Subscription Services Research Articles

Leveraging AI to Revolutionize Subscription Business Models

This article explores the transformative impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on subscription-based business models across various industries. It examines how AI is revolutionizing key aspects of subscription services, including personalization, customer retention, pricing strategies, customer support, operational efficiency, and fraud detection. The article highlights specific AI applications such as content recommendations, dynamic user interfaces, churn prediction, advanced customer segmentation, dynamic and usage-based pricing, AI-powered chatbots, and sentiment analysis. Additionally, it discusses how AI enhances operational efficiency through automated billing and inventory management, and improves security via anomaly detection and behavioral biometrics. Case studies of Adobe Creative Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are presented to illustrate real-world applications of AI in subscription services. The article concludes by emphasizing the paradigm shift AI represents in customer engagement, operational optimization, and revenue generation for subscription businesses, forecasting continued innovation and opportunities in this rapidly evolving sector.

Unveiling the Ethical Dilemmas of Digital Piracy: A Comprehensive Exploration of Motivations, Attitudes, and Behaviors

Driven by several elements, including the unwillingness to pay for material, the spread of subscription services, and the profitability of illegal activity, digital piracy has grown to be a common problem in the contemporary world. Along with financial damages for businesses and content creators, this phenomenon has legal repercussions for individuals involved in piracy and cybersecurity issues. The effective fight against digital piracy depends on an awareness of the drivers and hazards connected with this illegal activity. With an eye towards a thorough knowledge of this intricate problem, in this study, the focus centers on the reasons, attitudes, and actions behind digital piracy. Through examining how people defend their behavior in particular situations, in this study, the aim is to clarify the ethical issues and decision-making procedures related to piracy—even among otherwise law-abiding people. Combining a variety of the relevant literature and ideas, including situation ethics theory, in this study, we seek to provide insights for legislators, business players, and academics eager to meet the difficulties presented by digital piracy. This study adds to the continuous discussion on lessening the detrimental effects of digital piracy on content creators, businesses, and cybersecurity by looking at the underlying reasons for piracy and supporting legal access to material. Along with a dearth of research on the origins and moral questions of digital piracy, there is a lot of contradictory material. By examining the factors behind this unlawful activity, clarifying the complex dynamics involved, and offering understanding of the causes of digital piracy, this study seeks to close a significant void in the knowledge. The findings of this study will enable individuals to develop strategies for handling this prevalent issue in the digital era. Developing successful interventions that can reduce this illegal conduct and safeguard the interests of content producers, businesses, and cybersecurity overall depends on an awareness of the reasons behind digital piracy. This study advances the knowledge of the difficulties presented by this global phenomenon by investigating the ethical issues and decision-making procedures related to digital piracy.

Blockchain-Assisted Keyword Search Scheme for SWIM Service Based on Improved CSC-Cuckoo Filter

With the rapid development of the civil aviation industry, the demand for secure sharing of civil aviation data is increasing. As a global platform for secure sharing of civil aviation data, the security of the System Wide Information Management (SWIM) system is of great concern. SWIM adopts a service-oriented architecture and realizes the interaction of civil aviation data through a publish-subscribe model. To protect the service privacy while enabling subscribers to subscribe to the service quickly and securely, this paper proposes an efficient Circular Shift and Coalesce-Cuckoo Filter (CSC-CF)-based service Keyword Search (CCKS) scheme assisted by blockchain. This scheme uses the Symmetric-key Hidden Vector Encryption (SHVE) algorithm to encrypt and match service indexes and trapdoors to protect service privacy; the CSC-CF structure is applied to keyword search, which can effectively improve the efficiency of SWIM user subscription service. To improve search accuracy and space utilization, we propose the improved CCKS (ICCKS) scheme by optimizing the query algorithm of CSC-CF and setting a threshold for the number of keyword query failures. ICCKS improves search accuracy by 5–20% compared to CCKS when the filter’s space utilization is between 60 and 90%. Additionally, the scheme stores service topic indexes and registry on the blockchain and implements a smart contract to match indexes and subscription trapdoors, ensuring the integrity and trustworthiness of service topics and registry. Security analysis and experimental simulations demonstrate that the scheme is effective and secure in the SWIM system.

