@cattigereyes1I didn't knew, that my old DVD-Player has AI to stop me from watching my DVDs, instead of subscribing to Amazon+ and DisneyPrime... 😂😅
Important-Read this content creater>> the fact that software companies have to include all the conditions etc., they deceivingly dozens of small print pages of technical and confusing content! They should include a bullet point short statement that’s “to the point “ and very exact about pricing and cancellation and more. This is a horrible situation and only getting worse!
@@AdmiralBison 'Americans don't realize it yet and keep cheering on billionaires' dont you find it so disgusting.. i think alot of them are too immature and think that will be them one day.. but its not
It's important to note that when you canceled your newspaper or magazine subscription. The existing copies didn't disappear from your house. You could also buy individual issues at a reasonable price.
I'm 50+. One thing wrong in this is the cable thing. Sure, it had a better signal but what they used to sell it was no commercials. Then commercials came in and you were just paying for regular ass TV. I no longer have cable and refuse to pay for all of this crap. I've got CDs, movies and video games. And if I can't access that I've got books and board games. These greedy companies can F OFF!!!
Yeah. Tubi is free and I think it has fewer ads than cable TV, Pluto use to be worse but it's gotten a little better. I'll never understand people who'll pay for things riddled with ads.
Many of us might well have to set up and live in "Scrap" villages! Each "Scrap" village will be populated by people known as "Scraps", who will have divorced themselves from money and all other aspects of mainstream society. I figure that each "Scrap" village will be built around a hand-dug well; and that each "Scrap" will live in a grass hut. At least each "Scrap" will actually OWN their grass hut and all of its contents, and won't have to pay subscriptions for any of them! The term "Scrap" comes from the movie "Demolition Man". In that movie, the "Scraps" were people who didn't like the idea of living under Dr. Raymond Cocteau's draconian regulations. These people therefore literally lived underground, beneath San Angeles. The "Scraps" in "Demolition Man" were led by Edgar Friendly.
This is the case with anything in life. When was the last time you seen a U-Haul at the grave yard? Nobody owns anything anyway. We try to make it seem like subscriptions are so evil. Even if your house is paid off stop paying property taxes and see who owns it then. When you die all of "your stuff" will go to someone else. We own nothing.
@@beatbuildersstudio .... The only people that can change this are the people who make laws. I'd prefer to pay the government to make this illegal than pay a company subscriptions to use what is mine. I purchased a unit and for the first 20 years it was good, then the strata fees started to climb, companies engaged by the management were allowed to make multiple visits to do a single job, that way they can charge more. A classic case of inefficiency being more profitable than efficiency. HOW THE HELL DID WE GET HERE !!!
I have walked out of many places when I asked it any part of this unit requires a subscription. When they say yes, I simply say I am buying from the EU.
Lol should organize a dozen or more people to go to this store. One after the other, each asks if a subscription is required for the item. One after the other, hearing that it is, they say they will take their business elsewhere and walk out. If this was a large scale campaign hitting many stores might make an impact 😂
That's the plan all along. Offer a temporarily better service until you destroy all completion then hike prices and reduce quality as much as you like, they don't have a choice anymore.
@@TheStarBlackSure there is a choice. We turn our backs and go back into our local communities. Libraries, sharing media, piracy (not illegal if the companies are run by criminals too) and programming our own stuff. Yeah, we have to work again and start being creative. But that's better than being bloodsucked permanently by these greedy billionairs, who want more money than they can digest.
Do not , keep your old car. The new ones with software are nightmares. Not only the car takes all the data from your mobile if you are using the navigation system, hand free calls etc.. No regulation about that and they can sell the information or use as the fell as fit. But worse, I have one of these cars with lots of gadgets, I had an accident thinking it was my fault. Thank goodness I had witnesses to confirm what I said. I was reversing to park but when I went forward and brake, the moment I put my foot on the brake petal, the car zoomed like mad and I went though someone's garden. After 7 months it was repaired, it did again but this time, I recognised the noise and took my feet off , the computer then used the automatic brake. It took over 2 months for them to figure out the problem. I went online and found at least over 15 people had the EXACT same problem when they were parking and the exact same car. Now , next week it goes back to the garage because one of the system , ABS or reverse sensors or the auto parking or the tyres sensors is broken. So they need to diagnose the problem before he said it trigger the others and I will need to change all of them. And they are lots of these in the car. The dashboard gives the 4 warnings at the same time. I miss my old car with no computer.
