Monster of 2025: Endless Subscriptions |
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The staff of Mother Jones is, once again, rounding up the heroes and monsters of the past year. This is a non-exhaustive and totally subjective list, giving our reporters a chance to write about something that brought joy, discontent, or curiosity. Happy holidays.
The Hatch Restore alarm clock, which retails for $169, can light up your bedroom in every hue, soothe you to sleep with audio meditation sessions, and keep you in a REM cycle with a full catalogue of white noise options. To utilize these features, though, you need to pay an additional $4.99 per month, in perpetuity.
Welcome to the age of subscription captivity, where an increasing share of the things you pay for actually own you.
This rant isn’t really about streaming platforms. While I do wish there were fewer of them, their relatively low monthly fees give you access to ever-growing libraries of content that you can easily stop paying for when your beloved comedy series ends. Nor do I have it out for wine clubs, laundry services, gym memberships, or the like—businesses that offer discount pricing for frequent customers.
What vexes me are the companies that sell physical products for a hefty, upfront fee and........