Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)(fangdaddy.medium.com)
fangdaddy.medium.com
Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)
https://fangdaddy.medium.com/dear-startups-i-hate-subscription-services-aecefeb0f089
436 comments
Sibling post is correct: I worked in a couple companies backed by Softbank and they specifically asked for engineering headcount increase.
Investors and CEOs think they need massive numbers because they misunderstand how dev headcount scales and how much overhead it generates. Hiring warehouse workers, moderators and content editors scale, so they extrapolate that to devs and expect the same results.
Also with lots of devs you need lots of designers, managers, product owners and other idea people, so there’s a lot of minor tasks being pushed trough, which would otherwise not be if it was a 20 dev product. Not to mention the extra need of support, QA and ops people, which in turn needs more coordination and management.
Going back to 10 or 20 devs is borderline impossible, even if you reduce the scope, since the infrastructure needed to support 100 or 1000 has too much of an overhead in itself. I would love to see someone try, though.
It is also cool to have 1000 devs in case of an acqui-hire. If your product sucks, you can still sell your team. Yay.
Investors and CEOs think they need massive numbers because they misunderstand how dev headcount scales and how much overhead it generates. Hiring warehouse workers, moderators and content editors scale, so they extrapolate that to devs and expect the same results.
Also with lots of devs you need lots of designers, managers, product owners and other idea people, so there’s a lot of minor tasks being pushed trough, which would otherwise not be if it was a 20 dev product. Not to mention the extra need of support, QA and ops people, which in turn needs more coordination and management.
Going back to 10 or 20 devs is borderline impossible, even if you reduce the scope, since the infrastructure needed to support 100 or 1000 has too much of an overhead in itself. I would love to see someone try, though.
It is also cool to have 1000 devs in case of an acqui-hire. If your product sucks, you can still sell your team. Yay.
> Like I never understood why most of these basic tools morph into 100+ people companies.
Simple answer: They've signed a deal with the devil (VC funding) and now need to grow to make a > 1 billion dollar exit.
Simple answer: They've signed a deal with the devil (VC funding) and now need to grow to make a > 1 billion dollar exit.
Happening in so many Indian startups right now. They lived off VC money for a decade with no profits in sight. Now they’re trying to monetize their users and finding out that most won’t pay or can’t pay.
I've watched this happen too many times. Good companies destroyed.
Vercel is going down this path now.
Interesting, they have 50? 60? open jobs: https://vercel.com/careers - I think that's a lot?
Gatsby to maybe?
Gatsby to maybe?
Yeah I think Netlify and Shopify, too. A shame.
Shopify is a public company. I think their pressures are different, brought upon by a whole new senior management team who are very poor at their jobs.
Yeah. Roam's dev team is what, 3-6 people? Obsidian was 2, now 3. Alloy.dev who make Amplenote have 20. All provide rich content editors and sync backends.
In Evernote's case, though, they did build things like inhouse OCR and a web clipper before the modern age (eg. Amplenote's OCR is just bought from Microsoft)
In Evernote's case, though, they did build things like inhouse OCR and a web clipper before the modern age (eg. Amplenote's OCR is just bought from Microsoft)
> Part of the problem is that most of these startups simply have too much overhead to offer their product for free or cheap.
I think that is not the issue. The issue is having a physical product that is tied to a subscription which could also be a one-time fee. Like a subscription for your dorbell - just why?
I think that is not the issue. The issue is having a physical product that is tied to a subscription which could also be a one-time fee. Like a subscription for your dorbell - just why?
The subscription model is all about securitizing cash flows and selling it to Wall St. Cash flows from subscriptions are more regular and reliable than from one-time purchases. It’s why everyone and their mother is trying to shift to a subscription model, even for things like hardware where it makes no sense.
Just like what was mentioned about Softbank... your investors will ask if you've jumped onto the latest fad:
* Are you increasing your engineering headcount exponentially?
* Does your product have a subscription model?
It's no different with physical products. I've seen investors ask:
* Does your product have a consumable that you can sell for recurring revenue?
* What is your strategy for becoming a primarily software company?
* When will you be moving to China?
* Are you increasing your engineering headcount exponentially?
* Does your product have a subscription model?
It's no different with physical products. I've seen investors ask:
* Does your product have a consumable that you can sell for recurring revenue?
* What is your strategy for becoming a primarily software company?
* When will you be moving to China?
> Like a subscription for your dorbell - just why?
Servers (and the staff to maintain them) have an ongoing cost. Human labor is also a pesky subscription.
Servers (and the staff to maintain them) have an ongoing cost. Human labor is also a pesky subscription.
I simply assume that most of our digital toys are paid for by investors, which I'm perfectly comfortable with. Most of those businesses won't outlast the attention span of their VC's anyway.
>Human labor is also a pesky subscription.
Exactly.
So this is why this type of subscription is fundamentally for consumers who might otherwise employ a professional doorman.
Exactly.
So this is why this type of subscription is fundamentally for consumers who might otherwise employ a professional doorman.
Sure, yes, I agree. But why design a thing that way? Is there really no other way? What if the company goes down, now you have a very expensive useless doorbell you even paid for a long time.
And it's not like there's much new functionality one can put in a doorbell. I'm not sure the server really costs that much each month.
And it's not like there's much new functionality one can put in a doorbell. I'm not sure the server really costs that much each month.
I remember reading here that a smarthome company has already failed, essentially turning the physical hardware into junk.
The default option should be self hosted, with premium subscription for those who choose
The default option should be self hosted, with premium subscription for those who choose
that should perhaps be modified to easily or readily self hosted , AND compatible with normal internet protocols.
one of the biggest problems is getting the information easily.
i used to ask sales reps if a device requires subscriptions, or if it is stand alone no 3rd party server required, but i stopped doing that, since no one seems to be able to answer the question. There is a good portion of -not knowing what you are even selling, but the practice of playing dumb to make the sale is alive and well.
I now make the blanket assumption that any new hardware will have this issue.
consequently im in the habit of turning junk, into usable hardware, instead of buying new. I wish this would really catch on, but most people are sucked in by the apparent convienience vs the superfluous difficulties dangled around something that really is simple at its foundation.
one of the biggest problems is getting the information easily.
i used to ask sales reps if a device requires subscriptions, or if it is stand alone no 3rd party server required, but i stopped doing that, since no one seems to be able to answer the question. There is a good portion of -not knowing what you are even selling, but the practice of playing dumb to make the sale is alive and well.
I now make the blanket assumption that any new hardware will have this issue.
consequently im in the habit of turning junk, into usable hardware, instead of buying new. I wish this would really catch on, but most people are sucked in by the apparent convienience vs the superfluous difficulties dangled around something that really is simple at its foundation.
Yes that's the standard BS excuse.
Pay a nickel for server time and charge a dollar.
Also the question of why the servers are needed at all is often unanswered.
Pay a nickel for server time and charge a dollar.
Also the question of why the servers are needed at all is often unanswered.
> Part of the problem is that most of these startups simply have too much overhead to offer their product for free or cheap.
The point of a startup is to make lots of money, to provide a large return to early investors; they definitely don't want to offer their product for free, and only want to offer it cheap if that's all the market will bear and they can get enormous numbers of sales by doing that.
> Like I never understood why most of these basic tools morph into 100+ people companies.
The giant company was the goal all the time. The basic tool was just a starting point.
The point of a startup is to make lots of money, to provide a large return to early investors; they definitely don't want to offer their product for free, and only want to offer it cheap if that's all the market will bear and they can get enormous numbers of sales by doing that.
> Like I never understood why most of these basic tools morph into 100+ people companies.
The giant company was the goal all the time. The basic tool was just a starting point.
I always figured it was support staff that drove most of that, and I while I think that's still partially correct... it seems to be less so than I previously thought
I'm a very, very firm believer on not paying for "subscription" to software. New content, I can understand (I spend about 40€ monthly on several Patreons, mostly comic artists; and I have a couple news subscriptions as well), although I still hate music/tv subscriptions and I don't want Netflix, Spotify or whatever. But for software, no matter how useful it is, I just refuse to choose between an unbounded price and the possibility of losing it because I don't want to keep paying. For the record, I don't have any problems paying, say, 400€ for Mathematica and things like that (in fact, I haven't pirated anything in a very long time). But I paid once and I can use the software as much as I want without paying again.
For me, it's not about the amount of money, but the peace of mind (no additional bills, no additional shit to renew when I my debit card expires, and most important, I don't need to engage in any bullshit cancellation process). In the rare cases where both a subscription and a single payment is offered, I've done the math and from time to time I actually estimate that I'll spend less money on the subscription (although normally it's the other way around, of course), but even in these cases, I prefer paying upfront. I hate that this is becoming less and less available.
For me, it's not about the amount of money, but the peace of mind (no additional bills, no additional shit to renew when I my debit card expires, and most important, I don't need to engage in any bullshit cancellation process). In the rare cases where both a subscription and a single payment is offered, I've done the math and from time to time I actually estimate that I'll spend less money on the subscription (although normally it's the other way around, of course), but even in these cases, I prefer paying upfront. I hate that this is becoming less and less available.
Yea, i also refuse subscriptions for the same reasons, and always buy one-time purchases when possible.
I’ve been spending less money on software the past years because of this, simply because i don’t buy the software at all anymore (example: Tweetbot);
By the way, I really like this subscription model by Due:
"When you purchase Due, you unlock every feature today, including any new features that will be introduced in the next one year [.....] The Upgrade Pass is an optional subscription that unlocks features permanently, even after the subscription lapses. Any feature unlocked remains available to you forever."
https://dueapp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360053244591-Wh...
