In the world of computing, and particularly with respect to the internet, we talk about subscriptions all the time. We subscribe to mailing lists, to RSS and ATOM feeds, newsletters and podcasts on a daily basis. Sometimes we even unsubscribe too. It’s just a fact of life. The concept is simple – just like a newspaper subscription you sign up to receive the latest whatever-it-is as and when it becomes available. Easy.
Today I was listening to a podcast of The Geoff Show, which is basically a regurgitated commercial radio show, but a good one. On this particular show, Geoff was explaining to the regular radio listeners about the podcast and how they could download it to their computers, all the time trying to stick to understandable English. Then one thing he said hit me:
If you don’t yet subscribe to the podcast – subscribe is a scary word because it sounds like it’s going to cost you some money – it’s not – it’s just signing up for it – you need to go to our website…
Oh, wait. Subscribe sounds like it’s going to cost you money? Well, yes, I guess it does. In fact if you think of any real-world subscriptions;- newspapers, magazines, clubs, it’s all about paying in advance for something that you then receive in instalments. The dictionary even defines it as such, and you have to dig quite deep to find a definition that isn’t totally about payment, and even then those definitions seem to relate entirely to online subscriptions.
Ladies and Gents, we have chosen the wrong word. Of course, there’s not a lot we can do about that now, but we really need to be cognisant of the potential for a general public audience to misapprehend. In the real world, subscriptions cost money. In our world, most subscriptions are free. No problem, so long as we remember to communicate that clearly.
Comments
You know the funny thing is, as soon as you say “free” (as in “free subscription!”), people think you’re scamming them.
Well, don’t that beat all. Wrong word entirely.
At least there are other clever ways to put it, like “feed me” over in that sidebar I see over there…
You’ve hit me the head with that one. It’s one of those obvious things that you don’t recognise until somebody points it out to you.
Obviously the term “free subscription” or something like will have to be used.
People have been talking about this for years but as of today no-one’s come up with anything better. Don’t people expect everything on the internet to be free anyway?
I don’t think there’s a problem. For those that subscribe to things online, the defintion of “subscribe” has stretched to encompass “free”, where applicable.
It’s not the word that’s wrong, it’s the current definition that’s (become) too limited.
This is one of those words that can have an almost tandem meaning.
If you’re trying to get to grips with the English languauge I suppose you could get easily confused.
Or someone could innocently confuse or conflate one meaning for another.
I mean, it’s almost akin to a double-edged sword; one side is soft and fluffy, in that I can easily subscribe to this or that idea, and on the other side it is sharp and painful, in that I don’t fancy paying for a subscription for that.
Use the word subscribe for newsletters. Subscribe almost rhymes with sublime
Use the word subscription for handing over payments for magazines. Subscription rhymes with prescription!
I’ve never really considered the effect of using ‘subscribe’ for my RSS feed. I guess we have two choices. We can either use the word less, or we can use it more. We could search for a better word or we could really push the use of the word subscribe in order to influence the meaning.
its ok … hereafter we may use the term ‘subscription-free sign up’ for non-payable subscription
Does the phrase “sign up” carry the same negative connotations? I don’t think so. Then again, it has no corresponding noun as with subscribe/subscription, so it might be impractical. Thoughts?