Life for rent: Evolving residential infrastructure in London and the rise of Build-to-Rent

Build-to-Rent (BTR) developments have expanded rapidly in the UK since 2013, often advertised as providing better quality rented accommodation for university-educated Millennials than available elsewhere in the private rental sector. However, the implications of this type of housing development, and especially its affordability, are poorly understood at the city scale, partly due to a lack of evidence of where these developments cluster and what they add to the housing stock in terms of property type, amenities and cost. This article draws on data relating to 373 BTR developments in London (representing over 40,000 housing units) to show that developments are clustered where transport-related infrastructural investments have opened ‘rent gaps’ that can be exploited by developers. Exploring how these BTR schemes are marketed, the article shows that this accommodation is typically provided through new short-term ‘subscription services’ which allow developers to rent property at a premium. Questioning whether BTRs really add affordable ‘local’ homes to the city, the article concludes that BTR provides ‘quick-fix’ rental accommodation which is doing little to solve London’s housing crisis. We focus on the London BTR market and how the expansion of this housing type is reshaping the sociospatial geographies of the city.

The Perception of Consumer Behaviors in Subscription Platforms for Surplus Food Restaurants-An Analytical View of the Technology Acceptance Model.

Subscription services have become popular in recent years, breaking the traditional business model of one-time payment and prompting operators to build long-term loyal relationships with their customers. As smartphones are popular in Taiwan and the Taiwanese have a high acceptance of new technologies, is it possible for domestic restaurants to reach a win-win situation for both consumers and restaurant operators and to reduce food waste through subscription services? The Technology Acceptance Model was used in this study to explore consumers' perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and attitudes toward restaurant subscription platforms, with two variables, new environmental paradigm and environmental behavior, added to probe the relations with intention to use. This study was conducted by convenience and snowball sampling, and the subjects were consumers eating out. A total of 400 questionnaires were collected and 369 valid ones were returned, with a response rate of 92.25%. The results show that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, new environmental paradigm, environmental behaviors, and attitude toward using have significant positive effects, and attitude toward using has the same effect on intention to use. In addition, attitude toward using has a mediating effect on perceived usefulness, new environmental paradigm, environmental behavior, and intention to use. Finally, it is expected that the results of this study can be used as a reference for restaurant operators to adopt subscription services in order to build long-term and stable relationships with consumers. Furthermore, new entrepreneurs can also evaluate the feasibility of building a subscription platform like this one, which can provide a convenient and economical option for consumers dining out, as well as reduce food waste.

Exploring the impact of paid over-the-top service and mobile network profiles in watching TV content on mobile devices

PurposeThe television (TV) content ecosystem has shifted from traditional broadcasting systems to dedicated content producers and over-the-top (OTT) services. However, less empirical effort has been paid to the actual behaviors of the mobile users who watch TV content when explaining the impact of OTT service and mobile network profiles in watching TV content. This study aims to investigate the impact of gratifications and attitude formed by mobile TV users on actual mobile TV watching behaviors, as well as the moderating impacts of paid OTT service subscriptions and mobile network profiles, based on gratification theory, cognition–affect–behavioral (CAB) framework, sunk cost effect and walled-garden effect.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs the generalized linear model (GLM) with generalized estimating equations (GEE) to test hypothesized relationships. A total of 338 mobile phone users who have been watching TV content using a mobile phone participated in the survey. The moderating variables, 4 types of paid streaming platform subscriptions, were classified based on the walled gardens formed by mobile telecom services.FindingsThe study’s results revealed that obtained gratifications and opportunity constructs substantially influenced a mobile phone user’s attitude and behaviors. Additionally, mobile network profiles and the degree of access to paid platform services played significant moderating roles in the relationship between users’ attitudes and behavior.Originality/valueThis research enriches the existing OTT service literature and is one of the pioneering studies investigating the walled-garden effect’s role in mobile phone users’ actual watching behaviors, offering valuable practical implications for the OTT platform providers.

