Is it just me or is everyone feeling the drain of subscription fees? My wife bought a scale that also gives biometrics. The app is free, but you get ‘so much more’ with the subscription. Looking into the cost of this, I see that it is $129.99 a year or 19.99 a month.

It seems every app wants you to subscribe, but the cost is excessive. I don’t mind paying $12 a year to remove the ads from an app I use regularly and enjoy, but I don’t need all the bells and whistles for $10 to $20 a month. And I don’t need the reminders of all those features I’m missing out on every few times that I open the app.

Going back to the scale, it’s designed to not just weigh you, but to give you other biometrics as well… it’s those other features that made my wife buy it, at a much higher price, rather than buying a regular scale. So, if I buy the product, why should I pay monthly to use it? And if those added features cost money to maintain, well then figure out a cost structure that isn’t so expensive.

Small yearly subscriptions make sense when you want to continuously add features and content, or provide upgrades and maintenance. But just how many $10-$20 a month subscriptions can we manage? And do we really need to pay our scale that much? If it was just the scale, I could imagine a scenario where I’d be invested enough in what it provides to pay this much, but when it’s every product and app that does this, it’s simply unsustainable.