(Literal) Fruit of the Poison Tree

Modern Life is a Subscription

I try to keep this newsletter upbeat, positive, and affirmative. There are heroes and villains here, but I aim to spend more time and effort celebrating heroes than trashing villains. Or maybe there aren’t any real villains here, just people on their hustle with questionable values.

I’m not much of a complainer, so forgive me as I briefly indulge my inner Karen. I’d like to speak to the manager. And by manager, I mean the lead investor who’s figured out how to trick us overworked, inattentive suburban schmucks into buying another subscription we don’t need that we’ll instantly forget about for months.

My son is studying finance at UGA, maybe I should ask him if he’s learned about this model. The model is when you take practically any product and or service you can imagine and then you bully people into buying an open-ended subscription for said product or service, which quietly auto-renews week after week, month after month until you remember to cancel. The investor hopes people forget long enough to sell the robust revenue stream before the dreaded churn sets in. I have two annoying case studies for your consideration demonstrating that indeed, modern life is rubbish.

Workin’ At the Car Wash, Yeah

I’m not very fastidious; however, I like to keep my car reasonably clean.¹ It’s easier now that I don’t constantly drive kids around. Still, I take it to a place every few weeks about 15 minutes away where I can run it through an automated wash, then give it a once-over with a good vacuum and tools to clean the interior and windows. I like to get the cheapest wash - around ten bucks = which I consider a reasonable price for the service.

The place I’ve used for years has always had some sort of subscription model, but they never pushed it. They’d make it a little hard to find the cheapest option, but I’ve never been one for the rainbow-colored suds that smell like Hawaiian Tropic tanning oil. If it’s there, I’ll find it.

During the Pandemic years, a shiny new car wash appeared that’s much closer to my house. I drove up to the kiosk and a young guy in a golf shirt approached me. “What can I do for you,” he asked. I said I’d like the cheapest car wash, please.” He pitched me on a package deal, I could pay the same price and get a bundle of car washes. I said I wasn’t interested and he persisted. I can’t remember exactly what happened after that - I washed and cleaned my car as usual.

I didn’t like the hard-sell dynamic, and I decided I wouldn’t go back to that place. I drove the extra distance to go to the old place the next time. As I pulled up, a young guy greeted me at the kiosk, asking if I’d like to discuss a package deal. Then I looked at the sign and realized the name of the shop had changed. “Cheapest option,” I barked.

A couple months later Heather asked me about a charge on my credit card she didn’t recognize. After a quick online search, we figured out it was the nearby car wash, that they’d put me on a $20/month subscription. Heather called and sorted it out, and they offered to keep me on the subscription for a few months since I hadn’t known I’d been paying for it.

After going back a few times on the subscription, I drove up this morning, car filthy with fresh Bonnaroo mud.² A huge guy in a golf shirt poked his head in my window as I pulled up, shouting “Can I HELP you sir?” I said I thought I had a subscription and he said no, that had been terminated. Did I care to renew? I said I just wanted the cheapest option and he persisted, speaking very slowly as if I were mentally or hearing disabled. “Same price - as many washes as you want - GREAT deal.” I said no and he grudgingly scanned my card.

I love the setup of these places. I’ll pay up to $20 for the convenience they offer. I’ll also pay to avoid having to be on the receiving end of a hard sales pitch every single time I use their service.

Farm To Inbox

The other example I’ll have to obscure into more of a hypothetical because I don’t want to call out a particular brand I’ve soured on over the years. Here’s a hint: their central product - a seasonal fruit - has become far less reliably sweet over the years, and that’s a big part of my own growing dissatisfaction. luckily there are many other, often consistently better, options readily available.

The business is as much a brand as a service, and the brand has grown considerably over the years. They launched over a decade ago with a grassroots model, and the product was outstanding. I became a fan and an unpaid brand ambassador on social media. They have my information and they have data on me dating back to the beginning. The data would confirm that my loyalty waned as the brand grew in profile because it had lost its good will due to a string of disappointments.

I decided to visit a retail outlet today, and as usual they had a young guy running the stand. I gave him my order and he asked for my name. I told him my name, spelled it twice, and he said “You’re not in the system.” I asked if he’d just ring me up and he said he’d really rather get my information in the system. He said he’d get in trouble if he made a sale and didn’t get my customer information. I concluded that part of his job was to collect customer data and match every sale to an identified customer and contact information.

I told him in that case I’d pass, and finally he offered to make the sale. I don’t know if (likely) he couldn’t spell my name correctly or (less likely) they removed me from the active customer list since I probably haven’t made a purchase in a few years. It doesn’t matter, because it’s unlikely I’ll go back. I respect the goal of data collection, but I can’t respect putting that sort of pressure on young summer workers. I’m sure a sale with data is exponentially more valuable than a simple anonymous sale, but in my view a sale is a sale. We should never be pressured to share our contact information to buy fruit (although as I think about it I remember how much Kroger knows about my family and me).

The decline of this particular brand - which I strongly suspect is building scale through capital investment - includes an evergreen lesson in branding. As a trademark lawyer, I think about branding in terms of intellectual property. Famous brands grew to ubiquity by offering consistent high quality goods or services. If you can’t do that basic thing - offering something of superior quality under a brand - all other efforts are less effective. They had me, then they lost me because the once-excellent product became mediocre.

Reed’s Produce in Franklin - my go-to for Cherokee Purple tomatoes and several other key summer produce items. Brought to you by fruit flies.

In recent years I buy the farm stand version where they still make you sign every credit card receipt. No subscription, no tip screen, and no scaling strategies - just great produce from nearby farms. And fruit flies, as I’m reminded from time to time as I mix apple cider vinegar and dish soap for the 1,000th time. But for me, for my values, quality produce is non-negotiable. To me, summer is produce. And just like the car wash where I’ll pay them to leave me alone, I’ll go to great lengths to get the best summer produce I can find without a hassle. The flashy brand means less than nothing to me in this quest, it’s all about flavor.

If there’s a point to this, it’s that capitalism should be about rewarding people and companies for giving value, making our lives better. Convenience is part of that equation. I also noticed at the car wash today that they had the cheapest spray bottles that fell apart as you used them. There were four cars and a dozen empty spaces, and the attendant told me all the cleaning solution bottles were in use. The vacuum sucked. They didn’t offer a quality service because they’re not really in the car wash business: they’re in the subscription business.

1. At least clean enough so that Heather doesn’t make up her mind that I’m feral.

2. My son and I went to Bonnaroo yesterday to see Red Clay Strays and Tyler, The Creator, among others. The plan had been to take one of my kids each day for some one-on-one time. We got there and found the band about a half-hour before their scheduled set time, with the festival grounds vacated. They said we should get back in the car because the festival was about to make the cancelation announcement. We barely missed being stuck for many hours, and it looked like I’d taken my Audi muddin’.