There's no requirement to maintain a subscription. Each individual should be making this decision for themselves based on the value they get from a service vs the cost.

The broad "startups" in question are just businesses trying to sell a product. Not everyone is going to sign up, and not of those who do, most won't maintain their subscription forever.

> Is this really sustainable in the long run?

For who? For the startups? Maybe, depends on the value provided. For the users? Maybe, depends on if they feel they're getting value.

I'm kind of confused as to what the question is really asking.

Most people I know have a handful (making exception for things that have always been "subscription", like insurances): a streaming service or two, iCloud/Google One, and maybe a budgeting app or something more niche for a hobby of theirs. I'd argue that none of those are necessary, except maybe the cloud storage to retain information and backup their devices. User's can just vote with their wallets.

As for it being sustainable for a startup: who cares - a good product will be worth paying for an it'll survive.

(Hope the tone doesn't come off as rude, I'm just trying to shoot for brevity)

I feel like you're somewhat viewing this from the wrong direction. Let me paraphrase to make a point.

I went into my supermarket yesterday. They have thousands of different products on the shelves. Worse, the products run out and I'm expected to come back next month and buy more. Is this sustainable? Do I have to buy one of everything every month?

If you're drowning in new SaaS products then you're spending too much time looking at them. You're not expected to know most of them exist, much less subscribe.

SaaS is no different to anything else. They are businesses selling products to customers. If you're drowning in those wait till I tell you how many shops want to sell you bread... (or how many species of bread there are.)

It's perfectly fine to ignore 99.999% of those. Whip out a script or an app that does exactly what you need without the bloat if viable.

I subscribe to many newsletters and get loads of offers. I pretty much ignore all of them. Most of those $10/month tools are just clones of something or not useful at all in the trenches so to speak.

My expectation is that the LLM providers will also start to bill for the AI startups through their APIs

$10/month is a lot. You have to be solving a very critical need for me to sign up for that. $3-$5, not that big of a deal, $8 I'll think about it. $10 better be a major benefit

Are you concerned that startups will not be able to continue with these cheap subscriptions, or because you have to pay $10/product?

They don't think about it that way. They only think about you signing up for theirs.

Most charge way more than 10/month. Most startups also die.