

Ask HN: what would you pay a 50$/m subscription for? - petervandijck

Could be personal, or (perhaps more likely) work related. What tool, app, service would you pay $50/m for?
======
kmfrk
* Digital concierge health care. No crap booking an appointment with a GP two weeks from now to ask him about something that could be nothing.

* A full-program fitness regimen with tailored diet/nutrition/recipes and work-out regimens. I keep keep them up-to-date on the progress using my wirelessly synching Withings weight.

* Great, fresh fruit and vegetables sent to me every one or two weeks.

* Maybe a service where I can text legal questions (with a quota) to someone who can answer them - or find someone who does - for me.

* A decent internet connection where I can talk to support staff who can actually tell their ass from their elbow.

* Not for me, but I think there is a great business plan lying around for the person who has a big backlog of recipes. Recipes As a Service could be pretty interesting where all recipes and information are in the cloud.

* A gym that actually cares about my activity and commitment. Normally, the ideal customer to gyms is the January guy whose new year's resolution is never going to happen. A gym that actually nudges you and cares about your activity would be interesting. They can send me a poke, if I haven't visited the gym in a while, or if my weight hasn't changed for the better. Since a lot of this can be automated, it might not even take that much effort.

~~~
tzs
> A decent internet connection where I can talk to support staff who can
> actually tell their ass from their elbow

I've occasionally wished for some kind of certification program that works as
follows:

1\. I take a test that proves I'm not an idiot on the subject of consumer
product category X, and that I know how to do basic troubleshooting on
problems in category X. I've given a certification in this.

2\. When I call support for a problem in category X, I can tell them I'm a
certified X consumer, give then my certification #, and they can verify it.

3\. They then skip past all the "is the device plugged in?" and "have you
tried rebooting?" and so on crap, and forward the call to a higher level tech
who knows how to work with customers who know what they are doing.

~~~
PJones
You can get this from most places now:

'Hi, I was just running through the troubleshooting steps with one of your
colleagues and I got cut off. He said he was just going to put me on hold to
[order new router|arrange engineer|whatever you think is needed after your own
troubleshooting]'

This works for me 95% of the time.

~~~
SatvikBeri
Slightly sleazier version: use a similar trick to get a discount when ordering
new service, e.g. "I heard I could get a discount/fee waiver for plan X."

I don't consider this particularly sleazy because you can usually get the
discount anyway if you haggle, but it saves a lot of time.

~~~
PJones
This works even better if you know what the deals are ahead of time, either
from searching online or by knowing someone that works there.

------
aptimpropriety
I think it's worth listing the things people already pay $50 (or more) for:

-TV / Internet / Phone bundle

-Electricity

-Water

-Car insurance

-Gym memberships (?)

-Daycare

-Food

-Interest (home mortgages / loans etc.)

-Clothes

Almost all of the suggestions in this thread are effectively replacements for
one of the existing services in one of the categories above. That means you'd
have to beat the incumbents (challenges: investment, infrastructure,
partnerships, etc.), or create a new market demand. I love the idea though,
keep thinking. "If it were obvious, everyone would be doing it".

Things that come to mind: a personal trainer that is delivered through the
internet and scalable? Some kind of 'make my grocery list and just have me
pick it up' service? Financial engineering that decreases the interest on a
large pool of loans (ha!)?

------
manmal
1\. For timesavers. If it saves me 1 hour of my working time per month (and
reliably), I would buy it.

2\. For tools which create the opportunity to earn more or stabilize my
income, like bidsketch. E.g., a tool which makes project proposals a bullet-
proof thing (using a best-practice process framework or sthg), increasing my
freelancing client conversion rate.

