This is an okay list of benefits of a subscription product, but the line "As long as churn stays low, you’re almost never going to see your income disappear overnight. With a native app, if people stop buying, you stop seeing income." left me wanting a bit more.
Keeping churn rates down is critical to success with subscription-based products, along with keeping customer acquisition costs low, so I'd be much more interested in hearing about strategies / innovations in those areas.
I hear you, but that's way outside of the scope of this post. Every single bullet point here could almost be a post in and of itself. The logic is pretty straightforward. With subscription apps, the likelihood of seeing money from that customer next month is pretty high. With a native app, the likelihood of seeing money from that customer next month is almost zero.
Keeping churn low has way too many potential variables. The quality of the product, the benefits or usefulness, the cost, customer support, and dozens of other things all ultimately play a role. Even the type of product could affect churn. Is it something that people only need occasionally or something that they'd use daily?
I honestly couldn't tell you how our churn manages to stay so low. If I had to guess, I'd say that it's focusing on making a high quality product and taking extremely good care of customers. We've never had someone tell us that they were canceling because of the quality of the product or support.
Keeping churn rates down is critical to success with subscription-based products, along with keeping customer acquisition costs low, so I'd be much more interested in hearing about strategies / innovations in those areas.