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Wayne Ingram: Today, is a very millennial based episode. We are talking subscriptions for everything, for literally everything. I think we got quite a lot to talk about here. This is inspired by Uber’s and Deliveroo’s recent decision’s to launch subscription based services, which has then bought into question, or rather bought to light, the fact that everything right now seems to be going subscription based.

Cem Yildiz: YouTube.

Wayne Ingram: YouTube.

Cem Yildiz: Popup’s saying, “Get rid of those ads.”

Wayne Ingram: Amazon.

Cem Yildiz: Amazon Prime telling you to buy everything.

Wayne Ingram: Yeah. Apple are really pushing their services business at the minute.

Cem Yildiz: Apple music. On it.

Wayne Ingram: Apple music. iCloud. I pay for my iCloud once a month for extra storage.

Cem Yildiz: Netflix.

Wayne Ingram: Netflix. Literally everything. Most software companies now don’t charge you for the software, they charge you for a subscription to the software. A lot of the software that I use to boost my productivity, is subscription based. I spend probably in the region over all of about 100 quid a month on subscription based stuff. Even to the point that when I buy technology now, I don’t buy it outright. I bought it on finance, which to me is like a subscription, to the [crosstalk 00:01:34] point that actually Apple have their own subscription program, with the upgrade program, which is essentially buying something on finance, except it’s a subscription because when the new phone comes out, you get to upgrade.

Cem Yildiz: I think these, thing all help with obviously cash flow as well.

Wayne Ingram: Well, that’s why I do it. I could put down two G’s on a MacBook, or I could pay 50 quid a month over three, four years.

Cem Yildiz: For the rest of your life.

Wayne Ingram: Once that’s done … The good thing about it, is it means you can budget, right? I’ve basically got myself a monthly budget on my Apple stuff. Once one device is paid off, it’s like, “Well, I know I can afford that same amount, so then, is there another device that might be …” Do you know what I mean?

Cem Yildiz: I think the good thing, what you can see here with these subscriptions services is just, it backs up what we say about millennials. Number one, you can clearly see convenience is a huge thing. You’ve got delivery. People are not cooking at home anymore. I think myself, I probably get in food, whether it’s delivery or Uber Eats, or Just Eat, it’s probably at least, I don’t know, three times a week.

Wayne Ingram: Yeah.

Cem Yildiz: When you get home, you just wanna quickly have something ready. I mean, I think I was on my way in an Uber back from the weekend and then on the way back in an Uber, I’m booking my food to arrive as soon as I get there. I think, this is a clear example that Millennials are valuing convenience.

Wayne Ingram: Yeah.

Cem Yildiz: At the same time, also stuff like entertainment is using up that dead time, whether it’s on your Audible, listening on the train to a book, because you don’t wanna hold the physical book and you wanna be doing stuff while you’re listening. You’ve also got like you said, Netflix, or whatever other online subscriptions you’ve got. I think you can see how these subscriptions are built in this sort of personality of what a millennial wants, from their life at the moment.

Wayne Ingram: The good thing about the subscription model is it works both ways, provided that the business itself, is actually providing good value with a subscription model and not just doing it for the sake of it. What a subscription model allows is for these businesses to stay in business, which if it’s something that provides value, I definitely would recommend subscribing to whatever it is. It means that they can continue doing what they’re doing.

Wayne Ingram: I mean, we, ourselves with the podcast have toyed with the idea of Patreon, which means that we can provide more and do more, because it costs money to produce a podcast. Still continuing the podcast be free, but if you want the extras, the stuff, then you sign up for the Patreon thing. So many podcasts have that business model. It just allows for complete ala carte lifestyle. It allows you to prioritize what you want to prioritize. I love this kind of pick and mix of what’s important to you thing, that you can do. With Uber, their subscription, their plan is to basically convince you to dump your car and just stick with an uber, which is something that I’d totally be on board with, if I needed a car enough.

Cem Yildiz: That’s the reason I haven’t got a car. I was like, “what’s the point?? I only use it to get myself to this station, or to pop to somewhere, or if I wanna get back from somewhere on a night out, or something like that.

Wayne Ingram: Yeah.

Cem Yildiz: It’s not really worth it. Again, like you said about the subscription, why it works so well for business is, is that it just means they’ve got these guaranteed income streams, which is why you get these services at such lower rates. I think Amazon have just done an amazing job of being that person that say, “Look. Me and you before we’re like, hell no on Prime.” What was it, like 99 pound, or 59 pound? It’s gone up and down a lot. At the time, it’s like, “Well, that’s too much, just to get delivery.” It’s amazing how they’ve sort of built this out into something that now offers multiple things, where it’s the next day Prime delivery, or it’s your Prime TV. I’m not sure what else they’ve got. Oh, you got food delivery as well. Stuff like that.

Wayne Ingram: Amazon Pantry is it?

Cem Yildiz: Yeah. They’ve built this whole eco system around a subscription service. I think these businesses are also eating it up. You’ve got Uber Eats and you’ve got Uber, the cars. It’s kind of interesting.

