Also Dropbox and services alike might be cheaper to host for yourself, like many other things in life - car repair or home improvements, but that only cuts it if you are savvy enough in that particular trade. Thats the first part where it adds value - it simplifies things a lot. The second part is the ecosystem of integrations and sharing, and this goes to many other services as well. I usualy host my own for a large majority of services since its low volume use a free or small instance on any cloud provider does the work, however I still have Netflix, GSuite, Drive, Play Music and a range of others since they give to me more value than just doing it myself or are not worth the time effort.

Also as a software engineer by trade I really hope more people start understanding that if you want baddass apps and games which constantly update and run on online servers, it has to cost money perpetually and you have to either pay for a subscription, look at ads, or have a freemium type of model to support the cost and eventually earn a couple bucks.

Compare subscription to Netflix vs. buying a movie on a DVD (and maybe ripping a personal backup copy). The former is a subscription - you stop paying (maybe because of financial emergency), no movie. The latter is a one-time purchase, after which you keep the thing you bought forever (so when shit hits the fan, you still can cheer yourself up with your favourite movie.

I know I definitely prefer buying over renting/subscribing. Businesses prefer the reverse. It's a conflict of interest.

It doesn't work with things like cloud storage. Stop paying, you lose your data. It also assumes that Netflix in this example wont go out of business.

The mental model is what is different. I pay X per month for Y value per month. Rather than, I pay X now for Y value forever. I may not use that Y value now, I may use it in 12 months time (for example, I still have DVDs in sealed packaging because I thought I needed the value up front).

Then I use Audible where I subscribe for X credits and once I use it on a book, I can use it indefinitely. I like that middle ground.

You could also never sever your Netflix subscription and still lose access to your favorite movie because their licensing agreement ran out.

Even in your example, ownership wins out because you have the -option- to sell your residual assets in a financial emergency. There's nothing you can resell with your Netflix subscription money since you're just paying for the temporary privilege to watch a movie you don't own that might not be there tomorrow.

If the business is still around.

That's a good comparison, because it makes clear that both approaches can have merit.

For content I'm likely to enjoy watching or listening to again in the future, I too would always prefer to have a permanent copy. The medium doesn't really matter, but having the control does.

However, I've also seen a lot of content on services like Netflix that I enjoyed watching once but maybe wouldn't ever want to watch again. I got to watch it for far less money than I would have had to pay to buy a permanent copy, but Netflix still got some money from me in return. This was a mutually beneficial arrangement.

It's all well and good to say "well, I just mean for me, personally" but I'm not sure it's adding to the public discourse without any further qualification.