mastodon.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit

Administered by:

Server stats:

383K
active users

Warner Crocker

Never sign up for a “lifetime” subscription offer or “lifetime” one time purchase.

Rolling Stone promised subscribers a 'lifetime' print magazine for just $99—now they’re canceling and readers are 'enraged' fortune.com/2024/06/05/rolling

@WarnerCrocker It would seem "lying with impunity" is the latest corporate business model.

@Badger_AF Marketing has always had that as part and parcel of the equation.

@WarnerCrocker What gets me is these people will still receive the content, just not the paper version. Rolling Stone should never have made this offer in the first place, mind, because it feels like everyone is devaluing magazines.

@craiggrannell Concur. Most marketing gimmicks don’t have the beneifit or wisdom of a vision beyond the immediate and in the end typically lead to devaluation when the opposite was in the intent.

@WarnerCrocker

One place where “lifetime offer” actually works, and is honored. It’s with the most reviled, hated, mocked, distrusted company around: Tesla.

For years they offered lifetime free unlimited Supercharging of select makes/models. My first 2013 Tesla offered it and I went for it. Put 120K mi on car in 7 years. Never paid a dime to charge. Traded it in in 2020 for another Tesla that was one of the last to offer the deal. In 4 years, ~90K mi so far, still never paid a dime to charge.

@brianstorms I don’t doubt at all what you’re saying. But 11 years isn’t much of a lifetime in the grand scheme of things.

@WarnerCrocker Lol, expected that reply.

It’s fine. Do the math on what 210,000 miles of gas station fillups would cost. About the same as a truckload full of mint retail copies of every Rolling Stone magazine issue ever published, for starters.

@brianstorms I knew you did. That math makes sense. Would need quite a few Tesla trucks to haul that load.

@WarnerCrocker I understood the limited shelf life of ‘lifetime subscription’ before I purchased one for TiVo DVR. That a format change from NTSC to something HD would probably be happening within a decade, etc. Either the content or the hardware or the indexing service (the TV guide and search) would obsolete the situation. As it lasted, it was still a good deal.

@WarnerCrocker

Really depends on the company. Lifetime at my taekwondo studio was worth it even if it isn’t literally lifetime.

Edit

I asked someone who worked there if the place was in trouble and this was a money grab.

Was told the owner saw this somewhere and it was a cool way to celebrate his 11th business anniversary.

Was worried when Covid struck a few months later(Noooo!!), but now, has saved me thousands.

@WarnerCrocker hasn’t this always meant the lifetime of the product? Rather than your life time? Still a scam but I like tautology.