Shadowing Practice: Why Owning Nothing Is So Expensive - Learn English Speaking with Video
בחר מצב תרגול
כל מצב פותח חדר תרגול במסך מלא.
272 משפטים
אם המשפטים קצרים או ארוכים מדי, לחץ על ערוך כדי להתאים אותם.
1
This printer costs $160, but HP would probably prefer it if you paid $8 a month to rent it instead.
2
That might not sound like a lot, until you realize the subscription locks you in to a two-year commitment.
3
After two years, you'll have spent $192 — 20% more than it would have cost to buy the printer outright.
4
The subscription includes ink, but HP artificially limits how many pages you can print each month.
5
Exceed that and it charges you more.
6
But it gets worse.
7
After those two years, you still won't own this.
8
HP's Terms of Service explicitly state you do not own HP device and subscription cartridges was provided,
9
even if you complete the entire subscription term.
10
Over the past 20 years, subscriptions have taken over our economy.
11
You can't buy a car today without — it seems like a half dozen subscriptions.
12
I'm powerless.
13
I just turn up one day and suddenly I've got to pay more money.
14
But the cost isn't the only problem.
15
If everything is a subscription, we won't actually own anything. are fed up.
16
And some are fighting for the right to own what they buy.
17
It's a matter of liberty.
18
Am I free to own things or should I rent independently?
19
But challenging subscriptions means taking on some of the largest companies in the world.
20
A whole bunch of industries that are not trying to make their products or services better.
21
They're trying to find new ways to earn money from consumers every month.
22
So how did we get to the point where practically everything is a subscription?
23
And why is owning nothing making everything so expensive?
24
Subscriptions feel modern, but they've been around for centuries.
25
Americans used pay-as-you-go for newspapers, magazines, milk, and even fruit.
26
Technology enabled companies to turn anything into a subscription.
27
Consumers knew they were subscribing to a newspaper because it landed on their doorstep every morning.
28
The fact that consumers are paying for services that they're not actually using is a trend that technology has enabled.
29
It started with cable.
30
For decades, most TV channels were free and there weren't many options.
31
Don't miss this wonderful chance to get a Captain video picture ring.
32
But that changed in the 1970s.
33
Satellites enabled nationwide broadcasting, and the government allowed more channels on the air.
34
The first company to leverage this lucrative technology was HBO.
35
It realized that consumers would pay monthly to access its curated channel.
36
Cable was an early example of paying for a subscription without getting a physical product in return.
37
And it was wildly successful.
38
is that there's gonna be a huge demand for material very shortly in a couple of years for cable.
39
HBO signed up over 14 million subscribers in a decade.
40
And by the mid-1980s, dozens of channels had followed its lead.
41
I want my MTV!
42
The percentage of households with a cable subscription jumped from 7.5% in 1970 to around 67% by 1999.
43
But that was just the beginning.
44
Starting in the 1990s, internet providers like AOL connected millions of Americans using subscriptions.
45
You've got mail.
46
And consumers started shopping online.
47
Companies pretty quickly understood that this new structure of the relationship with consumers gave them opportunities,
48
not for like a one-time payment, but for an ongoing monthly revenue stream.
49
Companies took something that consumers used to buy once and instead asked them to pay continuously for access.
50
Like software from Salesforce, music from Rhapsody, and online games from Blizzard.
51
World of Warcraft.
52
Try it for free at Warcraft.com.
53
Right in T4T.
54
This shift turned products into services.
55
There's so many people and so many internet users, and for us this is the beginning.
56
This sacrifice, this trade-off of control for convenience, right?
57
Improved online payment systems reduced friction.
58
And as e-commerce grew, subscriptions popped up for every aspect of daily life.
59
But the rise of smartphones is what solidified this transformation in the late 2000s.
60
For the first time on a mobile device, you can have the internet in your pocket.
61
Using apps had become a daily routine.
62
And it didn't take long for some developers to start charging small monthly fees for them.
