Five models
Subscriptions
A listing handles the recurring part in one of five ways, and four of those five are easy to misread. This is the table that separates them.
There are no prices and no subscription amounts anywhere on this site. Rates change, and a stale number is worse than none. What is recorded here is the shape of the arrangement, never the size of it.
| Model | What it means | Listings | What ends |
|---|---|---|---|
| Membership Required | The hardware arrives. The product does not start until the membership does. | 1 | The listing states a twelve-month membership and does not state what happens in month thirteen. |
| Trial Included, Then Optional | Three months included is a start date and an end date. Listings print the first one. | 3 | The listing states a three-month included membership and does not name a single feature that stops when it lapses. |
| App Fee for Some Features | A listing that mentions an app fee at all is a listing worth reading twice. | 1 | There is no stated trial here and therefore no stated end. |
| No Fee Stated | This is a fact about the listing. It is not a fact about the product. | 17 | Nothing is stated to end, because nothing is stated to start. |
| No App, No Subscription | No account, no pairing, no terms page. The oldest arrangement in the catalog. | 28 | Nothing ends. |
How a listing lands in one of these
- If the listing names a membership as required for the product to do its stated job, it goes to membership required.
- If it names an included membership with a stated length, it goes to the trial model, whatever the marketing calls it.
- If it names an app fee and scopes it, even to say there is none for some features, it goes to the app fee model, because a scope implies a boundary.
- If it names an app or a connected feature but no fee at all, it goes to no fee stated. That is a fact about the listing and not about the product.
- If it names no app, no account and no fee anywhere, it goes to the not applicable group.
The five pages
Membership Required
The model where a device does not do its stated job without an active membership. What the listing states works, what it does not, and where the wording sits.
Trial Included, Then Optional
The model where a listing states an included membership window of a set length. What that window covers, and what is never said about the day after it ends.
App Fee for Some Features
The model where a listing raises the app fee question then draws a line around it. What the word standard does in the phrase no app fee for standard features.
No Fee Stated
The largest group in the catalog and the most misread. A listing naming no fee has not told you there is none. What the silence covers, and what it does not.
No App, No Subscription
Devices whose listings describe no companion app and no membership of any kind. The group where the running cost is a charging cable and nothing else.