By the way, I really like this subscription model by Due:
"When you purchase Due, you unlock every feature today, including any new features that will be introduced in the next one year [.....] The Upgrade Pass is an optional subscription that unlocks features permanently, even after the subscription lapses. Any feature unlocked remains available to you forever."
https://dueapp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360053244591-Wh...
Would you use a service that converts subscriptions into one time purchases at 20x the yearly subscription cost?
Jetbrains’ perpetual licenses are similar to this. https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207240845-What...
I like Jetbrains. And this is one of the nice things about their license. I subscribe and feel that it’s a worthwhile cost as they constantly add new features and improve features/address bugs frequently. But having the option to stop my subscription and still having continued access is a nice bonus.
20x? No. But I paid way more than the annual subscription cost ($40/yr) for a perpetual license of plex pass ($120 for life), so in general, yes.
This was also the case for everybody who had bought a perpetual license for Adobe products and then did not subscribe to them when they switched to a subscription model.
This was also the case for everybody who had bought a perpetual license for Adobe products and then did not subscribe to them when they switched to a subscription model.
I think a more reasonable multiple would be 5x. The problem you'll run into is that people who complain want the cheap subscription price and perpetual access.
I'm not sure that twenty times the yearly price would look like a reasonable price, but if it's software I actually want, I might agree. I would weigh that price against the functionality of the software, ignoring whether there is a subscription model. As I said, I'm not beyond paying a three-digit sum for software I like (and Mathematica is the first example that came to mind, but not the only one).
Only the provider of that service can provide that, and not even completely.
Third parties promising it would still be at the whim of the original provider. If they shut down the service, what would that third party do to fulfill their promise to you?
What we need is open, documented protocols for internet-connected hardware and escrow for pure internet services, with a guarantee to open source if the original provider shuts down their servers.
The latter will be difficult to enforce. The service provider could, instead of shutting down the service, just raise prices to something above absurd, and then shut down once all customers are gone.
Third parties promising it would still be at the whim of the original provider. If they shut down the service, what would that third party do to fulfill their promise to you?
What we need is open, documented protocols for internet-connected hardware and escrow for pure internet services, with a guarantee to open source if the original provider shuts down their servers.
The latter will be difficult to enforce. The service provider could, instead of shutting down the service, just raise prices to something above absurd, and then shut down once all customers are gone.
There’s a reason they stopped selling Photoshop in non-subscription when the pricing difference was something like this.
$699 vs $49/mo. Now maybe $20/mo since they no longer force bundling and have lower cost feature restricted versions.
The math was easy at the time because you’d break even in 2 years with the old price. Now it’d be like 4 but plenty of users were on CS2 for 6 or so.
Since 12x is your 1 year break even rate it’s not too unreasonable. Especially if you’re not upgrading it ever year.
$699 vs $49/mo. Now maybe $20/mo since they no longer force bundling and have lower cost feature restricted versions.
The math was easy at the time because you’d break even in 2 years with the old price. Now it’d be like 4 but plenty of users were on CS2 for 6 or so.
Since 12x is your 1 year break even rate it’s not too unreasonable. Especially if you’re not upgrading it ever year.
Is this a thing you’ve seen? Really cool idea!
I doubt many would actually use it because complainers on HN aren’t average users, and the number of months you’d have to prepay would likely be quite high to actually make it make sense for the businesses involved.
But still, if you could make a business reselling monthly subs as 1-off purchases, it would be pretty dang cool!
I doubt many would actually use it because complainers on HN aren’t average users, and the number of months you’d have to prepay would likely be quite high to actually make it make sense for the businesses involved.
But still, if you could make a business reselling monthly subs as 1-off purchases, it would be pretty dang cool!
What do you think of the pricing model that I'm using[0] - one-time payment with optional paid subscription for updates and support? I tried one-time only, but it's simply not sustainable or leads to the product not being updated anymore.
[0]: https://www.uxwizz.com/pricing
[0]: https://www.uxwizz.com/pricing
Seems similar to JetBrains
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32286209
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32286209
Interesting, thanks, I didn't know that they call it "perpetual fallback license". I guess this makes it sound more like a benefit than "paid updates".
I don't mind subscriptions, I actually prefer them for many things.
Especially for software I rely on I want the developers to consistently earn money so they keep motivated to work on it, do maintenance and fix bugs. I don't pay for software, I pay for the thing it allows me to do. Me paying a subscription fee creates an incentive and responsibility to keep things working.
If there is a backend component to its even more important as they will have continuous cost.
Also the "one off" model usually means you'll pay for versions which is not always cheaper. Take Sketch for example, some of my clients use it so I had to update each year spending 99$. With subscription I could just use it for a project and cancel afterwards saving money, something I have done with Adobe software (although I find their prices way too high).
If something is too expensive I will find alternatives, that has imo nothing to do with the subscription model.
Especially for software I rely on I want the developers to consistently earn money so they keep motivated to work on it, do maintenance and fix bugs. I don't pay for software, I pay for the thing it allows me to do. Me paying a subscription fee creates an incentive and responsibility to keep things working.
If there is a backend component to its even more important as they will have continuous cost.
Also the "one off" model usually means you'll pay for versions which is not always cheaper. Take Sketch for example, some of my clients use it so I had to update each year spending 99$. With subscription I could just use it for a project and cancel afterwards saving money, something I have done with Adobe software (although I find their prices way too high).
If something is too expensive I will find alternatives, that has imo nothing to do with the subscription model.
> I pay for the thing it allows me to do
Why can't software ever be "finished" or "sufficient" to meet your needs? I don't see the point of having software is updated day after day, month after month, if I am not interested in the new features they bring.
Why can't software ever be "finished" or "sufficient" to meet your needs? I don't see the point of having software is updated day after day, month after month, if I am not interested in the new features they bring.
Operating systems are starting to make that impossible.
I used to use an old version of Quicken for Mac (this was back in the MacOS 10.2 days). It was "finished" in that it did absolutely everything I needed and there were no bugs that affected me. As time marched on, Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel which was fine because they had technology (Rosetta) which allowed me to run PowerPC applications. Then they dropped Rosetta, so now I had to choose whether to upgrade MacOS or continue to use Quicken.
I now use software called Banktivity to replace Quicken. Much like Quicken, Banktivity is "finished" as far as my requirements go. The version I have is Intel-only and Apple is switching to Arm processors. How long will Rosetta 2 last before it's pulled and I'm forced to choose between upgrading my OS and using this software?
I think there are similar things in the mobile world too. I think Google requires apps to use a minimum API version to maintain a listing in Google Play. I believe Apple does something similar with the App Store too. So short of regularly recompiling, testing, and publishing your app, everything in the stores has a finite lifetime.
I used to use an old version of Quicken for Mac (this was back in the MacOS 10.2 days). It was "finished" in that it did absolutely everything I needed and there were no bugs that affected me. As time marched on, Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel which was fine because they had technology (Rosetta) which allowed me to run PowerPC applications. Then they dropped Rosetta, so now I had to choose whether to upgrade MacOS or continue to use Quicken.
I now use software called Banktivity to replace Quicken. Much like Quicken, Banktivity is "finished" as far as my requirements go. The version I have is Intel-only and Apple is switching to Arm processors. How long will Rosetta 2 last before it's pulled and I'm forced to choose between upgrading my OS and using this software?
I think there are similar things in the mobile world too. I think Google requires apps to use a minimum API version to maintain a listing in Google Play. I believe Apple does something similar with the App Store too. So short of regularly recompiling, testing, and publishing your app, everything in the stores has a finite lifetime.
>Operating systems are starting to make that impossible.
Microsoft operating systems have always strived to make that impossible.
Apple has to compete somehow.
When you push unfinished, not-fully-tested code out the door, even if you can confidently patch it later, it's just never been the most professional thing to do.
Especially for something that could be mission-critical like an OS.
Getting it into people's hands sooner is no excuse.
This kind of thing really lowers the bar when it comes to the rest of the development ecosystem constantly engaged in making temporary solutions to permanent problems.
This ripples out and overflows far enough to effectively be a major anti-recycling effort for megatonnes of hardware itself.
Microsoft operating systems have always strived to make that impossible.
Apple has to compete somehow.
When you push unfinished, not-fully-tested code out the door, even if you can confidently patch it later, it's just never been the most professional thing to do.
Especially for something that could be mission-critical like an OS.
Getting it into people's hands sooner is no excuse.
This kind of thing really lowers the bar when it comes to the rest of the development ecosystem constantly engaged in making temporary solutions to permanent problems.
This ripples out and overflows far enough to effectively be a major anti-recycling effort for megatonnes of hardware itself.
>> "Microsoft operating systems have always strived to make that impossible."
That's the one thing I've never seen someone accuse Microsoft of. They're famous for their obsession with backward compatibility.
It sounds like you've had a different experience, and now I'm curious. Care to share?
That's the one thing I've never seen someone accuse Microsoft of. They're famous for their obsession with backward compatibility.
It sounds like you've had a different experience, and now I'm curious. Care to share?
Microsoft's backward compatibility was always impressive until Windows 10 (ignoring the death of 16-bit on 64-bit Windows). S Mode and the store are great examples of how Microsoft has lost interest in supporting third-party binaries. They want to own Android, not Windows.
I've had software break in the forced feature upgrades of 10, and I had BSODs when printing on every machine I supported at work thanks to a security patch.
I've had software break in the forced feature upgrades of 10, and I had BSODs when printing on every machine I supported at work thanks to a security patch.