63
The subscription economy has grown from a small set of goods and services to almost everything you can think about.
64
Even Sleeping has a subscription now.
65
The company AteSleep sells a smart mattress cover that costs over $3,000.
66
Most of its functionality is locked behind a $17 monthly fee.
67
That subscription is mandatory for at least your first year.
68
I probably have 10 to 20 monthly subscriptions.
69
Am I allowed to use the word in shittification here?
70
Netflix, Hulu.
71
Dropbox.
72
Vogue.
73
HBO Max.
74
Google Storage.
75
Apple TV, New Yorker.
76
Amazon Prime.
77
YouTube TV, my local YMCA.
78
I do actually pay for Peacock.
79
NBA League Pass, you do not get access to local games.
80
If I want to watch a Knicks game, I have to subscribe to a totally different service.
81
I'm convinced that there's just like a few hiding that I don't know about.
82
Oh, Spotify.
83
Oh my gosh.
84
It's really impossible to have one service that gives you everything you actually want.
85
Technology proliferated subscriptions, but the reason they're everywhere is because they make companies a lot of money.
86
Subscriptions give companies recurring revenue, something investors love.
87
And subscriptions are sticky.
88
They're good at retaining users because most are automatic.
89
People are four times more likely to cancel when they have to make an active choice.
90
That allows them to make more money than they would with more transparent pricing schemes.
91
Neal and his colleagues found that companies earn as much as 200% more revenue thanks to inattentive subscribers.
92
has figured out that this is a profitable business model and they've been moving towards it to maximize their profits.
93
One company doing exactly that is Adobe.
94
It's been selling software since the 1980s, typically releasing a new version every year or two.
95
But in 2012, the company launched its Creative Cloud subscription.
96
Instead of allowing consumers to buy the software once and upgrading when they want, Adobe now sells all of its apps bundled together for a monthly fee.
97
So if you want permanent access, you need to keep paying.
98
Even after you've spent way more than the software used to cost.
99
Adobe faced heavy criticism for its decision.
100
But there's no doubt it transformed the company.
101
Three years after launching Creative Cloud, revenue was higher than ever.
102
In 2024, it soared to $21.5 billion, over five times higher than before Adobe launched the subscription service.
103
Adobe really was a pioneer in realizing
104
that they can squeeze a lot more revenue out of consumers
105
by signing them up for subscriptions rather than selling software and letting consumers keep it and use it however they want.
106
Another company that's made a fortune off subscriptions is Apple.
107
Since 2015, it has launched at least eight subscriptions.
108
Now when you buy an Apple Watch, the company hopes you'll also subscribe to Fitness Plus and Apple Music.
109
Of course, you'll also want to protect it with AppleCare.
110
Annually, these cost about the same as the Apple Watch itself.
111
Apple's been remarkably successful at finding new ways to squeeze money out of its customers.
112
services revenue, which includes subscriptions, rose from around $20 billion in 2015 to over $96 billion in 2024.
113
Subscriptions, from a company's perspective, is the way to go.
114
The real question for me is, is it the way to go for consumers?
115
At first, many subscriptions may seem like a good deal for the convenience they offer.
116
But the lifetime costs are more opaque.
117
Take a look at this subscription from computer hardware company NZXT.
118
It lets you rent a gaming PC, with the option to cancel at any time.
119
The middle tier costs $129 per month, which might appear like a steal.
120
But let's do some math.
121
It'll only take 15 months to spend more than the value of the computer itself.
122
It's common for a PC to last more than five years.
123
In that time span, you'll have paid NZXT over $7,700 through its subscription.
124
For that amount, you can buy the PC four times over.
125
Other companies entice users with free trials or sign-up promos, hoping they'll stick around even after the subscription outlives its value.
126
It's becoming almost anti-customer, where it feels personally, as a customer, that I'm preyed upon.
127
And the problem isn't just that the cost adds up over time.