Video-On-Demand Streaming Services Subscription Antecedents and Consequences: The Uses and Gratifications Theory Approach

Introduction: This study aims to examine the impact of affective gratification, tension release, cognitive gratification, perceived risk, and viewing addiction on subscription behavior as antecedents and its consequence namely customer engagement. Background Problems: The need for satisfaction is a trigger for media use. As time passes, research on media use through use and audience gratification approaches will always be needed, so this should be carried out in the context of streaming services. Novelty: This research focuses on streaming services using the uses and gratifications theory approach. Similar research has focused on the theoretical implications of usage attitudes, but this research has implications for actual usage behavior, namely subscription behavior. Research Methods: Data have been collected using an online survey with purposive sampling and then analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings: The results suggest that only five of the 13 hypotheses proposed are supported. Companionship and cognitive gratification do not affect subscription behavior, while perceived risk did not impact subscription behavior negatively. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that streaming service subscribers are more concerned with functional benefits, such as service usability, variety of content, entertainment, and relaxation media. Furthermore, the implications of this research provide benefits both theoretically and practically

Streaming Video Service Repertoire: Patterns, Drivers, and Decisions

ABSTRACT As subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) competition heats up with more newcomers beyond the quintessential Netflix, examining streaming video consumption from the perspective of an SVOD repertoire (a set of service subscriptions by a streaming user) can help the industry understand how consumers make decisions in forming their SVOD collection and their corresponding subscription patterns for marketing insights. Existing repertoire and SVOD studies still focus on users’ content selections and preferences, and the mechanisms and drivers affecting customer choices, without realizing that consumers are not seeking to pick the best SVOD out of all. Instead, consumers are attempting to curate an exquisite selection of services that satisfy their content needs for a reasonable price while avoiding streaming confusion (uncertainty about where to access the content) and fatigue (too many options). This study explored consumers’ SVOD repertoire within the U.S. context, investigating the SVOD repertoire patterns (size and composition) and differences in the SVOD repertoires regarding consumers’ demographics, media ecosystem, streaming behavior, and perceived repertoire adequacy through an online survey method. Through an analysis of responses from 1038 participants, the study demonstrated the value of the repertoire approach in examining SVOD subscriptions. Results showed the dynamic importance of certain SVOD services and configuration changes of one’s repertoire according to size. Netflix (as the likely core), Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu (as the two most likely complements) were the most subscribed SVODs. Differences were found in demographics, media ecosystem, streaming behavior, and perceived repertoire adequacy of users across different SVOD repertoire types.

Analyzing Consumer Adoption in Subscription Services: Perceived Benefits, Sacrifices, and Innovativeness

Analyzing Consumer Adoption in Subscription Services: Perceived Benefits, Sacrifices, and Innovativeness

Enhancing Agriculture through AloT and Data Analytics Middleware

Middleware in Agriculture delves into the data analytics role of systematic Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) in convergence agriculture with smart farming. AIoT devices, remote diagnostic data analytics platforms, data analytics, formal recognition, and vision learning have generated both the amount and nature of work in rural areas. The reason for the developing changes in the global population by age is the bias in the distribution of food resources, as well as changes in climate change and the soil condition of compost. Data scientists are soon attempting to dive convergence Internet of Things (IoT) advances in savvy cultivating to support ranchers in producing better seeds, crop assurance, and manures utilizing AIoT convergence technology[1]. This distinguishes consumer-provider-administrator as a service subscriber roleon the platform, which goes for earning the nation's economy and the profitability of ranchers. The central regions where AIoT begins to emerge are agricultural robots, scrutiny, and soil and yield observation. While middleware technology for data analysis is applied, there is a great advantage of analyzing regional observation data at a real-time level. Based on this analysis method, it will spread to high-tech industries connected to production, processing, and consumption, which are subdivided areas of each precision agriculture. In this sense, ranchers are utilizing sensors for data analysis and soil information in a detailed way to gather a model that the executives dynamic platforms might use for further examination. Through an outline of real-time data analytics AIoT applications in the farming convergence industry, this paper tries a trust data basement forecast to the farming protocols[2]. It starts with a roadmap to the AIoT and an investigation of real-time data strategies utilized in the horticultural industry data analytics using Universal Middleware, service platforms, vision learning, and dynamic statistics. This study advances a dynamic platform examination of the literature on data resources and how AIoT is utilized in farming convergence. This study looked at the unstructured systems of modern agriculture, divided these processes into devices and services, and presented a systematic formalization model. It should contribute to the integration of segmented data connectivity in the AIoT field. The enhanced research model contributes to the discovery of numerous untapped additional services between devices and services.