It's possible they're breaking some stuff so other things work better. A lot of developers are still using the registry, for example. The choice is basically leave it wide open for developers to break or push them to AppData and friends. All the programs I use also use the current standard, and I don't have any issues.
This might actually explain why 10 and 11 have been the most flawless experience I've had with Windows while so many people have endless trouble. It might be similar to the transition to NT in XP: everything broke, but almost everything made after was more stable and secure.
This might actually explain why 10 and 11 have been the most flawless experience I've had with Windows while so many people have endless trouble. It might be similar to the transition to NT in XP: everything broke, but almost everything made after was more stable and secure.
That was exactly my reaction! The latest visual studio still runs on Windows 2000, and I've yet to find anything that doesn't work on Windows 7.
A much different kind of backward compatibility would have been needed for it to have been more useful instead of unnecesarily wasteful.
Each version of Windows was designed to ideally trigger a purchase of new hardware as a concession to the hardware partners, while each purchase of more powerful hardware was designed to be prohibitively difficult for users to operate using previous Windows versions, triggering a new OS purchase.
Non-Microsoft software suffers more from this disadvantage, compared to the benefit of having some of the Microsoft non-OS software function fairly well across a few OS versions.
I understand how embarassing it would be for users in general to have become aware of how much higher performance they could have gotten from using a previous version of Windows on the next generation of hardware, so this was always made unnecessarily difficult if not impossible.
Also how much hardware could have been saved from scrap heaps if maximum utilization of hardware was given top priority?
When the main reason for growth in manufacturing was consumers purchasing their first computer, this is not as much of a problem.
Once computers are ubiquitous, each new purchase triggers a corresponding waste declaration event.
Accelerating growth pressure under these conditions, while failing to even provide archives for "outdated" code needed to operate remaining vintage hardware, amounts to an overall anti-reuse/anti-recycling strategy.
Each version of Windows was designed to ideally trigger a purchase of new hardware as a concession to the hardware partners, while each purchase of more powerful hardware was designed to be prohibitively difficult for users to operate using previous Windows versions, triggering a new OS purchase.
Non-Microsoft software suffers more from this disadvantage, compared to the benefit of having some of the Microsoft non-OS software function fairly well across a few OS versions.
I understand how embarassing it would be for users in general to have become aware of how much higher performance they could have gotten from using a previous version of Windows on the next generation of hardware, so this was always made unnecessarily difficult if not impossible.
Also how much hardware could have been saved from scrap heaps if maximum utilization of hardware was given top priority?
When the main reason for growth in manufacturing was consumers purchasing their first computer, this is not as much of a problem.
Once computers are ubiquitous, each new purchase triggers a corresponding waste declaration event.
Accelerating growth pressure under these conditions, while failing to even provide archives for "outdated" code needed to operate remaining vintage hardware, amounts to an overall anti-reuse/anti-recycling strategy.
Would you consider running an emulator to keep using the original software?
In gaming this has become mainstream as GOG and Steam now leverage DOSBox for this purpose.
Personally I think vendors beyond a certain size should be regulated so they must maintain BC for some minimum period like 20y. Regressions should incur fines unless it's proven they are required for security fixes.
In gaming this has become mainstream as GOG and Steam now leverage DOSBox for this purpose.
Personally I think vendors beyond a certain size should be regulated so they must maintain BC for some minimum period like 20y. Regressions should incur fines unless it's proven they are required for security fixes.
I’m torn on this. For both apps I mentioned there is a reasonable path forward, it’s simply a matter of buying a newer version. But it really amounts to spending extra money to get functionality I’ve already paid for once, after all both of these programs are 100% complete and bug free relative to my requirements.
I’ve got a few GOG games and they’ve done an incredible packaging job with DOSBox - if there was a way to take an old PPC Mac app and package it up to run in a similar manner, I’d have probably taken a serious look at it back when Rosetta was discontinued.
I’ve got a few GOG games and they’ve done an incredible packaging job with DOSBox - if there was a way to take an old PPC Mac app and package it up to run in a similar manner, I’d have probably taken a serious look at it back when Rosetta was discontinued.
No, shitty operating systems make that impossible.
What’s an operating system that makes it possible?
I'm willing to bet that Windows 10 or 11 would have zero trouble running some random version of Quicken from 2002. Most PC games from that era are still easily runnable without too much hassle and those have way more complexity and weird crap to deal with.
Linux might be doable too if it doesn't have a bunch of shared libraries or if you at least know what versions it needs.
Linux might be doable too if it doesn't have a bunch of shared libraries or if you at least know what versions it needs.
That’s about what I was thinking. I made and distributed a small application on Windows, Mac, and Linux back in the late 2000s and only the windows version still works. Getting the Linux version wouldn’t take much work, but the mac version would need to be rewritten.
Docker?
Security vulnerabilities are regularly found in many softwares (both online and offline), so that's one reason to upgrade.
Sure, but in some products that's really a non-issue.
Like, take photoshop for an example. If you're a photographer that only ever edits your own photos, the odds of a needing a security update for photoshop are really minimal.
If you regularly edit photos from clients, maybe it's worth considering.
Like, take photoshop for an example. If you're a photographer that only ever edits your own photos, the odds of a needing a security update for photoshop are really minimal.
If you regularly edit photos from clients, maybe it's worth considering.
I'd say definitely: https://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/exploit_w32_jpg_vulnerabili...
Eh, it still depends.
Is it riskier than keeping an updated copy? Sure. Is the expected return period of a hack given your circumstances above a threshold that is acceptable to you? Maybe, maybe not.
Is it riskier than keeping an updated copy? Sure. Is the expected return period of a hack given your circumstances above a threshold that is acceptable to you? Maybe, maybe not.
> so that's one reason to upgrade.
That seems like "hey, we develop our software the worst way so that it's always full of bugs, but if you want less bugs, buy our subscription". Complete conflict of interest vs making quality and well-tested software in the first place.
That seems like "hey, we develop our software the worst way so that it's always full of bugs, but if you want less bugs, buy our subscription". Complete conflict of interest vs making quality and well-tested software in the first place.
Well except most useful software (not all) interacts with other systems. I loved my old mail client until it stopped working with the latest encryption schemes. A nicer way around this is like what plan9 has, where programs don't worry about handling secure connections etc, so you don't need to patch every program.
some people still use a 90's version of wordperfect, and that's fine, but if you have software that depends on other software - example Qt3 was dropped everywhere, even though there's plenty of useful Qt3 software around, it needs to be upgraded.
So even if your system wasn't buggy, it may be incompatible or the dependencies no longer are updated (like with Qt3, which had networking and other helper functions), you wouldn't want to keep using it.
some people still use a 90's version of wordperfect, and that's fine, but if you have software that depends on other software - example Qt3 was dropped everywhere, even though there's plenty of useful Qt3 software around, it needs to be upgraded.
So even if your system wasn't buggy, it may be incompatible or the dependencies no longer are updated (like with Qt3, which had networking and other helper functions), you wouldn't want to keep using it.
Security vulnerabilities should be fixed by patches/security fixes w/o forcing users to go up the ladder to "za niu anz shaini version" + "our new and enhanced x$/mo"
Proprietary software should come with a warranty that covers security vulnerabilities for N years.
Imagine a developer who has to spend 50-90 hours per month just to provide the promised security patches for each of the 5 products they have created and sold at least once.
No one is in a better position than that developer to make this maintenance burden lighter, so they're the one who should be incentivised to do that.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32286651
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32286651
[deleted]
This used to be the case.
Photoshop, for instance. I don't need it to have new features; there are certain things I need it to do for me, and that's it. I don't need constant new features. But I do expect security updates.
Same model we have with cars (that BMW is trying hard to upend): it has the features I need, and if there's a systemic defect that poses a safety risk across those models sold, they're expected to fix it.
I agree that subscriptions have become toxic in their prevalence.
Photoshop, for instance. I don't need it to have new features; there are certain things I need it to do for me, and that's it. I don't need constant new features. But I do expect security updates.
Same model we have with cars (that BMW is trying hard to upend): it has the features I need, and if there's a systemic defect that poses a safety risk across those models sold, they're expected to fix it.
I agree that subscriptions have become toxic in their prevalence.
>> I don't need constant new features. But I do expect security updates.
Isn't updates to software in response to emerging security issues a "feature"?
Isn't updates to software in response to emerging security issues a "feature"?
Cars are nothing like software, they clearly deteriorate with time to the point parts eventually need replacing. You could argue there's a better case for a subscription model for buying cars than for software.
> Why can't software ever be "finished" or "sufficient" to meet your needs?
For a very long time the driver was operating system and hardware features.
For a very long time the driver was operating system and hardware features.
It blows my mind that there are people in this thread who think that a business should charge once for a product that requires iteration or continued backend support.
If I sold furniture, the designs and manufacturing processes and materials usage all undergo continuous iteration, yet when I sell you your chair, you don't have to keep paying me forever to keep using it.
Yes, you also don't get updates to it.
That is actually perfectly fine for countless bits of software.
I have 30 year old software, and it still does it's original job just fine, if I happen to be ok with all it's original limitations. It's too late to try to say that is an insane idea, since, I already have it in my hands to prove that it's possible.
And then there is media. Every provider wants to force everyone onto the perpetual rent, nothing to leave to your kids, model for books/music/video, not just software. What's the "it blows my mind" excuse there?
It does not blow my mind at all that there are people on HN trying to excuse and justify this rent-life hell they've created for everyone else. It is the most obvious thing in the world.
Yes, you also don't get updates to it.
That is actually perfectly fine for countless bits of software.