128
Many companies purposefully make it difficult to cancel.
129
Dark patterns are when a company designs a user interface, like a website, to deliberately trick or deceive customers.
130
companies have consumers' payment information.
131
Charging people is frictionless.
132
Raising prices is easy.
133
And canceling subscriptions can be really hard.
134
Sam Levine was director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection under Joe Biden.
135
What I saw during my time of government is some of
136
the biggest companies in the world were some of the biggest abusers of subscriptions.
137
The FTC sued Amazon in 2023 and Adobe the year after,
138
arguing the companies tricked users into signing up for subscriptions and made it deliberately difficult to cancel.
139
Let's take a look at Adobe's Creative Cloud.
140
It defaults to a plan that looks like it's month-to-month, but it's actually a year-long commitment.
141
The FTC said Adobe didn't clearly state that customers needed to pay a fee to unsubscribe early.
142
These fees were so big and so important to Adobe's bottom line
143
that one executive Adobe described it as being like heroin in how addicted the company was to these fees.
144
Adobe declined Business Insider's request for comment.
145
In 2024, it told The Verge that the quote was taken out of context
146
and said cancellation fees made up only a small part of Adobe's revenue.
147
Folks who rely on Adobe services and Adobe products
148
and end up getting ripped off by a company that is charging them huge fees and making it really difficult to cancel.
149
Adobe appears to be making its subscription terms clearer.
150
Screenshots from 2017 show that users had to click into the fine print to learn about the cancellation fee.
151
The FTC's case showed that in 2023, Adobe's signup page mentioned a fee, but didn't immediately disclose the amount.
152
As of December 2025, it states up front that users must pay half your remaining annual commitment,
153
which could cost hundreds of dollars.
154
The FTC's case is still in litigation, but others have already been successful.
155
It should be as easy to unsubscribe than it is to subscribe, but it doesn't feel like that's the mechanism that most businesses are going for.
156
The FTC was working on a rule called click to cancel that aimed to make cancelling as easy as signing up.
157
The rule was hugely popular, but earlier this year, the Eighth Circuit, one of the federal courts, struck down the rule on procedural grounds,
158
saying that industry should have had more chances to weigh in on the rule.
159
And there's no indication that the Trump administration is planning to continue work on the rule.
160
Removing subscriptions from your life isn't easy.
161
As companies connect more products to the internet, the distinction between owning and paying for access gets blurrier.
162
Printers, security cameras, exercise equipment, and even cars all limit features behind subscriptions.
163
These are all things that are software dependent, and so when you don't have control over the software code,
164
that means you don't have control over the physical product itself.
165
Sometimes that means features get added, features get taken away without the consumer's consent.
166
It even gets to whether the device continues to operate at all.
167
Aaron co-wrote a book in 2016 called The End of Ownership.
168
Since then, he's only become more pessimistic.
169
I think things are worse than we imagined they would be.
170
Our daily behavior is really built around the idea that the things that we use every day are within our exclusive control.
171
And I think when we move away from that, what's the model for what a non-ownership economy looks like?
172
There's some very smart people out there who, you know, describe this as a kind of return to feudalism.
173
A world in which we don't own anything,
174
we don't control anything, And the benefits of these resources are sort of,
175
you know, hoarded by the handful of technology and media companies that control our access to them.
176
Mergers further concentrated this control.
177
And with less competition, prices could rise.
178
They're in a much better position to sort of eliminate consumer surplus
179
and push consumers to paying the maximum price that they can bear.
180
That might look good for a handful of companies, but I think ultimately it's pretty harmful for society as a whole.
181
The erosion of ownership has already happened to media.
182
In 2024, 84% of US recorded music revenue came from streaming.
183
Physical sales accounted for 11%.
184
It's even lower for movies and TV shows.
185
Spending on physical media made up less than 2% of revenue.
186
Consumers don't own the majority of media they consume.
187
Which means they give up the right to resell it, loan it to a friend, or pass their collection down through generations.