Passive Innovation Resistance in Digital Subscription Services

Passive Innovation Resistance in Digital Subscription Services

The Double-Edged Sword of App Subscription Services: Signaling Effects on User-Perceived Quality

The Double-Edged Sword of App Subscription Services: Signaling Effects on User-Perceived Quality

Effect of Fashion Subscription Services on Consumer Retention in Japan

Effect of Fashion Subscription Services on Consumer Retention in Japan

Theory of consumption value: A lens to examine the use and continual use intention of online game subscription services

Using the theory of consumption value as the theoretical framework and online game subscription as the subject, this study considered the antecedents (game motivations, fear of missing out [FoMO], and variety preference) and consequences (use and continual use intention) of the values (playing games, social, enjoyment, price, and quality) offered by subscription services. Using the partial least squares method, an empirical analysis of 412 subscribers' and 265 non-subscribers’ views at the online game subscription service level revealed the limited consequences of game motivations for the use (continual use) of online game subscription services. Perceiving FoMO as a bidimensional construct (losing-out and interactive aspects) could provide more insights into how online game players perceive subscription services. FoMO's (interactive aspect) contribution to value is more evident among non-subscribers than subscribers. For both subscribers and non-subscribers, variety preference positively contributes to numerous value types. Three value types (playing games, enjoyment, and price) contribute to the use (continual use) intention. This study augments the rather limited subscription retail literature by focusing on online game subscription services. By viewing FoMO as bidimensional instead of the usual unidimensional construct, this study found that these two FoMO types behaved differently. Moreover, this study showed that studies at the game level cannot be applied to the subscription level in a lock, stock, and barrel manner.

A Framework for the Development of Risk-Based Guidelines for Cloud Service Subscribers

A Framework for the Development of Risk-Based Guidelines for Cloud Service Subscribers

Examining User Recognition of a Sport-Centered OTT Service Using Topic Modeling and Sentiment Analysis Focusing on the SPOTV Now App

PURPOSE Recently, the need to improve service quality to provide an ideal viewing experience for sport OTT service users has increased. This study aimed to analyze user reviews of the SPOTV Now app, an OTT service specializing in sports in South Korea, to identify major perceptions of viewers and suggest measures for improvement.METHODS Review data (8,512) recorded on the SPOTV Now app were collected from November 21, 2017 to November 30, 2023. LDA-based topic modeling analysis was conducted along with a series of data preprocessing processes. Sentiment analysis was carried out through machine learning logistic regression analysis and odds ratio scores were calculated.RESULTS A total of five topics were derived, including ‘member management service', 'service stability', 'sport streaming service', 'sport video service', and 'subscription service'. Sentiment analysis indicated that 'exclusive', 'server', 'payment', 'log-in', 'authentication', 'pay', 'subscription', 'advertisement', 'play', and 'loading' were the top ten keywords.CONCLUSIONS Sport OTT operators should be more responsive to user requests and feedback, and video playback and server error problems should be improved for service stability. It is necessary to secure diversity as well as exclusivity of content, in addition to minimizing advertising or preparing various rate types, so that app users feel that they receive high value for their money.