I have 30 year old software, and it still does it's original job just fine, if I happen to be ok with all it's original limitations. It's too late to try to say that is an insane idea, since, I already have it in my hands to prove that it's possible.
And then there is media. Every provider wants to force everyone onto the perpetual rent, nothing to leave to your kids, model for books/music/video, not just software. What's the "it blows my mind" excuse there?
It does not blow my mind at all that there are people on HN trying to excuse and justify this rent-life hell they've created for everyone else. It is the most obvious thing in the world.
No one is going to use an unpatched bug in your chair to rob your house.
What a stunning observation that I totally hadn't considered. /s
This is an overused excuse that does not actually justify nearly as much as what it's used for.
Also, online services suffer leaks and outtages and 3-letter/police pressure that I have no control or knowledge of that self owned self hosted software does not.
None of the excuses for rent hell are actually valid. They are just the excuses used to sell the idea.
The fact that services have their own problems does not mean there is no such thing as a valid service, or that the security update issue is not a real thing, it just means that this security update issue is just a thing like a lot of other things, that only really necessarily applies in certain cases, and doesn't apply everywhere, and doesn't override all other concerns, and there are other equally valid issues that are addressed by the opposite sort of model. Ie, it's nothing special and does not excuse or trump anything else.
This is an overused excuse that does not actually justify nearly as much as what it's used for.
Also, online services suffer leaks and outtages and 3-letter/police pressure that I have no control or knowledge of that self owned self hosted software does not.
None of the excuses for rent hell are actually valid. They are just the excuses used to sell the idea.
The fact that services have their own problems does not mean there is no such thing as a valid service, or that the security update issue is not a real thing, it just means that this security update issue is just a thing like a lot of other things, that only really necessarily applies in certain cases, and doesn't apply everywhere, and doesn't override all other concerns, and there are other equally valid issues that are addressed by the opposite sort of model. Ie, it's nothing special and does not excuse or trump anything else.
However, if your chair allows someone to rob your house, in most jurisdictions, the manufacturer will face enormous liability. Maybe we should introduce that expectation for software developers, too.
Where does it end? I'm liable for my client's laziness in not upgrading to a patched version?
you are liable for producing shit in the first place. If chairs killed people, ikea would not get away with 'well, they didnt pay us subscribrion to get a new safe version'
If spftware industry is a joke and can't sort out it's own mess, its on us, not the consumer
If spftware industry is a joke and can't sort out it's own mess, its on us, not the consumer
This just reads to me that you don't want to have to accept any liability for the work you produce. Why shouldn't you be liable for the initial flawed software that you sold to an unsuspecting buyer? Why should you be able to suddenly shift liability onto your customer by releasing a patch?
In the United States, the landmark product liability case was Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co.. In the majority decision, one of the judges wrote:
> Even if there is no negligence, however, public policy demands that responsibility be fixed wherever it will most effectively reduce the hazards to life and health inherent in defective products that reach the market. It is evident that the manufacturer can anticipate some hazards and guard against the recurrence of others, as the public cannot. Those who suffer injury from defective products are unprepared to meet its consequences. The cost of an injury and the loss of time or health may be an overwhelming misfortune to the person injured, and a needless one, for the risk of injury can be insured by the manufacturer and distributed among the public as a cost of doing business. It is to the public interest to discourage the marketing of products having defects that are a menace to the public. If such products nevertheless find their way into the market it is to the public interest to place the responsibility for whatever injury they may cause upon the manufacturer, who, even if he is not negligent in the manufacture of the product, is responsible for its reaching the market. However intermittently such injuries may occur and however haphazardly they may strike, the risk of their occurrence is a constant risk and a general one. Against such a risk there should be general and constant protection and the manufacturer is best situated to afford such protection.
There are some things to unpack here.
First, as a software developer, you are supposedly the expert and are in a far better position to evaluate your software and its potential hazards. Your customers are neither required to be experts in your software or how it might harm them, and realistically have no way to properly assess it no matter their skill level, so the responsibility falls on you.
Second, it is in the public interest to dissuade software developers from releasing faulty, broken, dangerous, etc software to the public. If a law which makes you responsible for the results of your software's failing makes you think twice about selling it, then that is a benefit to the public. If you aren't confident enough that you can accept the liability, why should your customers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escola_v._Coca-Cola_Bottling_C....
In the United States, the landmark product liability case was Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co.. In the majority decision, one of the judges wrote:
> Even if there is no negligence, however, public policy demands that responsibility be fixed wherever it will most effectively reduce the hazards to life and health inherent in defective products that reach the market. It is evident that the manufacturer can anticipate some hazards and guard against the recurrence of others, as the public cannot. Those who suffer injury from defective products are unprepared to meet its consequences. The cost of an injury and the loss of time or health may be an overwhelming misfortune to the person injured, and a needless one, for the risk of injury can be insured by the manufacturer and distributed among the public as a cost of doing business. It is to the public interest to discourage the marketing of products having defects that are a menace to the public. If such products nevertheless find their way into the market it is to the public interest to place the responsibility for whatever injury they may cause upon the manufacturer, who, even if he is not negligent in the manufacture of the product, is responsible for its reaching the market. However intermittently such injuries may occur and however haphazardly they may strike, the risk of their occurrence is a constant risk and a general one. Against such a risk there should be general and constant protection and the manufacturer is best situated to afford such protection.
There are some things to unpack here.
First, as a software developer, you are supposedly the expert and are in a far better position to evaluate your software and its potential hazards. Your customers are neither required to be experts in your software or how it might harm them, and realistically have no way to properly assess it no matter their skill level, so the responsibility falls on you.
Second, it is in the public interest to dissuade software developers from releasing faulty, broken, dangerous, etc software to the public. If a law which makes you responsible for the results of your software's failing makes you think twice about selling it, then that is a benefit to the public. If you aren't confident enough that you can accept the liability, why should your customers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escola_v._Coca-Cola_Bottling_C....
But very few physical consumer goods are designed to be robust to adversarial or malicious use, and there is no standard of liability for such failures. On the other hand, often in these discussions, people advocate for such a standard for software products.
Consider the example of a music player that was mentioned in another comment upstream in this thread. Suppose a company sells music player software that turns out to have a RCE vulnerability when run on a maliciously crafted .mp3 file. Should they be liable?
It's helpful to consider a physical product analogy: imagine the company sold a cassette player instead. Now, let's say that someone designs a malicious tape that is lined with noxious chemicals, which when played in the cassette player causes it to catch on fire and explode. Would anyone regard the cassette maker as liable if this caused someone to die or a house to burn down?
In the Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. case that you cite, a key phrase from the majority opinion is:
> Upon an examination of the record, the evidence appears sufficient to support a reasonable inference that the bottle here involved was not damaged by any extraneous force after delivery to the restaurant by defendant.
In other words, there was no 3rd party malicious use or manipulation of the bottle: it exploded during "normal" use. If the bottle had exploded because some 3rd party had deliberately weakened the bottle, or added extra pressure before giving it to the waitress, there's no way Coca-Cola would have been liable.
Consider the example of a music player that was mentioned in another comment upstream in this thread. Suppose a company sells music player software that turns out to have a RCE vulnerability when run on a maliciously crafted .mp3 file. Should they be liable?
It's helpful to consider a physical product analogy: imagine the company sold a cassette player instead. Now, let's say that someone designs a malicious tape that is lined with noxious chemicals, which when played in the cassette player causes it to catch on fire and explode. Would anyone regard the cassette maker as liable if this caused someone to die or a house to burn down?
In the Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. case that you cite, a key phrase from the majority opinion is:
> Upon an examination of the record, the evidence appears sufficient to support a reasonable inference that the bottle here involved was not damaged by any extraneous force after delivery to the restaurant by defendant.
In other words, there was no 3rd party malicious use or manipulation of the bottle: it exploded during "normal" use. If the bottle had exploded because some 3rd party had deliberately weakened the bottle, or added extra pressure before giving it to the waitress, there's no way Coca-Cola would have been liable.
> It's helpful to consider a physical product analogy: imagine the company sold a cassette player instead. Now, let's say that someone designs a malicious tape that is lined with noxious chemicals, which when played in the cassette player causes it to catch on fire and explode. Would anyone regard the cassette maker as liable if this caused someone to die or a house to burn down?
With respect, a malicious tape lined with noxious chemicals is not analogous to a maliciously crafted .mp3 file for several reasons. First a tape lined with noxious chemicals is dangerous unto itself.
Second, it is not reasonably foreseeable that a tape deck would be used to play a chemically sabotaged tape. If there were millions of tapes in circulation that could cause a tape deck to self-combust, the manufacturer would be (at least partly) liable for that foreseeable outcome. They would be required to take steps to ameliorate that possible outcome.
It is now reasonably foreseeable that software designed to open arbitrary files may be subject to a maliciously crafted attack.
With respect, a malicious tape lined with noxious chemicals is not analogous to a maliciously crafted .mp3 file for several reasons. First a tape lined with noxious chemicals is dangerous unto itself.
Second, it is not reasonably foreseeable that a tape deck would be used to play a chemically sabotaged tape. If there were millions of tapes in circulation that could cause a tape deck to self-combust, the manufacturer would be (at least partly) liable for that foreseeable outcome. They would be required to take steps to ameliorate that possible outcome.
It is now reasonably foreseeable that software designed to open arbitrary files may be subject to a maliciously crafted attack.
Should auto-manufacturers be liable for emissions produced by cars that have had their catalytic converters stolen?
Should medicine manufacturers be liable if someone circumvents their tamper-proof seals and laces them with a poison?