@@crusherven No, businesses adopt these models because of how many people will pay for the service without ever using it. A gym is a subscription service, a service that would not be profitable if there weren't swaths of people who sign up for a gym, use it a few times, then dont go back but keep paying for it for a long time.
@@connorlomas1108 most of those techniques were ineffective, which is why the went to subscription (or always online). You don't have to believe me, companies have stated that as one of the reasons
Everyone has known for decades that printers deliberately drain your ink cartridges unnecessarily. The most famous example is printers mixing color cartridges into black ink for a "richer tone." Knowing how shady they are with wasting your ink on purpose, trying to sell us a system that wastes your ink then buys more automatically is wildly tonedeaf 😂
"I'm sorry, we have found that your political ideologies are not inline with the current established view. For your safety, your vehicle has been shut off"
The first thing people need to get made into a law is that employers can't require a phone number to work at the company unless they take care of the phone and the payments
Subscriptions make you broke. So many people don't realize what they spend on it. I had a pest control knock on my door wanting me to subscribe to his service for 20 a month. Told him, that's crazy. Get out of here. 😂😂
Sounds like a one-man/small business trying to make it big, which is OK. If it were a big corporation, I'd ask them to give me a demo on eliminating the pest I see standing right before me before I consider signing up.
@@aritragupta4182 no, he mentioned, you probably see our vans in your neighborhood all the time. I told him no I don't. Since then, I can't think of a time I've seen their vans.
I'm in my seventies, my kids become frustrated with me for not "buying new", repairing or buying refurbished used. My vehicles don't sew on my buttons or talk to me, I put the key in the ignition and drive on my own where I want to go. I can believe that there are people who pay huge amounts for subscriptions, I know I pay zero. If I want to listen to music, that's what my radio is for, I can use the dial on my thermostat to change the temperature in my house. Connecting so many household appliance through a phone or internet is asinine, we are getting more tech at the expense of our mental acuity and financial health.
Children just don't have the perspective. It's something you gain from being screwed over a couple times. If you want kids to understand you have to figure out a way for them to experience it personally. Once someone has been screwed over a couple times by something they will realize.
@@hhjhj393 My feeling is the social pressures are causing the major problem. No more job applications at a business, cars that only have outlets for some gizmo, or worse only blue tooth connections. The list goes on. I am retired and can say stick a sock in it, no thanks, they can't.
Greed is never being happy with what you have. I have a nice house, I need another one. I have a nice car, I need another one. I have a big boat, I need a bigger one. On and on and on
That printer story really tells how poor regulated US actually is as that something 100% Illegal yet here it being completely allowed with nothing done.
It isn't only in the US. In the UK too, I bought a HP printer after a month, it asked me to subscribe but I refused since I have a printer with lots of ink but not usable. I decided not to give them another penny because they are forcing me to do so. I bought another printer from another company instead. And from then I decided I will not buy another product from HP.
Y'all gonna do a sequel where you talk about how every company now having their own Rewards program actually makes every single aspect of our economy more expensive?
You should also cover owning games, movies, programs, and other digital media. You pay $30 for a movie, $80 for a game. But then Steam or Amazon can just remove it from its service with no refund.
On steam they have not removed access for people who already have the game on their account. This includes games that have been delisted and are no longer available for sale. Other services operating similar models for games or media have so they probably could legally. If they did I think it would destroy consumer confidence and thus the company. They did recently change some language to indicate that people are paying for a license. I think that was more to get ahead of regulations coming up.
If you think subscriptions are bad, cover HOA's next. My HOA fee in Arizona is over $600 a month, ontop of my $500/month land lease. They do nothing and have been caught embezzling money in the past, yet we can't stop paying without losing our housing. Yay.
I pay 0$/month (aside from internet etc. Obviously). Use free software. Linux. You're literally PAYING for these creeps to spy on you. Why would you buy an inkjet printer? Buy a 100$ LASER print (Brother is a good company) and your ink doesn't dry up (like the ink in all these cheap pieces of crap)... I've bought ink once in the last 5 years. I use home assistant for all my home automation. It's all run locally on my hundred dollar computer that runs on 15watts Max electricity. Don't buy shit that has features locked away. Simple. There's a device that honors this in EVERY category: just pay attention. My ecobee "smart" thermostat let's me link it up to my home assistant. Everything I own I own. You need to pay attention.