Wayne Ingram: The pretty interesting thing as well is it does allow you to budget quite well. So long as you keep track of what you’re actually subscribed to. That’s the rub. You do really have to keep track of what you subscribe to. TV for example, I very much, tell people not to bother having Sky. Disclaimer. You can have Sky if you want. Please [inaudible 00:05:48] with Sky, or any other network cable distribution service. I just encourage them to buy themselves an Apple TV or an Amazon Fire or whatever. Just subscribe to what they wanna subscribe to. You can be BBC iplay, you can get ITV, you can’t get channel four on an Apple TV which annoys the hell out of me.

Cem Yildiz: You can get it on the Amazon stick.

Wayne Ingram: You can get it on Amazon. Channel five. You can get all of your mainstream channels anyway, plus then you can get your Netflix, your Amazon, and Sky do now TV, which is like five quid a month for the entertainment package. They’ve got different packages. If you’re not using one, then you unsubscribe from that one, until there’s something on there that you do wanna watch. Now TV I subscribe to when Game Of Thrones is on TV. That’s pretty much it. I subscribed to that for a couple of months and then I cancel it.

Cem Yildiz: Yeah.

Wayne Ingram: I’m not using it anymore.

Cem Yildiz: And then usually they go, “Do you want a free month?” You’re like, “Why not?”

Wayne Ingram: Yeah, yeah. You can’t do that if you’re in a contract with a cable company and stuff. That’s where the subscription, it just allows so much flexibility and so much choice.

Cem Yildiz: One thing I just wanna sort of round this episode off on saying is actually as well, what you’re seeing is people are subscribing, because a lot of the time, these are modern companies, modern technology. They really understand the consumer and how they wanna do things. It’s like Uber. I just think it’s so clever in how you can track the driver, you can see who’s picking you up, you can see the price of how much it’s gonna cost you.

Cem Yildiz: Remember the days you’d get into a taxi with, I don’t know, a tenner in your pocket and you’re freaking out the whole way thinking, “If this goes over, I haven’t got the cash on me,” and stuff like that. Everything they’re now doing I just feel is, they really understand the consumer, which is why loads of people are like, “Okay. Take my money, because generally makes my life a lot easier.”

Wayne Ingram: Yeah. That’s the thing. It is all about convenience and choice. It’s just really interesting to see all of these other companies now, jumping onboard. The business model works. They onus on the companies is to make sure that the subscription model is good value. I think that’s where YouTube is struggling. They don’t really know how to provide that value properly through …

Cem Yildiz: I’d agree.

Wayne Ingram: Their subscription model. They’re trying to go to a premium model. He value of YouTube is in the videos, not in the lack of adverts …

Cem Yildiz: Yeah, exactly.

Wayne Ingram: and anything else.

Cem Yildiz: Until they can overflow that balance, which I think they’re trying to do now. They’re trying to jump on the whole Netflix bandwagon and producing their own content.

Wayne Ingram: Yep.

Cem Yildiz: At the moment, I feel like, no one’s going. Until they put a big show onto there, that’s exclusive, until they buy the rights to footballs games or whatever, it’s baseball games, or something big that you can only watch on YouTube, then I feel like they’re gonna really struggle.

Wayne Ingram: Yeah. I agree.

Cem Yildiz: To wrap it up. We are on top, millennials. We want convenience in pretty much everything. We want our food delivered. We want ourselves delivered.

Wayne Ingram: I legitimately, wanna put this out here, seeing as I have mentioned it now.

Cem Yildiz: Yeah.

Wayne Ingram: We have banded it about loads. We decided against it. I just wanna put the feelers out. I just wanna put the feelers out. Patreon guys. Would you want more for a subscription from us?

Cem Yildiz: They’re gonna wanna whole, lot more value.

Wayne Ingram: Just let us know. I’m intrigued as to, whether or not that’s something you’d be interested in.

Cem Yildiz: What would make you be willing to subscribe? What kind of content would need to be there …

Wayne Ingram: Yeah.

Cem Yildiz: to make it worth while?

Wayne Ingram: We’d love to do more. Our lives are busy. It’s difficult. We got bills to pay. Yeah. Let us know. Let us know if there is something that you would be interested in. Hit us up on Twitter, @PN_podcast, or drop us an email. Iamwayne@powerfulnonsense.com. He’s Cem@powerfulnonsense.com, spelled, C-E-E-M. Cool.

Cem Yildiz: Unless you pay for us through Patreon, you’re gonna see Wayne in your next Uber driver and me as your next delivery driver.

Wayne Ingram: Yeah. Maybe, maybe.

If you want any questions answered, or if you have any ideas for anythings you’d like us to address, send us an email, Wayne@powerfulnonsense.com or Cem@powerfulnonsense.com, or you can look us up on the Twitterz @PN_Podcast, and we will take it into consideration. And also, please do leave us a nice little review on the old iTunes. It really does help get the word out there for the show. Five stars or more, greatly appreciated.