Should berry growers be liable if someone inserts needles into foods that are sold at supermarkets?
All of these are crimes that are either widespread or famous from media scares that happened in the past, and thus foreseeable going ahead, but I think liability would still be limited because the resulting harms are caused by a 3rd party criminal act.
Should medicine manufacturers be liable if someone circumvents their tamper-proof seals and laces them with a poison?
Should berry growers be liable if someone inserts needles into foods that are sold at supermarkets?
All of these are crimes that are either widespread or famous from media scares that happened in the past, and thus foreseeable going ahead, but I think liability would still be limited because the resulting harms are caused by a 3rd party criminal act.
> Should auto-manufacturers be liable for emissions produced by cars that have had their catalytic converters stolen?
This is an interesting hypothetical, but I don't see the relevance.
> Should medicine manufacturers be liable if someone circumvents their tamper-proof seals and laces them with a poison?
Yes, and they are.
> Should berry growers be liable if someone inserts needles into foods that are sold at supermarkets?
The retailer should be, and is.
This is an interesting hypothetical, but I don't see the relevance.
> Should medicine manufacturers be liable if someone circumvents their tamper-proof seals and laces them with a poison?
Yes, and they are.
> Should berry growers be liable if someone inserts needles into foods that are sold at supermarkets?
The retailer should be, and is.
>> Should auto-manufacturers be liable for emissions produced by cars that have had their catalytic converters stolen?
> This is an interesting hypothetical, but I don't see the relevance
That's your willing ignorance, and on the 2nd point too.
> This is an interesting hypothetical, but I don't see the relevance
That's your willing ignorance, and on the 2nd point too.
No, but if my dehumidifier model causes fires it will be recalled and I'll get my money back to buy a new one.
Although, I think some companies use recalls in a dark pattern, specifically baby product companies.
Although, I think some companies use recalls in a dark pattern, specifically baby product companies.
So you're talking about an unusually serious flaw and almost certainly for some bounded period of time--and assuming the purchasers even learns of the recall. Automobiles aside, I don't think in my 60+ years I have ever been aware of a recall on a product I purchased.
That may be the case, but a lot of people do pay attention to recalls. Whether a majority, plurality, or minority of the population I have no idea, but folks in my social circle do search for recalls when purchasing used.
It's surely not just a minority but a very small minority if you're not counting the recalls that either end up in the news or go through the trouble of informing customers.
With respect, are you based in the US?
The EU's Safety Gate programme documents safety recalls all the time, and it's common to get an email (for bigger purchases) or see recall notices at the entrance or checkouts at retailers. Retailers of safety-critical products (medical equipment, lifejackets, climbing gear, etc) will often insist on a phone number or email address in case of recall.
https://ec.europa.eu/safety-gate-alerts/
The EU's Safety Gate programme documents safety recalls all the time, and it's common to get an email (for bigger purchases) or see recall notices at the entrance or checkouts at retailers. Retailers of safety-critical products (medical equipment, lifejackets, climbing gear, etc) will often insist on a phone number or email address in case of recall.
https://ec.europa.eu/safety-gate-alerts/
I'm curious now, can you expand on dark recall patterns?
Baby stuff companies make a lot of money selling new items and nothing from used items. Their things are always on the recall posters at stores. Are they all super dangerous? Or do they recall things that are a few years old so that the used items shouldn't be sold? I imagine the cost of a recall of something that has been discarded or put in the closet is pretty low.
Incidentally, perhaps you can eventually be paid back for your stroller or crib if you do keep the receipt and watch the lists.
Thrift stores will have to check recall lists of donated items and discard the ones that are recalled, or there might be some legal exposure.
Incidentally, perhaps you can eventually be paid back for your stroller or crib if you do keep the receipt and watch the lists.
Thrift stores will have to check recall lists of donated items and discard the ones that are recalled, or there might be some legal exposure.
You live in a fancy apartment building that has a lobby with a concierge. The building isn't going to give the concierge $100,000 and tell them, okay keep coming back for the rest of your life.
If the lobby of your building has a fancy chair in it, the furniture company isn't going to expect $10 a month forever to keep using it, and on the flip side, if the furniture turns out to be accidentally made of asbestos, it's the furniture company's responsibility to do something about that, regardless of the fact that you're not paying them every month.
Is there a version of the concierge that's a one time purchase? Probably not a good one? The fee your paying is for 1. continued incentive to continue doing a good job and 2. Training and improvements to the staff.
Is there a version of the chair that should be a recurring fee? Maybe if the chair company comes and swaps out the chair every month, but then you're not paying for the chair, you're paying for the chair service. Should the apartment building have the expectation that under a flat fee the fabric in the chair is going to get upgraded to fit new styles and tastes? No, that's never a expectation when you buy furniture. The only case where the manufacturer would be beholden to you would be if there is some gross defect in the product or if there was some negligence on their part that could lead to injury.
Realistically there's not going to be an issue where a chair lets robbers in, but if you bought a door lock for example, and the lock failed when someone tapped it, you're not SOL because your not paying a subscription to the lock maker, they're liable for their defective product.
There's absolutely cases where software should be a subscription model and there's absolutely cases where it shouldn't be.
I don't need any features that have been added to Adobe Premiere since 2013. I don't want or need updates--my copy of CS6 still works. I'm not getting a CC subscription.
If I needed software to help with accessibility compliance, I would absolutely be willing to pay a monthly fee because the standards change and information becomes out of date quickly. It would be an unreasonable expectation that a lump sum I paid in 2013 would still have my websites up to code today.
--
Forgive typos, on my phone.
If the lobby of your building has a fancy chair in it, the furniture company isn't going to expect $10 a month forever to keep using it, and on the flip side, if the furniture turns out to be accidentally made of asbestos, it's the furniture company's responsibility to do something about that, regardless of the fact that you're not paying them every month.
Is there a version of the concierge that's a one time purchase? Probably not a good one? The fee your paying is for 1. continued incentive to continue doing a good job and 2. Training and improvements to the staff.
Is there a version of the chair that should be a recurring fee? Maybe if the chair company comes and swaps out the chair every month, but then you're not paying for the chair, you're paying for the chair service. Should the apartment building have the expectation that under a flat fee the fabric in the chair is going to get upgraded to fit new styles and tastes? No, that's never a expectation when you buy furniture. The only case where the manufacturer would be beholden to you would be if there is some gross defect in the product or if there was some negligence on their part that could lead to injury.
Realistically there's not going to be an issue where a chair lets robbers in, but if you bought a door lock for example, and the lock failed when someone tapped it, you're not SOL because your not paying a subscription to the lock maker, they're liable for their defective product.
There's absolutely cases where software should be a subscription model and there's absolutely cases where it shouldn't be.
I don't need any features that have been added to Adobe Premiere since 2013. I don't want or need updates--my copy of CS6 still works. I'm not getting a CC subscription.
If I needed software to help with accessibility compliance, I would absolutely be willing to pay a monthly fee because the standards change and information becomes out of date quickly. It would be an unreasonable expectation that a lump sum I paid in 2013 would still have my websites up to code today.
--
Forgive typos, on my phone.
> There's absolutely cases where software should be a subscription model and there's absolutely cases where it shouldn't be.
My thoughts on this:
1. How long would it take a team of 4 people to build this with just the features I need for a single user?
2. How much would it cost to contract a team to build that (ball bark)?
If it can be done on a single person's salary, I'm not paying a monthly subscription, no matter how inexpensive. I'm also not contracting that work either, but I might be tempted to compete with them if my employer let me (they won't).
Only certain things make sense as a subscription, and those are things that have an infinite (or practically infinite) cost to the consumer, thus they should have an amortized infinite cost.
My thoughts on this:
1. How long would it take a team of 4 people to build this with just the features I need for a single user?
2. How much would it cost to contract a team to build that (ball bark)?
If it can be done on a single person's salary, I'm not paying a monthly subscription, no matter how inexpensive. I'm also not contracting that work either, but I might be tempted to compete with them if my employer let me (they won't).
Only certain things make sense as a subscription, and those are things that have an infinite (or practically infinite) cost to the consumer, thus they should have an amortized infinite cost.
I've always thought about this in relation to the cost to the company rather than the consumer. I appreciate that different perspective.
Do you think there's a case where something might have an infinite cost to the consumer but a finite cost to the company? Ie a solution to some recurring problem that, without the software or service the customer would endlessly pay for, but with the software or service would not incur the recurring cost--and in that situation, do you think it would be fair for the company to charge a recurring fee given that it's not costing them to continually develop it? So the customer is saving money compared to before they had the software but it's not supplementing a cost of development?
Do you think there's a case where something might have an infinite cost to the consumer but a finite cost to the company? Ie a solution to some recurring problem that, without the software or service the customer would endlessly pay for, but with the software or service would not incur the recurring cost--and in that situation, do you think it would be fair for the company to charge a recurring fee given that it's not costing them to continually develop it? So the customer is saving money compared to before they had the software but it's not supplementing a cost of development?
In those situations, it’s probably better to create an open source product that you sell support for. Customers that have the resources to build their own are also the customers who are willing to buy the closed source version until they can afford the time to replace it (auth0 cough). If you make it open source, those same companies would rather use what you’ve already built and probably contribute back to your project. The customers who could never afford to replace it will likely buy support for an open source version as well. Especially if you don’t advertise that it’s free (discourse) for a bit more work. You can also sell a hosted version for a subscription.
Now you’ve set yourself up for a community to grow: core devs you pay, customers that contribute code and help diagnose bugs, customers that pay you only for support, and customers that pay you to do everything.