If a company goes bankrupt and out of business there is no longer any copyright. We use a program 15 yrs old and company no longer exists so we were able to make multiple copies to use internally for our use.
I smashed my HP printer when it tried to force me to update the firmware. It was so cathartic. I'll never buy anything with HP branding again. I also don't buy any "smart" appliances.
Yanis Varoufakis terms this “Technofeudalism”. And get ready to have subscriptions for everything from groceries to gas to restaurants. It’s coming soon.
You people at More Perfect Union have taught me so much about all kinds of things. Thank You so much. And I'm looking forward to seeing more of More Perfect Union videos.
NEVER buy an inkjet printer. They were a scam 20 years ago when they were dumb. Laserjets cost a fraction to print with and last much much longer, especially if you don’t buy HP.
There's an airbag vest for motorcyclist to wear that will deploy if you fall off a motorcycle, but will only deploy if you pay them a monthly subscription.
@@EarthWindFireable More like whoever values their life and doesn't mind getting shafted every month to increase their survival in case of a collision or accident. There are other options not from the same company, but they aren't as convenient since deployment is triggered by a pull tab attach to the motorcycle. The rich pay for convenience.
@rafaeldeleon3386 So, if I remember correctly, it was actually kind of a financing option. If you purchased the jacket for the full price, there was no subscription, but if you purchased it at the lower price with the subscription, you were paying the subscription until you paid the full price of the jacket with maybe some interest.
I have a laser printer from 1993 that still works fine, and I'm holding onto it for dear life. In it's lifetime, it's had the rollers replaced twice ($30 for a set), and has gone through a 3 or 4 toner cartriges ($40 each), and it still works great!
Look at digital media. You don't buy games, movies, or songs. Only a license to use them. If Spotify or Amazon looses the license you can't use that media anymore.
BMW may have pulled back on heated seat subscriptions but other automakers have doubled down... Toyota still charges for remote start, Tesla ALSO charges for heated seats and still does it now. Why? Because people keep paying... if you set up the system to incentivize the behavior without consequence, every corporation will keep doing it.
John Deere is getting their rear-ends handed to them for their "Right to Repair" and proprietary software in their new tractors. I hope they go bankrupt, especially now that they have fired workers here in the US, and moved large operations down to Mexico, starting in 2026.
The answer is simple. The business model has been abused to guarantee monthly income, whether the product is used or not. It’s free money to them. It’s very similar to the insurance business model.
@@travist.7279 That’s my point. They collect money monthly, with the hopes you never have to claim anything, and when you do, they try their best to get out of paying.
I swore off HP even before the subscription garbage. Spent a little more and got a Brother laser printer. The thing will probably outlive me, and it doesn’t even ask me to subscribe to anything!
I stopped buying HP printers when it wouldn't let me print a black and white page because my magenta ink was out. "Surprise bricking" is just extortion.
I spend nothing on subscriptions, even had a look at Disney+ today and the subscription plans immedially turned me off. Why is subscription WITH ads a thing?? What am I paying for if ads are gonna play? And more importantly, how do they prevent ad blockers from making it redundant?
louis rossmann has been covering this issue for a while now. If you follow him on any level then your probably already well aware of this BS scheme by HP
Every company wants to turn your devices into a revenue stream. Consumers need to pa attention to reoccurring charges. FTC updated regulations to make cancellation as easy as signing up for services is a good first step. PS - give away the razor and make piles of cash on subscription for the blades.
My first experience with this "pay to play" scheme was an HP printer. It kept telling me I was out of ink when I wasn't. There was no subscription needed when I bought the printer. About six months later, when I replaced a cartridge with a generic brand,, the printer stopped working. I found out that they had installed, without my knowledge, a new program that locked the printer if it sensed a non-HP ink. I put the printer to the side and bought an Epson. The HP is now an expensive paperweight. I am still furious with HP as there was nothing about having to pay for an ink subscription service anywhere on the printer box or in the documentation. HP lost a customer for life.
