The future is sticky.
Attention spans, biomarkers, and cat feeders.
I spent yesterday morning reviewing product demos from CES week and realized I’m ready to buy more subscription products.
Which is weird because I thought I was subscription-fatigued. I don’t enjoy the mental background noise of tracking what I’m paying for and whether I’m using it. I was reluctant to add another auto-renewing charge to a credit card statement that already has dozens.
The average US adult spends $1,080 per year on subscriptions.
So why am I buttered up and ready to buy three new subscriptions?
Physical changes
Well, because none of these purchases are pure software.
The subscriptions we’ve become most familiar with over the past decade (Netflix, Notion, Zoom) became popular by delivering value through screens, attention, and time spent on app.
Which works when consumers have high attention spans and unlimited appetite for screens time.
But we don’t anymore.
So the future of subscription value is either going to zero or migrating elsewhere.
I’m seeing it migrate into the physical world.
… into hardware you buy once.
Paired with software that increases the value of both hardware and software over time.
There’s probably more elegant language for this but for today’s purposes I’m dubbing it the hardware-plus-software model.
Three examples
Sleep is the first area where this business model become sticky.
If you’re like me, you are sensitive to noise.
I often joke that white noise is my love language. My current sleep setup includes ear buds, a sleep mask, a white noise machine, and the consistent hum of an air purifier.
So the big drawback of my current apartment is that it’s in a commercial area of Scottsdale that attracts men who like to rev their Lamborghinis between the hours of 9p and 3am.
OZLO Sleepbuds + Sleep Patterns app
The OZLO Sleepbuds piqued my interest because they’re designed to block disruptive sounds while you sleep and replace unwanted noise with anything you’d prefer to hear instead.
Valuable product on its own.
That is… until I discovered they also recently launched their Sleep Patterns app. A subscription developed in-house that pairs their Sleepbuds with sleep depth analysis, environmental sensing, daytime recovery… and 30-night trend tracking.
Now I’m double-interested in this product because of the additional software component. And from a customer LTV perspective, I’m more likely to stay and spend more $$$ with OZLO over time.
This model is similar to Oura and Whoop.
Now let’s explore a second example, beyond wearables into pets.
Where my fellow cat lovers?
AI-Tails debuted their AI-powered feeder for cats that monitors eating, drinking, temperature, and behavior changes over time.
This one hit close to home because my sweet baby Blue passed away last year from cancer that wasn't symptomatic until the very end.
Cats are evolved to mask illness better than dogs so AI-Tails developed special facial recognition and temperature tracking technology to catch early signs of pain, stress, fever, or infection before these behavioral signals are visible to humans.
Of course, I would’ve loved having this product 18 months ago but am grateful it exists now as we plan to re-adopt this year.
The feeding station pairs with a subscription ($19/month after 6 months free) that provides health alerts, trend tracking, and data analysis I can share directly with my vet.
I see pet care as another emerging category where hardware-plus-software gets sticky.
No pet owner wants to lose multiple years of health tracking on an animal they love when those patterns could catch something early.
The same pattern also shows up in human health monitoring.
Now, this third product didn’t debut at CES Week but I learned about it yesterday all the same.
Rythm Health delivers a monthly at-home blood test that tracks hormone balance, heart health, metabolic efficiency, thyroid function, liver & kidney markers, and longevity biomarkers. Priced at $79/month.
I currently test my biomarkers twice a year at Quest. The experience is full of friction: scheduling weeks out, driving there, waiting rooms that aren't always clean, needles, delayed results. Two data points a year.
Rythm eliminates this friction while also increasing the frequency of product value. No needles. No nurses. No leaving home. Tests arrive monthly to your home. Samples can be mailed in or picked up for free. Results and personalized insights uploaded to their app within 3 business days.
Diplo seems to be into it too.
From a business model POV, the test kit is the hardware. The trend analysis and personalized insights are the software.
The product stickiness lives in the continuous monthly data.
Choose between the annual biomarker test that gets you a single snapshot to Rythm’s monthly tests that create 12 feedback loops into whether your protocols are working, if certain markers are improving or declining, and what “normal” looks like for your body across seasons and life changes.
Ya, so it turns out some subscriptions are actually good for us.
Where we’re headed
All three of these products solve physical problems first, then use software to make the solution better over time.
Sleepbuds that learn your sleep patterns. AI-Tails that build your cat’s health baseline. Rythm testing that tracks how your biomarkers trend across seasons.
This business model survives AI commoditization because of what AI is doing to pure software and hardware plays. ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are all racing to free. Hardware alone is a margin game.
Then we have this new and interesting hardware-plus-software model that leverages AI to make products more valuable, not less.
I get the sense we're exiting the "everything is software" era into something more grounded.
Physical products that solve problems, enhanced by intelligence.
Things you can hold, that live in your space, and improve your health vs. eroding your attention.
I get the sense we’re not actually subscription-fatigued, just tired of subscriptions that feel extractive instead of additive.
I think we’ve found where the next decade of value is forming.
The future is sticky.
We wrap with a few news signals on my radar about where the future of work and money are headed...
Stablecoin startup, Rain, raises $250M at ~$2B valuation. Payment fees ~*under pressure*~ as David Bowie might say.
Spotify just made it easier for creators to monetize their podcasts. Can video podcasts replace premium TV?
Gen Z transitions from “job hopping” to “job hugging”. 75% of young workers plan to stay in their current roles through 2027.
Trump calls for one-year 10% cap on credit card interest rates. Could accelerate shift to alternative credit markets.
Highest ever engagement week on the X platform. Higher than peak Twitter.
This one ties into Prediction #3 from our 2026 predictions post.
ICYMI… I made 10 Rich Future predictions across AI, money, work, and media for 2026.
We covered everything from AI wearables reducing screen time to the new asset class creating more wealth than traditional stocks to full-body MRIs becoming standard for anyone earning $200K+.
Predictions can be a useful tool for deciding where to allocate attention and capital in the new year.
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Love these finds! Definitely will be looking into Rythm!