22 Memberships That Are Worth Your Money

You may have (or may have not) noticed that nowadays, almost everything we use has its own subscription or membership form. Especially apps or programs. Some have dubbed this situation the "subscription economy” and we can’t say we disagree with such a name.

In the last couple of years or so, many things that we used to buy with one-time purchases have now become subscription-based. That means that now, instead of buying a product to own, you have to constantly pay in order to have access to it and when you stop paying, you no longer have it.

As an example, let’s take music CDs. Back in the day, you used to buy and have it for all time (or at least until you decided to give/throw it away). So, one sale and that’s it, the companies had no way of knowing how much you listen to that CD or make money from those listens.

Now, buying CDs isn't that common, as people usually stream music on various platforms. While some of these services are paid, others are free, but come with ads (that the app makes money from) and other inconveniences that make people consider a subscription. And, well, we don’t have to tell you that this option is profitable for the companies. 

Besides, with streaming services, artists can see how much their music is listened to, what songs are the most popular, and things like that. Still, that doesn't mean that they no longer try to sell CDs or vinyl records – oh, they surely do. And they keep coming up with various ways to draw fans’ interest in buying. 

For instance, selling different versions of vinyl. Some fans, driven by the desire to collect things from their favorite artists, buy at least one version, if not more, driving up the sales of the record. Artists such as Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, and many others have done similar things in recent times.

Different versions aren’t the only way to sway the fans to buy physical albums. In the South Korean entertainment industry, selling limited edition photocards of artists, a common collectible among the fans, isn’t uncommon. 

For example, recently rapper, singer, and songwriter G-Dragon released his new album Übermensch. There were various versions of it for fans to buy, which included photocards, as well as the photocard book with an NFC chip. This made fans to want to purchase at least one (or often more than one) version of the album, so they could get their hands on limited edition photocards.

While current artists get slammed for finding ways to sell various versions of their records, it should be noted that this concept isn’t new. Back in 1979, Led Zeppelin released their album In Through the Out Door with different versions of the cover. Other artists like The Beatles and David Bowie have made different versions of their records too.

The only difference between artists back then and now is that the music fans buy with physical objects is reachable via streaming nowadays. Yet, as we already acknowledged, it’s dependent on programs which have the ability to limit, alter or remove the product.  

That’s why physical media is important. Purchasing an album means you own it, you will always have access to it, and no service can delete it on a whim. Additionally, quite often, physical media has better quality than streaming, only adding worth to physical objects.

Even so, that doesn’t mean that all subscriptions are worthless - there are definitely some worth paying money for and we have collected a full list of them. All of these options were suggested by netizens in an online thread under the question “What membership is worth every single penny?”.

And let’s just say the list is diverse – some of them you might have heard about or even subscribe to, while others might surprise you and maybe make you consider becoming a member. 

Do you have any other examples of memberships that are worth paying money for? Share with us in the comments!