| Hey y'all, it's Austin, on day 59 of my self-isolation in the same cramped New York City apartment. With my cabin fever reaching record highs and the outside world now a distant memory, I've been taking solace in technology distractions, namely by funneling dollars into more and more subscriptions. That includes Hulu and Spotify (better late than never), Quibi (the video-streaming service that just discovered the television) and Grubhub Inc.'s new $10 per month premium food-delivery service for Seamless (please don't judge). I'm apparently not alone: Coronavirus-era tech subscriptions are booming. The business world's shift to recurring revenue streams has been a long time coming, but the effects of the pandemic are catalyzing the model, providing a more stable and predictable financial foundation at a moment when many markets are collapsing. "As Covid-19 impacts every aspect of our work and life, we have seen two years' worth of digital transformation in two months," Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said on the company's earnings call last Wednesday. Subscription businesses have been one of the more consistent bright spots for tech companies in recent weeks, as physical product sales stumble and ad revenue slows. Netflix Inc. added a record 15.8 million customers last quarter, while Disney+ jumped a whopping 22 million subscribers in just two months, doubling its membership count. Quarterly non-advertising revenue for Alphabet Inc.'s Google climbed 23% from last year, to $4.4 billion, thanks in part to growth of YouTube subscriptions, Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat told shareholders. Nadella's Microsoft achieved milestones in paid memberships to its commercial cloud and Office 365, as well as Xbox Live and Game Pass, two subscription gaming services that now boast a combined 100 million subscriptions. "Microsoft revenue is less consumer-centric and far more recurring, and when you go to a subscription, you have a pay-for-it-or-lose-it mindset," Mark Moerdler, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., told Bloomberg. Perhaps the starkest example of this transition is Apple Inc. For years, the company struggled to deliver on expectations for its subscription services, which include music, news, games and TV. But Tim Cook's plan to reinvent Apple as a services business got a boost from the effects of quarantine, too, helping offset issues in the supply chain and in retail. "The pandemic cut both ways," the CEO told Bloomberg's Emily Chang after Apple reported double-digit quarterly growth for services including Apple Music, Apple Care and iCloud, along with upticks in Apple TV+ and Arcade. The company said it now has more than 515 million paid subscribers, up from 125 million a year earlier. Still, the pressure of fulfilling subscriber needs brings its own challenges. Instacart Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., which each count paid memberships as core to their bottom lines, have had to scramble to keep up with demand. Instacart said in April that it had to double its delivery force and is now seeking an additional 250,000 workers to catch up to the sixfold leap in grocery order volume. And Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed last week the e-commerce powerhouse might have to gobble up billions of dollars in operating profit next quarter to spend "on Covid-related expenses, getting products to customers and keeping employees safe." The biggest question for me—and the millions of other people signing up for new subscriptions right now—is whether I'll keep paying for all these apps when I can go outside again. Even under the current circumstances, I can't bring myself to watch the Quibi reboot of Punk'd. —Austin Carr | 
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