188
When Netflix blocked password sharing, it made this imbalance clear.
189
When you move to digital, those secondary markets are essentially eliminated.
190
And that's something that a lot of publishers, studios, video game developers, that they've been hoping for for a very long time.
191
A growing number of consumers don't want ownership to die.
192
Take a look at this graph.
193
Since 2005, the number of vinyl records shipped grew by over 1200%.
194
It's an old idea to physically hold something and look at it, but at the end of the day, it just feels good.
195
It's wonderful to be a part of this re-emergence of a physical life
196
that I think people are really missing in an age of complete digitization and dehumanization.
197
This neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, sees itself as fighting against that dehumanization.
198
Shop owners refer to it as Analog Alley.
199
Because within a few blocks, you'll find board games, books, records, and VHS tapes.
200
After one night of complaining one too many times, Jess yelled at me to start the store.
201
So we started the store.
202
Pretty much that's what happened, yeah.
203
Night Owl Video's merchandise proudly declares, death to streamers.
204
I think the pitch from these streamers when they started was affordability and accessibility of great movies.
205
And now it's the complete opposite because they've started making their own movies and and they want to push those onto people,
206
removing the titles that clearly people actually want to watch.
207
While prices started out low, every major streamer has increased the cost of its subscriptions.
208
You're being fed from an algorithm and fooled into thinking that this algorithm is super, super tailored for your particular taste.
209
You're probably just going to end up scrolling for an hour and not finding anything you want to watch anyway.
210
Jess and Aaron hope Night Owl's human curation reminds patrons they don't have to let an algorithm pick their next movie.
211
For your consideration, Spirited Away, this is like, pretty rare.
212
Night Owl offers an estimated 8 to 10,000 movies on DVD, Blu-ray, and VHS.
213
When I tried to order copies to the distributor too, I couldn't get them.
214
They're backordered.
215
Young Frankenstein is backordered.
216
It's really cool to see a younger generation who didn't necessarily grow up buying DVDs like we did,
217
embracing that idea, really enjoying it and enjoying searching through the stacks to find great stuff.
218
DVDs and Blu-rays haven't experienced the same comeback vinyl has.
219
But for Night Owl, selling dead media has been a success.
220
A physical collection comes with tangible benefits.
221
Streaming catalogs change all the time as licenses swap hands
222
or companies like Disney remove titles to write them off as financial losses.
223
Blu-rays can also look and sound better than streaming because they're less compressed.
224
The quality doesn't change depending on your internet speed.
225
But more importantly, curating a collection is the way Jess and Aaron show their love for their favorite media.
226
Everything has devalued art in almost every way.
227
I think that it's really important to preserve the films that you love and to really experience them.
228
The expressions on a lot of people's faces when they come in, it's like, wow, this still exists.
229
It's really a nice thing.
230
Fighting the subscription trend became a personal mission for James Kuda too.
231
I deeply hate subscriptions, unless they make sense.
232
His company, Procreate, has become wildly successful by asking its users to buy its apps once.
233
Yes, we would technically make more money if we were going down a subscription route.
234
We're all in business to generate revenue, but I think the other part of that story is we're here to generate revenue and provide value to the customer,
235
and I think that part is just not being evaluated.
236
We're sort of prioritizing revenue generation at the expense of the customer.
237
I think that creates quite a lot of brand damage
238
because you're not eliciting a feeling of joy or fun when you're interacting with that brand.
239
You're creating a sense of aggravation and a feeling of entrapment, which customers don't forget.
240
Gamers are feeling the aggravation too.
241
Microtransactions, battle passes, and online-only functionality are all too familiar in modern gaming.
242
The customer should have more, basically, freedom to own their media.
243
Because the more of the control lies with the company that either distributes or creates the ecosystem,
244
the more opportunities for unfair practices.
245
They are becoming the standard, and no one knows that they're unfair anymore, because they haven't seen anything else.