I did this once, and the support-only customers were the most interesting. They helped locate latent race conditions that only appeared on underpowered hardware, but could happen on over-subscribed machines (like the hosted version), and so much more.
I never got any contributions on the code side, but one guy randomly took over responding to issues without being asked to. By the time I got to them, it would be ready to close or I would have enough information to address it immediately.
If you are going this route, just be aware that companies *will* eventually replace you with a home-grown solution. Even if it takes years. So ask yourself if you want to be the solution everyone goes to, you need an FOSS solution to give people. Otherwise, you’ll be replaced with the other ones, eventually.
IOW, if a company like auth0 were to have an open source server, they’d be killing it everywhere. Five or six years ago. By now, there’s enough free (as in free speech) solutions out there that they will probably never be the default solution, just one that you pay for for a little while until you figure out how or have the time to host your own.
Now you’ve set yourself up for a community to grow: core devs you pay, customers that contribute code and help diagnose bugs, customers that pay you only for support, and customers that pay you to do everything.
I did this once, and the support-only customers were the most interesting. They helped locate latent race conditions that only appeared on underpowered hardware, but could happen on over-subscribed machines (like the hosted version), and so much more.
I never got any contributions on the code side, but one guy randomly took over responding to issues without being asked to. By the time I got to them, it would be ready to close or I would have enough information to address it immediately.
If you are going this route, just be aware that companies *will* eventually replace you with a home-grown solution. Even if it takes years. So ask yourself if you want to be the solution everyone goes to, you need an FOSS solution to give people. Otherwise, you’ll be replaced with the other ones, eventually.
IOW, if a company like auth0 were to have an open source server, they’d be killing it everywhere. Five or six years ago. By now, there’s enough free (as in free speech) solutions out there that they will probably never be the default solution, just one that you pay for for a little while until you figure out how or have the time to host your own.
Nobody is going to pay for an unpatched bug in a chair in the first place, and then be happy when they're asked to pay more to fix it.
If my unpatched chair breaks because of a manufacturing defect I’ll sue the company.
You would? That seems like an outsized reaction to a broken chair.
Small claims makes low dollar torts fairly straightforward.
Interesting, I wonder how often Small-claims gets used for software. At the same time:
@d13 What if the house magically changed shape so the chair couldn't be used any more in that house? Suddenly one day you'll need to sit on the floor and eat, until you had gotten new chairs, for the new shape of the house
Who would you sue (the house or the chair company or no one?)
Or instead, when the house changes shape randomly and whenever, what about paying the chair company for upgrading your chairs to match the new shape of the house (and you'd never have to cook and eat on the floor)
(It makes little sense, I think, to compare software with chairs and houses. Unless the houses are magical as per above)
@d13 What if the house magically changed shape so the chair couldn't be used any more in that house? Suddenly one day you'll need to sit on the floor and eat, until you had gotten new chairs, for the new shape of the house
Who would you sue (the house or the chair company or no one?)
Or instead, when the house changes shape randomly and whenever, what about paying the chair company for upgrading your chairs to match the new shape of the house (and you'd never have to cook and eat on the floor)
(It makes little sense, I think, to compare software with chairs and houses. Unless the houses are magical as per above)
Speaking from a consumer perspective, there should be definitely 2 options:
1. You pay for a subscription $X per month and get the newest updates.
2. You pay $Y*X once, but then you are left with the version which you bought in the first place.
Why can't software like a music player or playing podcast function perfectly fine w9thout updates for 10 years. We had same audio formats for 10 years, and same OS audio API.
Well, most software can run perfectly without updates, for example: You can still have a PC running on Windows XP.
Why you might need updates: 1. New functionality (if you need a particular feature that was not available before) 2. Security issues
Why you might need updates: 1. New functionality (if you need a particular feature that was not available before) 2. Security issues
This is my favourite model. Say you are an illustrator, you purchase photoshop once for 900$ and you update again when the features are compelling. Maybe every 5 years?
These are not industries where people make programmer wages. Combining all of the required software costs is very expensive. Subscriptions more closely match the model/needs of the producer, but they are often quite bad the consumer.
These are not industries where people make programmer wages. Combining all of the required software costs is very expensive. Subscriptions more closely match the model/needs of the producer, but they are often quite bad the consumer.
You then need to take assets from a 3rd party and use them in your work. Their files are for a version newer than yours and is not backwards compatible. Are you gonna upgrade then even if there’s no feature you require? This was the main issue with photoshop in my experience and a problem that has disappeared with the subscription model.
this is my own ignorance, but have codecs not changed or gotten new features in the last 10 years?
[deleted]
What you end up with though is a predatory sales team so that when the time comes to upgrade they want you to back pay the subscription :)
> you don't have to keep paying me forever to keep using it.
Your analogy is flawed. Rather, you will never indefinitely get the latest quality chair for free after buying it. Nor if tomorrow plastics are banned, they won't replace your chair with wood or metal for free either. And if the fabric wears, they won't replace it for free either.
So, why should software updates be free in a dynamic computing world?
Your analogy is flawed. Rather, you will never indefinitely get the latest quality chair for free after buying it. Nor if tomorrow plastics are banned, they won't replace your chair with wood or metal for free either. And if the fabric wears, they won't replace it for free either.
So, why should software updates be free in a dynamic computing world?
That was covered, as it's obvious.
If you sold furniture you would also sell a heck of a lot more of it on very low, very long payment plans. Even more extreme with cars, resulting in leases that are essentially long term rentals or "subscriptions"
But RentACenter is only RentACenter, and unlike a lot of on-line services, I don't have to use them to furnish my house.
It's fine for the rental option to exist, the problem is only when no other option exists, and, increasingly, no other option exists.
Please don't waste our time pointing out how this is generalization and alternatives do exist technically for most things. It's obviously not 100% services, but the entire world of software is becoming more and more each day, worse today than yesterday, worse tomorrow than today, a choice between two opposite ends of a spectrum: 0% ownership in the form of services, and 100% ownership in the form of open source. Each of those are fine in various circumstances.
For many things, and increasing, no practical alternative to "RentACenter" software exists because in most cases an individual is not realistically free to do their own thing if they want to sell to customers and buy from vendors and interoperate with family and friends who all take the easy path and use all the major services, or even without interoperation issues the alternative option simply doesn't do the same job or doesn't exist. And the damning thing is that it used to exist, meaning the rental model is not a required aspect to produce the product to do the job.
It's fine for the rental option to exist, the problem is only when no other option exists, and, increasingly, no other option exists.
Please don't waste our time pointing out how this is generalization and alternatives do exist technically for most things. It's obviously not 100% services, but the entire world of software is becoming more and more each day, worse today than yesterday, worse tomorrow than today, a choice between two opposite ends of a spectrum: 0% ownership in the form of services, and 100% ownership in the form of open source. Each of those are fine in various circumstances.
For many things, and increasing, no practical alternative to "RentACenter" software exists because in most cases an individual is not realistically free to do their own thing if they want to sell to customers and buy from vendors and interoperate with family and friends who all take the easy path and use all the major services, or even without interoperation issues the alternative option simply doesn't do the same job or doesn't exist. And the damning thing is that it used to exist, meaning the rental model is not a required aspect to produce the product to do the job.
But you now own the product at the end of the term.
And the margins for those furniture businesses are super duper tiny, whereas software margins are super duper not. Ironically, this is why they hawk monthly plans like the world is ending.
Of course software needs iteration, but what was wrong with paying for occasional upgrades rather than the continuous trickle of a subscription?
I loved this model, it clearly linked revenue earned by new versions to the value provided by the upgrade.
IMO, subscriptions are intended to shoehorn users who would only upgrade every few years into the equivalent of the “yearly” upgrade cycle. They’re a way of avoiding the accountability that comes with paid upgrades.
Personally, I have two subscriptions that I will dump the instant a quality pay-once alternative appears. Locked-in customers are the worst kinds of customers.
I loved this model, it clearly linked revenue earned by new versions to the value provided by the upgrade.
IMO, subscriptions are intended to shoehorn users who would only upgrade every few years into the equivalent of the “yearly” upgrade cycle. They’re a way of avoiding the accountability that comes with paid upgrades.
Personally, I have two subscriptions that I will dump the instant a quality pay-once alternative appears. Locked-in customers are the worst kinds of customers.
Subscriptions are intended to provide a predictable income to pay to the developers so they could keep working continuously.
That's how a lot of games work (and have done for decades).
You buy the game once, then get access to online multiplayer servers.
Subscription models encourage constant needless changes to the product.
You buy the game once, then get access to online multiplayer servers.
Subscription models encourage constant needless changes to the product.
Very few follow that trend, though, and servers sometime get shut down after a while, exactly because they have a price.
And expansions, dlcs, seasons, are a way to subsidize such online services.
How many games that offer no additional packages keep their online offering working forever?
And expansions, dlcs, seasons, are a way to subsidize such online services.
How many games that offer no additional packages keep their online offering working forever?
> How many games that offer no additional packages keep their online offering working forever?
All the games that actually released binaries for hosting your own servers. That used to be the standard back in the day.
All the games that actually released binaries for hosting your own servers. That used to be the standard back in the day.
I don't think that's coming back, but it would be nice if they released the binaries once they stop providing servers for a game.
Something called Minecraft seems to disagree with your conclusion.
The general trend is clearly towards not providing server binaries. You'll find some exceptions here and there, but that doesn't mean it's coming back.
>Subscription models encourage constant needless changes to the product.
As does the desire to sell paid upgrades.
As does the desire to sell paid upgrades.