3\. Networking with experts or professionals from areas to which I have no
access to (like dentists or steel industry). Because this might lead to
projects.

~~~
kvnn
I'm with you big time on #3. One of the coolest things to do with software is
building systems that solve industrial problems you didn't evev know about.

------
TomGullen
A service that let me watch any TV show, documentary or film on demand.

Current solutions don't seem to have enough coverage, selection nor are they
often up to date. I easily watch enough to justify $50 pm

~~~
gadders
With Newzbin and Usenet hosting it comes to nearly that anyway.

~~~
tatsuke95
This is my service of choice. People assume it's getting free stuff, when in
fact it's far more expensive than Netflix. But the choice is way better. I can
watch nearly anything, in a variety of formats (SD, 720p, 1080p, DD5.1)

If a service existed that was as good, I'd pay _more_ than $50 monthly. I pay
more than that for my terrible cable packages.

~~~
gadders
And you'd avoid all the cams, virii etc that people upload.

------
GotAnyMegadeth
Thats £30ish... Something that pays all of my bills on time, and checks
through my accounts and flags things that are unusual. It should probably be
researching to see who the best service providers are and switching
accordingly.

~~~
gadders
An article from the Economist [1] covers some of the latter idea:

A leader in this field is Cardlytics, a private American company founded in
2008. It has developed technology to analyse transaction data held by banks
and to use this information to sell targeted advertisements to retailers and
others. A supermarket might, for example, be interested in customers who spend
$100 or more a month at rival grocers but who have not entered its own stores
for six months. It might then offer these people a 20% discount on their next
shopping trip at its stores.

Cardlytics would insert an advertisement to this effect into these customers’
online-bank statements, ideally under a relevant transaction such as a payment
to a rival retailer. Customers can accept the discount online by clicking a
box. This connects the discount coupon to their debit card, so that the
discount is automatically rebated to their account when they meet the
conditions (by, for instance, shopping at the store within a certain period of
time).

[1] [http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-
economics/21565223...](http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-
economics/21565223-it-harder-make-money-banking-how-about-marketing-shopping-
bank)

------
gerhardi
50 bucks it is, so..

Personal:

\- If IMDB offered service with HD quality click-to-stream for every title
they have listed

\- Drop&collect laundry service for basic clothing

\- Home delivered grocery subscription for relatively cheap basic stuff which
don't rot quickly like pasta, rice, flour, cheese, butter, sugar, coffee,
spices, canned tomatoes, etc.

Work related:

\- Beefy enough VPS

\- Book-keeping for small business

\- Leased laptop

\- Seat in open floor co-working space with electricity and network
connectivity

~~~
kfk
What about purchasing/vendors management for small businesses? With low bid
auctions and request for proposal support?

~~~
gerhardi
That would seem good, but I don't personally need it at the moment. But I can
see it as a very helpful service for someone else!

------
dagw
A streaming Netflix+HBO+Spotify like service, but with a much better selection
and with a minimal delay between cinema/tv premier and showing up on the
service would make me seriously consider it. Throw in an NFL Game pass and
you've got yourself a deal.

On the more physical plane, I'd probably also seriously consider it for some
of laundry+ironing service that picks up and delivers to my apartment.

~~~
venus
> laundry+ironing service that picks up and delivers to my apartment

I'd pay $50 a _week_ for a high quality pick up/drop off laundry + ironing
service. Or probably more.

I wouldn't go so far to say laundry is the bane of my life but it's up there
and I'd pay a good sum to just make the whole problem disappear.

~~~
btilly
Get a housecleaner.

I'm serious. If you live in California, there are lots of women who will come
and clean your house for something like $10/hour. They would be glad to do
your laundry for you as part of that service. In the time that you describe,
one could go to the laundromat, wash your clothing, come back, fold and iron
it.

Of course if you dislike the idea of illegal immigration, or the idea of
taking advantage of its reality, don't do this. It will also make you
ineligible for higher political office.

~~~
venus
Unfortunately I don't live in a country where this kind of low wage underclass
exists. But still, I'm definitely thinking of getting a cleaner. I was just
thinking that a proper laundry with a clothes press could do a better job.