246
The platform GOG is committed to preserving retro games.
247
But even with new titles, it offers users an offline installer without digital restrictions.
248
That means you can install a game even if the publisher no longer sells or supports it.
249
The aim was to solve that for consumers
250
and to build a digital distribution platform that would keep the good things about physical distribution,
251
but move them into the more convenient digital era.
252
You have the files, but they're yours.
253
You can keep them.
254
It's a matter of liberty.
255
It's a matter of whether I can actually own something and whether a company takes something away from me.
256
Am I free to own things?
257
Is that okay for me to own or should I rent indefinitely?
258
We're not delusional.
259
I don't think streamers are necessarily going anywhere, but I do think that people are going to become more aware of how they're spending their money on entertainment.
260
Consumers should make whatever choices work for them.
261
I'm not here to tell everybody that they're wrong for having a Spotify subscription and everybody just needs to buy vinyl records.
262
But one of the things that troubles me is that for people who want to buy tangible copies, that's becoming increasingly difficult to do.
263
There are products that many of us no longer want
264
and we're still subscribed to and that's generating revenue for those companies
265
and it means that a new company which is offering a product that we do want, they may not have an opportunity because our money is tied up somewhere else.
266
But the FTC is going to keep playing whack-a-mole unless it actually issues a a rule
267
that applies to every company in the economy saying you can't trap people in subscriptions
268
and you can't lie to people when they're signing up.
269
What worries me is I think the status quo is more desirable to the companies
270
that control these markets and I don't think they're likely to yield that control without a real fight.
271
Thank you.
272
Thank you.
הורד אפליקציה
כל מה שאתה צריך כדי לדבר בשטף
הגיית AIציון לכל משפט
תרגול IPAשלוט בכל צליל
אוצר מיליםבנה את מאגר המילים שלך
משחק אוצר מיליםלמד תוך כדי משחק
אותו ערוץ
C11
Vanilla Is The 2nd Most Expensive Spice. So Why Do Madagascar's Farmers Live In Poverty?
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
C11
Why Matsutake Mushrooms Are So Expensive | So Expensive
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B2The Rise And Fall Of The Mall
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
Why Cashew Nuts Are So Expensive | So Expensive | Business Insider
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
Why Rolls-Royce Cars Are More Expensive Than Ever (with Supercar Blondie) | Well Spent
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B27
Sneaky Ways Fast Food Restaurants Get You To Spend Money
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
Why Japan Can't Keep Up With America's Matcha Obsession | So Expensive | Business Insider
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B25
Why FIFA Spends Millions On World Cup Grass
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
Why This Watch Costs Over $450,000
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B23
The Rise And Fall Of Forever 21 | Rise And Fall | Business Insider
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
How Toxic Green Mussels Feed Millions In Indonesia's Biggest City
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B24
The Real Reason Disney Is So Expensive
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
Tony Robbins One-On-One Coaching Session
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B22
Can Bamboo Replace Paper And Plastic? And Should It? | World Wide Waste | Business Insider
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C19
Why Single-Origin Coffee Is So Expensive | So Expensive | Business Insider
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B27
Why Mangosteen, The Viral TikTok Fruit, Is So Expensive | So Expensive | Business Insider
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B26
Why Stockfish Is So Expensive | So Expensive Food | Business Insider
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
How Ultra-Processed Foods Took Over America And Can Even Pass For Healthy | Business Insider
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
Why Steinway Grand Pianos Are So Expensive | So Expensive
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
This is how much it would cost to follow Argentina through to the finals at the #2026WorldCup. #FIFA
Travel EnglishWorking Adults
FOR YOU
המלץ על סרטון
B28
189 משפטים
I am begging you to get rid of your stuff (seriously).
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
267 משפטים
ALL OF BUSINESS Explained in 20 Minutes
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B25
205 משפטים
The New American Housing Crisis Has Landed
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
38 משפטים
What Will TV Look Like In 3 Years?