That was before the infrastructure to properly support monthly or seasonly subscriptions or passes existed.
What are some other business models?
Microtransactions, usually a lootbox like system so the gamblers pay for the rest of the players (quite profitable)
DLCs
I can't think of any other common ones.
Microtransactions, usually a lootbox like system so the gamblers pay for the rest of the players (quite profitable)
DLCs
I can't think of any other common ones.
> or continued backend support
This is part of the problem. Give me software that runs locally only, and there's no need for "backend support". This insane integration of local software with unnecessary remote services is absurd.
But yes, obviously one should pay for feature upgrades, as it was in the 90s. Everything went to hell when software started having the Internet as a core dependency.
This is part of the problem. Give me software that runs locally only, and there's no need for "backend support". This insane integration of local software with unnecessary remote services is absurd.
But yes, obviously one should pay for feature upgrades, as it was in the 90s. Everything went to hell when software started having the Internet as a core dependency.
Lots of software products don't require constant iteration and maintenance. They can work for 10 years, 20 years, or even more. Unless you build in shittiness and planned obsolescence, which the printer industry commonly does.
Does software want to become the printer industry?
Does software want to become the printer industry?
Not all products need iteration or a custom backend, and those two things are often undesirable features for a lot of users.
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"Take Sketch for example, some of my clients use it so I had to update each year spending 99$. With subscription I could just use it for a project and cancel afterwards saving money, something I have done with Adobe software"
Sketch is now subscription-only; previously you paid for one year of updates. If you stopped paying for updates you could still continue to use the desktop app (i.e. the app did not expire).
The current Sketch model means you can use the app only when you pay to use the app: pay every year, or pay for a monthly usage.
Sketch is now subscription-only; previously you paid for one year of updates. If you stopped paying for updates you could still continue to use the desktop app (i.e. the app did not expire).
The current Sketch model means you can use the app only when you pay to use the app: pay every year, or pay for a monthly usage.
Indeed. Buying an application is not necessarily like buying a wrench or a shovel.
It should be, though. We have standardized hardware and OS API/ABI.
Is it really reasonable for software industry to drain so much money just because it takes some effort to write a program that won't magically rot in a few years?
Is it really reasonable for software industry to drain so much money just because it takes some effort to write a program that won't magically rot in a few years?
You're perfectly welcome to keep your computer and its software running in isolation until the end of time or until the hardware fails. You just shouldn't expect to be able to connect to networks that change over time or to run software on new operating systems that address newly discovered security vulnerabilities or that otherwise get updated.
Networks don't change over time. Centralized "application-servers" do. Making applications network-dependent when they don't need to be is a part of the problem.
Security vulnerabilities don't change OS APIs. OS APIs are one of the most stable constructs in computing.
There is a huge subset of software that doesn't require interaction over the network, and can be written to last. And even inherently network-dependent applications could be written using p2p technologies, making them independent on anyone's computer. Just because the everything sucks right now doesn't mean it has to.
Security vulnerabilities don't change OS APIs. OS APIs are one of the most stable constructs in computing.
There is a huge subset of software that doesn't require interaction over the network, and can be written to last. And even inherently network-dependent applications could be written using p2p technologies, making them independent on anyone's computer. Just because the everything sucks right now doesn't mean it has to.
Used to be.
Look at drivers. Usually you update those yourself. Some managed services exist, but they break often, leaving the system in an unusable state.
Look at drivers. Usually you update those yourself. Some managed services exist, but they break often, leaving the system in an unusable state.
I really liked the old way it used to work. You bought a license for software and got only bugfixes and security patches. Every second year there was a new version released with 50-75% upgrade price for current users.
I totally understand subscriptions for online services that run on provider servers/storage etc. (like Evernote) or content services where you get access to a vast database of always growing content, that you would never afford to buy at once. But stuff like Bear notes, Autodesk Fusion 360, etc. These I don’t understand. If you cannot justify a new version users want to pay for, then don’t make it. I think most users would gladly pay for new features and improvements. Just don’t make them cash cows driving your business model on fear of loss.
I totally understand subscriptions for online services that run on provider servers/storage etc. (like Evernote) or content services where you get access to a vast database of always growing content, that you would never afford to buy at once. But stuff like Bear notes, Autodesk Fusion 360, etc. These I don’t understand. If you cannot justify a new version users want to pay for, then don’t make it. I think most users would gladly pay for new features and improvements. Just don’t make them cash cows driving your business model on fear of loss.
> Autodesk Fusion 360
They shoehorn their cloud service and certain operations are done on their servers, which are awfully slow. It seems like they added this to justify a subscription and not to give any benefit to the user.
They shoehorn their cloud service and certain operations are done on their servers, which are awfully slow. It seems like they added this to justify a subscription and not to give any benefit to the user.
Yeah, and these services (namely renders of the designs) are still paid outside of main subscription fee. What’s worst is that these cloud services make the app worse. I want to work on a file I have on my computer, not upload it to cloud first so it works slower.
I can deal with them conceptually - I just dislike how they go about things on the billing & signup side.
Its usually quite darkpattern-y in vibe. See trials that switch to paid, or discounts for 1 month (heavily advertised) then extortionate rate (in fine print) after. Or easy online sign up, phone in during office hours to cancel. Or getting mercilessly hounded to re-sub after cancellation.
If they just behaved a little less scummy things would be better
Its usually quite darkpattern-y in vibe. See trials that switch to paid, or discounts for 1 month (heavily advertised) then extortionate rate (in fine print) after. Or easy online sign up, phone in during office hours to cancel. Or getting mercilessly hounded to re-sub after cancellation.
If they just behaved a little less scummy things would be better
This is one thing apple got right. I don’t have to deal with individual apps process of cancelling a subscription. If I don’t like it, I can go to the App Store and cancel it there
The “phone in during office hours” technique led me to threaten a lawsuit on one occasion. I really think it should be illegal.
It just screams "we view our users as cows who must not be allowed to escape the milking apparatus".
SaaS model is applicable in some use cases. The VC like it, because they can give the investors comfortable idea of progressive growth and quick ROI.
But I am patiently waiting to see what will be the consumer reaction when everything becomes compartmentalized and monetized to hell. Like the great ideas of geniuses in BMW headquarters:)
https://www.thedrive.com/news/bmw-is-charging-a-subscription...
https://www.wired.com/story/bmw-heated-seats-as-a-service-mo...
https://www.thedrive.com/news/bmw-is-charging-a-subscription...
https://www.wired.com/story/bmw-heated-seats-as-a-service-mo...
Making a subscription service out of physical products (that are there anyway) is really too crazy to wrap my head around. Why not make us pay monthly for everything? Trunk, headlights, the horn, blinkers, blinker fluid cap opener and so on. Oh wait, that's just car rental! Let's just abolish all private property and pay subscription for living, like a reverse UBI.
VC's: keep talking dirty like that and I'll give you another billion to implement this as a service.
It’s not even growth or ROI. It’s that reliably recurring revenue is valued at a much higher multiple than non recurring revenue.
VCs and other investors including public markets would rather see $1M ARR recurring through subscriptions with low churn than a single year with $10M revenue and no subscriptions. Even multiple years of growth in non recurring revenue will often be valued lower than less growth in subscription revenue.
This is why SaaS type models have taken over and why every other business is trying to desperately shoehorn in some kind of subscription revenue. The latter gives us car companies with subscription cloud unlock services, etc.
VCs and other investors including public markets would rather see $1M ARR recurring through subscriptions with low churn than a single year with $10M revenue and no subscriptions. Even multiple years of growth in non recurring revenue will often be valued lower than less growth in subscription revenue.
This is why SaaS type models have taken over and why every other business is trying to desperately shoehorn in some kind of subscription revenue. The latter gives us car companies with subscription cloud unlock services, etc.
BMWs test-balloon gets bad rep, but the PR kerfuffle just shows how much we're influenced by marketing, considering Tesla's offering of selling you a cheaper car that will be permanently disabled from receiving certain software enabled features and no such outcry happening at all.
To play devils advocate:
- it streamlines production massively
- while still allowing the most affordable version to be bought
- but improves product options on the secondary car market
Im no fan of BMW's subscription model, but when you're leasing a car, it's effectively the same.
Edit: I'd rather have the option to opt out of this pricing scheme even if it would coust me more upfront
To play devils advocate:
- it streamlines production massively
- while still allowing the most affordable version to be bought
- but improves product options on the secondary car market
Im no fan of BMW's subscription model, but when you're leasing a car, it's effectively the same.
Edit: I'd rather have the option to opt out of this pricing scheme even if it would coust me more upfront
I had the same reaction.
I went as far as calculating it. If you’re a leasee, the heated seat subscription saves you money over your 3 years of ownership.
BMW being a luxury brand, a large chunk of owners are going to lease.
Plus, BMW had an option to opt-out and buy lifetime.
I went as far as calculating it. If you’re a leasee, the heated seat subscription saves you money over your 3 years of ownership.
BMW being a luxury brand, a large chunk of owners are going to lease.
Plus, BMW had an option to opt-out and buy lifetime.
When calculating it did you count hot months? I imagine in the majority of months having seat warmers is useless.
I did count the hot months, which would make the breakeven basically the length of your lease (well, I think for the lease I just compared the 3 year subscription which is slightly discounted) – but yes, if you figure that the person will unsubscribe outside of the 3 coldest winter months it's like a 10 year breakeven IIRC.
I don't know many BMW owners that keep their cars for 10 years.
To their mild credit BMW is at least charging what amounts to a discount for the subscription for their typical buyer, as long as they stay on top of whether they're subscribed or not.