Same HP was my first “pay to play”. When I bought the HP printer I bought it because I immediately needed to print 50+ pages or something high enough to put me in one of the highest monthly categories. I didn’t sign up and skipped that monthly crap because why pay monthly for printing when the next month would be 0 pages then the third month only 5 pages. The printer worked initially then I was always magically out of ink even with new cartridges.
😂 My "subscription bill" is $15/month. Intentionally. Though when I said "screw it" to another subscription, I shifted that to a monthly donation to a charity. That's a "subscription" I can be proud of.
I experienced a terrifying extension of these policies and practices when I had to support a friend through a medical crisis: The company that owned the software to their lifesaving medical equipment went out of business. It just so happened that my friend’s software license (which they needed to renew with the company every 2 years) was up for expiration at the same time. They were forced to endure agonizing physical symptoms while desperately trying to find someone, ANYONE, who could hack the software fully knowing it was illegal under DMCA laws because it was a choice between doing what is legal and doing what is lifesaving. This model is DEVASTATING. And the people who willingly accept it because “that’s capitalism” have literal, actual blood on their hands.
@@Bb-jm6wxThere is a significant lobby from corporations to not update DCMA laws because it would impact their profits under this model. The valuation of profit over people is absolutely, 100% a result of a capitalist system.
@@Bb-jm6wxAlso, the same issue happened as described in this video. My friend owned the equipment, which ostensibly should entitle them to the use of the equipment as its owner. Locking their lifesaving medical equipment under software licensing is just part of a larger capitalist philosophy that values profit over people, that is trying to get us to accept that we own nothing.
@@lucasokeefe7935 clearly it wouldn’t keep working if the company went out of business. Paying for it once doesn’t change the fact that they wouldn’t be around to provide the service if the software company no longer existed. That’s like saying I already paid for this Toys R Us product let me try to use their service. Oh wait…. Doesn’t exist . Obsolete , but I wouldn’t expect you to understand words that big. As soon as it went out of business you should’ve went with another companies product. I wouldn’t exist blockbuster to provide service to a product I bought from then even if I only had to pay for it once.
@@lucasokeefe7935 I understand the word “obsolete” is too big for some to grasp. I wouldn’t expect blockbuster to provide service on something I bought from them, even if I did only pay for it once.
This is what makes laws illegitimate in my eyes. You can do anything wrong but as long as you put it to paper and force someone to sign it at the threat of not having another choice, it's totally legal and fine, but if the consumer takes an ethical action (like frankly moding the printer) it's legal.
Subscription for non-consumables shouldn't be a thing. The problem is that software straddles the consumable/non-consumable divide. It doesn't disappear, but still needs regular updates. Or if it doesn't strictly need it, you may want it. Nowadays, a lot of software (incl video games) get pushed out, with know issues. So now they need to be connected, and when they're connected, they can enforce subscriptions. To summarise, for individuals subscriptions are okay for things you use temporarily, such as a newspaper, or Netflix (each movie is only a few hours). But if you know you'll use the same item over and over again, without actually needing modification (white goods, Microsoft Word, your favourite movie, coffee maker), then subscriptions don't make sense at all
Yes. I had an HP I bought several years ago that doesn't work without being connected to hp with a current payment method. It was cheap, I needed it for a project, and just had never heard of such a thing. Wiser now . What a stupid thing. They will never get another penny from me.
First block: Don't allow wifi in your home. Ethernet cords only and I don't even have a router. Only one device can be plugged in at a time. If I had a car with computers that would try and connect to the phone network I'd yank those sim cards. My printer: made in 2009 and still working great. No computers in my frig or freezer, won't allow it. No connecting to wifi in my toothbrush or air fry oven either.
There has been a desire to eliminate the right of first sale for quite some time and this is a symptom of that. The idea is that i own something when i buy it. There has been a concerted effort to either work around or destroy this right for some time. People who can't resell software, students who have to buy a new book because it comes with a code to access worksheets, or even Teslas that will turn off features when they're sold (and therefore are less valuable). It tires into subscriptions, right of repair, and ownership. All things that companies want to manipulate in their favor for greater profits.
We need more journalism like this in America. Thank you for this story, despite it raising my blood pressure! You all are doing great work and a great service to the people!
