I was pointed to an article on Cosmographia which in turn shared an archive of photos taken in 19th century Japan. These are amazing photos, but what struck me was how familiar some of them felt. Photos taken from 150 years ago should feel like looking into another world, but some of these scenes, the architecture, are still very present today. It makes it clear how cultural artifacts are so remarkably well-preserved here.

Here are some photos that stood out to me, alongside their modern-day comparisons.

Youmeimon gate at Nikko Toshogu

The southern moat at Osaka Castle

The bridge at Sumiyoshi-taisha

The pagoda at Shitenno-ji

Old Japan is ingrained in New Japan

Japan is filled with modern scenes, from sprawling cityscapes to modern skyscrapers, bustling intersections to garish side-streets. Yet often right next to these scenes you can also find elements of an old culture, perfectly preserved and very much of a part of modern life.

I’m sure this is a big part of the country’s allure to visitors, to be able to experience not only a foreign culture, but in many cases a culture from a different time as well. It’s easy to take for granted when you live here, but it truly is a rare and special environment.

As a rule of thumb, you are more likely to be satisfied by a service that you pay for directly. This is because paying money makes you a customer of the business, and the business is thereby directly motivated to keep you satisfied.

If you want to find a service that will satisfy you for a long time, paying a subscription is your best bet.

Here are some facts:

1. In general, a business aims to please its customers.
2. A business’s customers are those who pay it money.
3. If you do not pay money to a business, you are not its customer.

A user of a service who does not pay is, strictly speaking, not a customer. In most cases, the needs of the user and the needs of the customer are not too far apart, so many non-paying users are generally satisfied. But on average, in the long run, the needs of the non-user customer and the needs of the non-customer users will drift apart.

Users will feel a gradual, vague dissatisfaction with the service that grows over time. Certain things that used to be easy to accomplish may become less straight-forward. New offerings may be uninteresting, or even undesired.

The case of venture-backed companies

For a venture-backed company that provides a free service to its users, its customers are its investors, not its users. Of course, the investors want the company to become successful (whatever that means today), and a service’s success usually depends on having satisfied users, so the goals aren’t too detached. But when push comes to shove, the direct motivation placed on the company will be to satisfy its customers over its users. As long as users are kept minimally satisfied, efforts that generate measurable value for the company will be given priority.

For example, Facebook used to provide excellent ways for people to share information about their personal lives and keep up to date with their friends and family. Now, it is focused more on increasing engagement for its users — which is what its customers (investors) value — and no longer has any focus on keeping people connected.

The case of one-time cost applications

You are paying for the application, so you are the customer. Right? Well, almost. At least, you are at first.

As a business, the developer needs to continue generating revenue. Who are the customers it needs to please this month? Those people who are buying the app for the first time this month. The developer needs to understand what needs are going unmet now, and deliver a solution for those needs. If the needs of potential customers shifts significantly over time, so too may the offerings of the application shift.

For example, popular to-do tracking apps used to just focus on personal task management. Later, the industry as a whole shifted towards offering solutions for collaborative team management. More recently, everybody wants AIs to do smart things for them, so many apps are placing AI functionality front and center. The app that you loved and bought 5 years ago may be a very different app today.

Of course, a lot of apps have pretty static use-cases and don’t change that dramatically. But you see what I mean.

The case of subscription-based services

The users are always the customers. If a user ever becomes too displeased, they will just stop paying for it. The business is always directly motivated to keep its users happy — especially the most loyal ones who have been using the service for a long time.

For example, Kagi Search asks its customers to pay a monthly fee to use its search engine. This is pretty shocking for anybody who is used to having search as a free feature of the internet, but —

There always seem to be people lamenting that Google’s search results are not as good as they used to be. It’s hard to qualify how true this actually is, but it’s definitely plausible. Deep down, the most important thing for Google is not how easy it is for users to find the things they’re looking for. The most important thing for Google is that Google generates money from its advertisers. Of course, Google needs a consistent, very large number of satisfied users in order for that to happen, and so the two needs are not too disconnected. But they are not the same, and it’s possible — likely, even — for priorities to have noticeably drifted apart.

But in the case of Kagi, if a user feels that search quality has declined, they will just stop paying. Because search quality declined, Kagi will make less money. In order for Kagi to make more money, they have to make search quality better. By adopting a subscription model, Kagi has fundamentally aligned the goal of the service with providing excellent search.

This is why a subscription-based service is the most likely to keep its users satisfied over time, and why — if you care, and if you have the choice — you should choose to use a subscription-based service over other offerings.