------
lazyjones
Personal: \- a rented cooking robot (I'd pay extra for ingredients) that
prepared 2 decent meals/day based on my needs, allergies ...

Work:

\- a remote service that checks all our systems immediately when issues such
as [http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Vulnerability-in-
Yaho...](http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Vulnerability-in-Yahoo-s-
JavaScript-framework-YUI-2-1741111.html) arise and notifies us if we're
affected

\- a well-maintained weekly digest of optimization/tuning suggestions for 3
technologies of our choice (e.g. PostgreSQL, Redis, Tomcat) where the source
of information is mailiing lists and the digest contains well-written, brief
articles instead of just a few e-mail threads

\- a decent virus filter for Linux/Unix that doesn't have licensing costs
depending on number of users, e-mail addresses, CPUs, servers (and
consequently doesn't waste resources for accounting)

------
brudgers
Better questions:

What services do successful SAS companies charge at least $50 per month for?

What makes their value proposition work at that price point?

What opportunities are there to offer competing services?

What opportunities are there to offer services with a similar value
proposition?

------
moocow01
On the personal front its pretty hard to think of anything besides stuff that
defies the laws of economics or current tech that I'd pay $50/m for.

If you asked me 5 years ago Id answer differently. Due to mostly internet
powered services a number of my monthly costs have dropped dramatically... My
home phone used to be $40/m and now is $4/m, Cable used to be $80 and is now
about $17 with Netflix/Hulu, Music used to cost me about $40/m for CDs/iTunes
and is now about $10 for streaming.

I guess the point is that taking those price points into consideration its
really difficult to think of something that would seem rationally priced at
$50.

Although if you streamed all new releases currently in the movie theater to my
TV I might bite.

------
joshmlewis
HD television channels easily streamed on my TV, iPhone, iPad, and computer.

Much like what Tivly is doing. The ability to record x amount of shows to go
back and watch anytime from anywhere on any device. It worked wonderfully on
the Harvard campus.

------
isalmon
Housecleaning! I don't know if it's possible to disrupt this industry right
now, but there are a lot of middlemen there. Although I know that people who
actually do the cleaning would agree to get $50 directly for cleaning 1br
apartment once a month.

~~~
tatsuke95
Actually saw someone trying to disrupt this on Dragon's Den.

It's a notoriously competitive space (nearly anyone can do the job) and labour
intensive, so it's hard to work out a model where you can get a cut and still
employ the workers. There are also liability issues; you are sending people to
work inside other people's homes.

That said, unless you are out in some village somewhere, it's very likely you
can find someone locally for that rate.

~~~
gadders
I was discussing the issues with cleaning companies here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4722332>

And I live in a village. Shops outside newsagents are the fallback position
for finding cleaners.

------
josscrowcroft
Right now: something that materially saves me at least 10 hours per month,
whether business or personal.

Soon: something that materially saves me at least 5 hours per month.

Ideally: something that materially saves me at least 2 hours per month.

This reflects how I currently value my time (I'm bootstrapping a finance data
service) and how I see that time value appreciating in the coming months

