Don't Subscribe So Casually - by Shmuel Berman

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Don't Subscribe So Casually<br>Or, why your AI subscription is worth analyzing

Shmuel Berman<br>May 26, 2026

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Most people pick subscriptions the same way they pick snacks. Subscriptions, however, are more like roommates than Oreos. Anything you subscribe to gets a small, recurring vote on who you become.<br>Being conscious of this has been worthwhile throughout the modern era of subscriptions, but the rise of chatbots — which can be customized, tailored, and packaged to become even more addictive and to amplify the negative effects of subscription models — makes revisiting the issue especially important. I don’t think people think of ChatGPT as a normal subscription: it’s shiny, new, and powerful, but from a financial perspective — and from the perspective of the company’s incentives — it’s just another Netflix.<br>If someone offered you a magic button that gave you ten dollars now, but carried a high probability of altering your tastes, your routines, and the way you think, would you press it?<br>A subscription is that button.

A poignant scene from Black Mirror, “Common People”

Subscriptions versus goods

Buying a thing—like a kettlebell, a tablet, or a Chihuahua-sized raincoat—is relatively easy because you can just weigh the pros and cons of that specific item. Granted, advertising exerts a major psychological influence, and clever store layouts prove our purchasing whims are, to a large extent, manufactured. But there are straightforward strategies to overcome these psychological foibles: don’t shop when you’re hungry, wait a week before hitting “buy,” and return the items you never use.<br>A subscription is an access pass to some sort of good, like a selection of TV shows or warranty plan. It is inherently future oriented: you are purchasing a set of possibilities for a future time period, thereby giving your future self more choice. This gives you additional options, yes--- which is the favorable part of the equation--- but it also changes your future behavior, sometimes substantially.<br>There’s no clear delineation here between because all goods change your psychological makeup. The presence of a physical object doesn’t immunize you against subscription-like effects. Many physical goods are simply hardware anchors for ongoing subscriptions. My chief concern here is with the entire class of products—whether digital services or plastic and silicon—that operate as significant, continuous influences on your future behavior.<br>Even good subscriptions are hard to evaluate rationally

Some subscriptions are just bad deals. For instance, gym memberships are subsidized by people who barely go to the gym and would be better served by buying day passes. Those people would be economically better off dropping their gym membership if they know they aren’t going to use it.<br>However, even worthwhile subscriptions have consequences that are fundamentally complex and difficult to analyze. Take my Uber One membership. Is it helpful? Well, it makes ordering food significantly cheaper, but I’ve also ordered more takeout. Is this worth it? Did I really consider this when I subscribed?<br>There are great, worthwhile subscriptions out there. Insurance is a lifesaver and prevents millions of people each year from losing their homes while giving them peace of mind. Costco inspires a loyalty that borders on the theological. All of these seem to have positive utility for the people who use them.<br>My key point is that matter how good the deal is, a subscription shifts the subscriber’s preferences. People who subscribed to Costco have been morphed, changed, transformed from their pre-Costco selves into people who shop at Costco. They buy more at Costco because it is cheaper, and prefer it to alternatives. They may buy different things and have slightly different preferences.<br>This psychological nudging is also a factor for goods themselves. “If I buy this running shoe,” one might think, “I am more likely to run in the future and thus buy many additional pairs of running shoes.” Yes, this is true, but it’s a much weaker compulsion. Substantial research has proven that subscriptions have high magnitude effects on consumer behavior. Most products (with some notable exceptions, such as Apple products) don’t function this way.<br>You can only limit the psychological effects by limiting your benefits

Buying a subscription will, in the vast majority of circumstances, change who you are.<br>You can, of course, try to discipline your way out of this trap. If you already order takeout three times a month, vow to never increase that frequency, and find that Uber One makes those exact orders cheaper—by all means, partake. You can treat an HBO subscription as a purchase of one month of Game of Thrones, and no other shows. Then the purchase becomes like a good, and you can once again manage the pros and cons.<br>However, playing it that safe means leaving a lot of value on the...