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B22
119 משפטים
Crypto Is a Brilliant Scam and I Can Prove It
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B24
124 משפטים
How AI Became More Expensive Than The Workers It Replaced
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B213
65 משפטים
It’s not you. Phones are designed to be addicting.
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B24
142 משפטים
The Internet Didn't Fail. It Was Taken.
American AccentBusiness EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B22
20 משפטים
How this overpriced jacket invaded corporate America
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B23
69 משפטים
How the rich avoid paying taxes
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
About This Lesson
Ready to boost your english speaking practice while learning about a fascinating economic trend? This lesson uses a video exploring how subscriptions are changing what we own—and costing us more. You’ll practice listening, pronunciation, and fluency by mimicking the speaker’s tone and pace. It’s perfect for IELTS speaking practice too, as it builds confidence in discussing real-world topics. Let’s dive in!
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Subscription lock-in: Being stuck in a long-term payment plan (e.g., "The two-year subscription lock-in made the printer more expensive").
- Curated: Carefully selected (e.g., "HBO’s curated channel offered unique shows").
- Ongoing revenue stream: Regular, continuous income for companies (e.g., "Subscriptions create an ongoing revenue stream").
- Artificially limited: Restricted on purpose (e.g., "The printer’s page count is artificially limited").
- Pay-as-you-go: Paying for what you use, not a fixed plan (e.g., "Newspapers once used a pay-as-you-go model").
Practice Tips: Master the Shadowing Technique
The video’s tone is conversational but informative—great for shadow speech practice! Here’s how to do it: Play a 5-second clip, pause, and repeat it immediately, matching the speaker’s speed and emphasis. Notice how they stress words like "expensive" or "liberty" to highlight key points. For tricky phrases like "ongoing revenue stream," slow down, break it into syllables, and practice until it flows. This shadowing technique trains your mouth to move like a native and improves listening comprehension. Do this daily, and you’ll soon feel more confident in your speaking—whether for IELTS or everyday conversations. You’ve got this!
דקדוק בסרטון הזה
המבנים שהדובר משתמש בהם הכי הרבה, עם המילים המדויקות מהסרטון:
| מבנה | בסרטון |
|---|---|
| הווה מושלם ממושך (Present perfect continuous) have/has been + -ing — פעולה שהתחילה בעבר ועדיין נמשכת עכשיו | they've been moving · It's been selling · they've been hoping |
| הווה מושלם (Present perfect) have/has + past participle — פעולה שקרתה בעבר ועדיין יש לה חשיבות או השפעה עכשיו | have taken · they've been · has enabled |
| סביל (Passive voice) be + past participle — הדגש הוא על מה שקורה, לא על מי שעושה את הפעולה | was provided · are fed · is locked |
| משפטי זיקה (Relative clauses) who / which + clause — מידע נוסף על אדם או דבר | people who want · company which is |
מהי טכניקת השאדואינג?
שאדואינג היא טכניקת למידת שפה מבוססת מדע שפותחה במקור להכשרת מתורגמנים מקצועיים ופופולרית על ידי הפוליגלוט ד"ר אלכסנדר ארגואלס. השיטה פשוטה אך עוצמתית: אתה מקשיב לאודיו באנגלית ילידית וחוזר עליו בקול רם מיד — כמו צל העוקב אחרי הדובר עם עיכוב של 1–2 שניות בלבד. בניגוד להאזנה פסיבית או תרגילי דקדוק, שאדואינג מכריח את המוח והשרירים בפה לעבד ולשחזר דפוסי דיבור אמיתיים בו זמנית. מחקרים מראים שזה משפר משמעותית את דיוק ההגייה, האינטונציה, הקצב, הדיבור המחובר, הבנת השמיעה ושטף הדיבור — מה שהופך אותו לאחת השיטות היעילות ביותר להכנה לIELTS Speaking ולתקשורת באנגלית בעולם האמיתי.