Followup on The AI Engame by Adam Something

Something that has bugged me for a long time is how accepting people are for monthly fees.

I hate monthly fees, I have never understood how people seem to think its "cheaper". In theory, there is a market for renting or services, for example, I pay a monthly fee for internet and electricity, because its a ongoing service. Back in the day of rental movies, if you were only to watch that movie once, why wouldn't you rent it?

I don't have anything against services where you actually have a continual service, like internet access, a training program, podcasts, etc. I also dont have problems with renting and leasing things, where you get the same value, for a lower cost, at the end of its usefulness for you, for example renting a scissor lift, tools, transit vans, etc.

What actually annoys me is how people don't seem to understand the value of owning, primarilly that you don't need to pay for it anymore, secondarily that no one will take it back. And the thing is, you can still buy things. For the cost of Spotify today, you can buy one or two albums — every month. How many new albumns do you listen to every year? Would it be cheaper to just buy them, rather than paying for whatever music streaming service you use? Probably, so why do you keep paying for the streaming service?

Now that isnt the great part of owning, you might save a couple of bucks per month, but what if you were to stop paying? You would have nothing, you have paid hundereds (maybe even thousands) of dollars for music, yet now you have nothing, but you could have so much.

This doesnt only apply to music, think of all the different services that charges you every month, or the convinience services that you use when you can't be bothered to do routine tasks. After everything is done and payed for, what does it leave you with?

Sure, you can afford it.

Money comes, money goes. They say

Sure, money does go, but you can never be too sure money comes...