The strategy of differential pricing and network utilization: evidence from India’s telecommunications sector

PurposeThe network capacity deployed to manage the busy hour (or peak-hour) traffic remains underused during the nonbusy (off-peak) hours. Transferring some traffic from peak-hour to off-peak hours is likely to improve the utilization of network resources during the off-peak hours. This paper aims to examine whether diverting traffic from peak-hour to off-peak hours is possible by adopting the differential pricing policy.Design/methodology/approachThe peak-load pricing theory suggests that the policy of differential pricing is socially optimal when there is peak demand for a particular duration and then there is off-peak demand. In this study, hourly traffic data from both peak and off-peak periods were collected from the Indian telecom service provider, “Aircel.” The paper analyzed the disparity in traffic between peak and off-peak hours using the nonparametric Tukey’s test. An experiment was also conducted to analyze whether a significant shift in telecom traffic occurs from the peak to the off-peak period when a price discount is applied during the off-peak period.FindingsStatistically significant differences were observed in network traffic between peak-hour and off-peak hours. The network utilization of the telecom service provider Aircel was notably lower, particularly during the off-peak hours. The experiment demonstrated a high degree of price sensitivity among telecom service subscribers. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has not considered network utilization of telecom service providers as a key performance indicator. Based on the outcomes of the study, this paper recommends that TRAI should adopt a more proactive approach by encouraging telecom service providers to follow the policy of differential pricing to enhance utilization of their network capacity.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to explore the issue of pricing as a tool for bringing about more uniform movement of telecom traffic, thereby enhancing network utilization within India’s telecommunications sector.

AHA-BV: Access and handover authentication protocol with batch verification for satellite–terrestrial integrated networks

At present, the rapid development of satellite capabilities has prompted the proposal of satellite–terrestrial integrated networks (STIN), which solves the problem of limited signal coverage of terrestrial cellular networks, further promotes the globalization process, and realizes global data sharing and on-demand use. However, due to the high openness of satellite-to-ground links in STIN, users are vulnerable to attacks such as eavesdropping, replay, tampering, and impersonation when requesting access to satellite nodes and obtaining subscription services. To ensure the security and reliability, many authentication protocols have been proposed, but there are still some shortcomings, such as high authentication overhead, vulnerability to certain attacks. In addition, for inter-satellite handovers caused by the highly dynamic topology of satellites, the computational overhead of existing handover authentication mechanisms is too high to be applied to frequent inter-satellite handover scenarios in STIN. To address the above issues, in this paper, we propose a new access and handover authentication protocol with batch verification for STIN, namely the AHA-BV protocol. The AHA-BV protocol not only realizes mutual authentication and key negotiation between users and satellite access points without the participation of the network control center, but also ensures the conditional anonymity of users during the access authentication phase. Furthermore, the lightweight batch verification mechanism reduces the risk of computing bottlenecks when resource-constrained satellites receive a large number of access authentication requests. Not only that, the AHA-BV protocol can also achieve sustained trust in subscription services from STIN with low computational overhead during the inter-satellite handover authentication phase. Formal and heuristic security analysis show that the AHA-BV protocol can meet the security requirements of STIN. Performance analysis indicates that the AHA-BV protocol has low authentication overhead while ensuring security, and is more suitable for users under satellite dynamic topology to access and obtain subscription services from STIN.

Gen Z consumers’ intention to adopt online collaborative consumption of second-hand luxury fashion goods

ABSTRACT Consumption of second-hand luxury fashion goods through online collaborative redistribution channels is prevalent yet under-researched. Drawing on the self-determination theory, this study aims to provide evidence to academia and the luxury resale industry regarding young adult consumers’ beliefs in sustainability and materialism in their adoption of subscribing to, renting, or purchasing second-hand luxury goods. An integrative conceptual model is proposed based on the theory to gauge the role of various factors driving Gen Z consumers’ collaborative consumption of second-hand luxury fashion goods. Using a self-administered online survey, the researchers collected 452 usable responses from Gen Z consumers and analyzed them using structural equation modeling. Results demonstrated that both intrinsic (e.g. the importance of sustainability) and internalized extrinsic factors (e.g. the importance of signaling status, the importance of expressing one’s taste) drive their online collaborative consumption of second-hand luxury goods via subscription and rental services, as well as purchasing such goods. The gap in the literature calls for investigating further motivations and behavioral intentions of Gen Z consumers’ consumption of second-hand luxury goods. By unveiling the multifaceted psychological factors influencing these consumers regarding online collaborative consumption, the researchers offer useful marketing insights for the luxury resale industry and other share-based retail industries.

A Study on OTT Subscription Service in the Age of Speed Culture

A Study on OTT Subscription Service in the Age of Speed Culture