Edit: I realise this isn't particularly helpful, just seems relevant and it's
been on my mind :o)

~~~
brudgers
_"Right now: something that materially saves me at least 10 hours per month,
whether business or personal."_

This sort of response seems logical, but I think it is a mistake to use it as
an underlying assumption for a startup.

For some people, one hour of tediously managing the software in exchange for
eleven hours (ten hours net) of productivity might be worth it. For many
people, I suspect that the pain would be worse than the inefficiency.

It's not that some people wouldn't be attracted to a service based on this
idea. But rather that what saves you ten hours a month probably isn't the same
as what would save another entrepreneur 10 hours (let alone being something
that would scale).

In short the problem with the business model your comment suggests is that it
devolves into personal services, not SAS.

------
joewee
On a personal level I would pay $50 for a dating web site that guaranteed me a
date once a month.

It would automatically match me to someone it thinks I would be compatible
with. Assign me a date (day) and ideal venue for the dinner.

If the system is accurate in matching potential then worse case would be that
I make a new friend every month that has similar interest as me. Best case I
meet someone that is awesome.

------
blankenship
A home automation system with a mobile and desktop view that combined HVAC,
security (including door locking/unlocking), utility monitoring and billpay
for all those services (assuming they’re different vendors).

e.g. I’d love to defragment all those areas that make up “home”... some kind
of Nest + (non-ugly) Lockitron + Mint.com for utilities

------
elomarns
I would pay $50 for a Apple version of Netflix, including all iTunes Store
catalog.

But generally speaking, I would pay $50 for a high quality entertainment
service, or for something that highly improves my productivity at work.

If something provide me a big stream of fun or money, it will have $50 from
me, or even more.

------
nvk
I find $50/m too much for single services unless they add revenue to the
bottom line.

On that note, I submitted another thread shamelessly based on this one.

"Ask HN: Would you pay a 20$/m subscription for...?"
<http://hackerne.ws/item?id=4727420>

------
b3b0p
HBO with Go, on demand, PC, and on my Apple TV + Showtime Anytime, on demand,
PC, and on my Apple TV.

Something like FIOS or faster U-Verse (I currently have the 24 down / 3 up
service from U-Verse).

On demand handy man to help me get stuff done around the house.

------
blackstag
Any of the linode/heroku/aws services that would be hosted in Canada and
follow Canadian data laws/protections.

Some services do exist; They just do not have the quality, ease of use and
price points to be competitive.

------
tiernano
Personal: Internet connection, which for 2 cable modems into the house is
about EUR100 a month Dedicated Server, which is EUR60 a month for me My Mobile
Phone provider includes Office365 for EUR55 a month

------
citricsquid
Are you looking for services we wish existed and would pay $50/m for or
looking to find out the type of services that are important enough to pay
$50/m for? or both?

------
jbae29
I might be willing to spend that for renting a device like an ipad. And maybe
without a contract so I can use it for a few months and then try different
devices.

------
rsaarelm
An ebook system where I can read as much of I want of as many books as I want
from an Amazon-scale catalog as long as I keep paying the subscription.

------
AndrewDucker
TV.

All of it, available like music is on Spotify.

------
aaronsnoswell
A tutorial series or magazine subscription targeted at programmers wanting to
learn more design skills.

~~~
johnmurch
Have you seen <http://www.netmagazine.com> \- it's a UK magazine but has a lot
of great stuff (tutorials/design)

------
Sumaso
In a phrase: Netflix for computer games. Basically a better version of onlive.

~~~
ashmud
Similar: Bundle subscription or freemium (e.g., include X credits at every
month for the game store) MMO games from (at least) the major players under
one account. Keep the individual game accounts active across all games that
I've started, unless I explicitly choose to delete the specific game account.
Allow access from multiple computers -- don't lock it in to only one
"activated device". I'm only likely to be logged in to one game at a time.
There could be a premium tier that would allow being logged into multiple
(different) games at the same time from any of my computers.

------
tehwebguy
Car washing service that is done while I'm at the office.

~~~
andygcook
Check out <http://cherry.com>

------
kichik
Hulu clone that actually has all the shows I want.

------
hnwh
something that made me way more than $50/m

------
michaelochurch
To pay $600 per year for something "virtual" I would need a real career
benefit out of it.

Continuing career support tailored to high-talent individuals. Not tied to one
firm, not a recruiter trying to fill positions getting paid by the other side.
An industry expert who actually knew the ins and outs of each firm, how to
find the best projects, and who could make introductions to very high level
people-- including VCs and CTOs. Someone who could read the market across
domains-- who knew finance and startups at the same time and could compare the
markets. (Most recruiters only know one or the other.)

High-talent is a tiny market (< 1%) and this service probably doesn't scale.
And you'd probably have to charge a lot more-- maybe $250 per month. But
people would pay and it could become a lifestyle business.