I guess you could say it's annoying to have to subscribe and unsubscribe, and it would make a lot more sense if the subscription guaranteed that the hardware was repaired for free. Still, heated seats rarely break in modern cars from my experience.
I don't know many BMW owners that keep their cars for 10 years.
To their mild credit BMW is at least charging what amounts to a discount for the subscription for their typical buyer, as long as they stay on top of whether they're subscribed or not.
I guess you could say it's annoying to have to subscribe and unsubscribe, and it would make a lot more sense if the subscription guaranteed that the hardware was repaired for free. Still, heated seats rarely break in modern cars from my experience.
One thing that subscriptions have going for them is that they're a relatively fair way to charge for products that have continuous operating and development costs.
With one-off payments there's the obvious issue that you're either overcharging in case the startup (which the article talks about specifically) fails or you're severely undercharging which I think is more common if anything.
Just a few days ago I noticed I still have a lifetime membership for a podcast app that I once bought for almost nothing and they still ship features. While lucky for me personally not necessarily great for either the devs or other users who joined later after they switched to subscriptions.
With one-off payments there's the obvious issue that you're either overcharging in case the startup (which the article talks about specifically) fails or you're severely undercharging which I think is more common if anything.
Just a few days ago I noticed I still have a lifetime membership for a podcast app that I once bought for almost nothing and they still ship features. While lucky for me personally not necessarily great for either the devs or other users who joined later after they switched to subscriptions.
They also give strong incentives to only develop projects in the future that have continuous operating costs.
You can see evidence of that in our general industry trends, where software is either "being worked on" or "dead", but can never be finished.
That's tolerable for pure software projects, but now we're increasingly seeing the same trend with physical devices.
You can see evidence of that in our general industry trends, where software is either "being worked on" or "dead", but can never be finished.
That's tolerable for pure software projects, but now we're increasingly seeing the same trend with physical devices.
A problem, however, is that subscriptions are desirable revenue streams regardless of continuous operating costs. A product I can buy for a largely concrete exchange in value, whereas subscriptions will (at best) go to value in the future that I may not have chosen to buy.
I notice that you feel bad for the devs of the podcast app, but not so bad as to give them the word of mouth marketing they no doubt hopped would be the fair trade value of early lifetime memberships.
I notice that you feel bad for the devs of the podcast app, but not so bad as to give them the word of mouth marketing they no doubt hopped would be the fair trade value of early lifetime memberships.
The VC model is to blame, I think. The default VC calculation goes something like this. $100 million fund invested in 20 companies at $5 each. 18 or so go bust, break-even, get acquihired. The remaining two return maybe $100m each after 10 years. With this outcome the VC fund has a meager return, barely outperforms the S&P on a risk-adjusted basis.
What VCs are really looking for are big multibillion dollar exits. And you can't get there by selling $50 perpetual usage licenses to consumers.
It's a real shame, because most software I use can be written by a handful of good engineers in a couple of years. You can make great software that stands the test of time this way. But businesses that operate this way are not investible. And they now have to compete with free products dumped on the market by goliaths such as MS and Apple, and with free products made by venture backed companies that just want to gobble up market share, aiming for a monetizable monopoly down the road.
What VCs are really looking for are big multibillion dollar exits. And you can't get there by selling $50 perpetual usage licenses to consumers.
It's a real shame, because most software I use can be written by a handful of good engineers in a couple of years. You can make great software that stands the test of time this way. But businesses that operate this way are not investible. And they now have to compete with free products dumped on the market by goliaths such as MS and Apple, and with free products made by venture backed companies that just want to gobble up market share, aiming for a monetizable monopoly down the road.
> It's a real shame, because most software I use can be written by a handful of good engineers in a couple of years.
And what if the engineers bootstrap instead of taking VC lucre?
And what if the engineers bootstrap instead of taking VC lucre?
Then they should be even more amenable to offering subscriptions. Unlike VCs, bootstrappers can't afford to sell only one time licenses to their products, especially at a sub 10 dollar price.
Sounds like VCs are going to have to either live with lower returns or get much, much better at picking winners.
Dear innovative people: think of a better model.
1. Free = problematic with the lack of money
2. Freemium = looks good if the balance is right
3. Ads = Mostly works but the model is flawed and skewed
4. Subscription = Love/Hate currently trendy but too relied on
5. Pay-what-you-can = Fans provide the service for everyone
6. Premium what it's worth, when it's worth
7. Enterprise = S'ok because my company/org pays for it
8. Tokenised = S'ok because the next person pays for mine...
9. Charitable / foundation = Someone more wealthy pays
10. None of the above = For now somehow it works
There are probably 10 more models already, 10 more out there and 10 more coming soon. Get thinking, stop complaining.
1. Free = problematic with the lack of money
2. Freemium = looks good if the balance is right
3. Ads = Mostly works but the model is flawed and skewed
4. Subscription = Love/Hate currently trendy but too relied on
5. Pay-what-you-can = Fans provide the service for everyone
6. Premium what it's worth, when it's worth
7. Enterprise = S'ok because my company/org pays for it
8. Tokenised = S'ok because the next person pays for mine...
9. Charitable / foundation = Someone more wealthy pays
10. None of the above = For now somehow it works
There are probably 10 more models already, 10 more out there and 10 more coming soon. Get thinking, stop complaining.
How about good old "pay for it once, then own it"?
Sorry, no, ridiculous idea. We've hired some MBA's and they say it'll be "milk your customers for that monthly recurring revenue", or bust.
/s
/s
If there's no support and no updates. Can't work with web apps unless there's a version restriction/time limit.
This. The software would get abandoned once they've cashed in on the bulk of people buying it. They can trickle in more sales over time, but that's not going to amount to nearly as much as the initial payload, and therefore the motivation to continue developing dwindles.
You can release new versions though. This is what a large chunk of the software industry has done up until recently. Photoshop has gone through a lot of version numbers through the years.
Although it does sort of put pressure on the developers to actually refine their product and continue to deliver tangible improvements. Nobody is going to pay for a UI that's been re-arranged a bit.
Although it does sort of put pressure on the developers to actually refine their product and continue to deliver tangible improvements. Nobody is going to pay for a UI that's been re-arranged a bit.
Except a "new version" is arbitrary, and the decision to do so was made for financial reasons and not technical. Every new version of Photoshop had some percentage of people complaining "why can't this update just be a patch?".
Yeah sure, although upgrading was optional. My point is the incentive is on the developer to make it worth while to pay for an upgrade, they can't just phone it in.
There's even more pressure on a subscription service to deliver value, since you can cancel and the business makes less than selling MSRP (and this usually means losing money on the customer after customer acquisition costs).
I can't think of a single subscription service I use that doesn't continue to deliver new updates and value on a regular basis, and other than Adobe's bullshit "annual masquerading as monthly" drama I haven't come across something I wished was still packaged.
I can't think of a single subscription service I use that doesn't continue to deliver new updates and value on a regular basis, and other than Adobe's bullshit "annual masquerading as monthly" drama I haven't come across something I wished was still packaged.
Then stop making things web apps that don't need to be web apps. Wrap it in Electron, if you really must use that particular set of technologies.
This works as long as customers can't complain the app is broken when a new version of the OS comes out.
How can you own an online service?
You own a license, instead of paying for a license in perpetuity.
When the software requires continuous updates and a server component and storage and things, this doesn't make any sense.
There’s a ceiling, a point you can never pass, with a subscription model due to churn. There isn’t a ceiling with one-off purchases.
Subscription's exchange a higher ceiling for a higher floor, which makes running a business much easier.
Isn't the one-off ceiling much the same: everyone who is interested has bought it, of at least tried it?
Nope. The one-off ceiling is basically non-existent for practical purposes. Do I pay you a theoretical infinite amount of money to use your product for a small percentage of my income, or do I pay you a small part of my wealth for your product?
With a subscription model, there’s a point where the consumer has paid you “too much” and they will either cancel or find another solution. This is also known as churn. If your avg customer pays you for 8 months, this is a pretty good indicator of how much customers are willing to pay, but you can likely charge more for a one-off cost, sometimes 2-5x more.
Since you are likely combatting churn by finding new customers, switching to a one-off model means you can just find new customers and not worry about churn since it doesn’t exist.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes subscription models make a lot of sense. Most of the time they don’t unless you’re selling something that has an infinite cost anyway (like immediate access to “all” movies ever made like Netflix) and would be an infinite cost for the consumer to do it in some other way. But if I can pay a contractor to build your app for less than infinite money, then it shouldn’t cost an infinite amount to use your product.
With a subscription model, there’s a point where the consumer has paid you “too much” and they will either cancel or find another solution. This is also known as churn. If your avg customer pays you for 8 months, this is a pretty good indicator of how much customers are willing to pay, but you can likely charge more for a one-off cost, sometimes 2-5x more.
Since you are likely combatting churn by finding new customers, switching to a one-off model means you can just find new customers and not worry about churn since it doesn’t exist.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes subscription models make a lot of sense. Most of the time they don’t unless you’re selling something that has an infinite cost anyway (like immediate access to “all” movies ever made like Netflix) and would be an infinite cost for the consumer to do it in some other way. But if I can pay a contractor to build your app for less than infinite money, then it shouldn’t cost an infinite amount to use your product.
Seems to work for most video games
Does it? The servers of average video game don't last very long
Those same pay-once video games also sell season passes, MTX content, expansion packs, and in-game currency.
It's actually a fair question. The online service still has hosting and bandwidth to pay for at a minimum. Paying them once does not mean that they will be able to pay for hosting and bandwidth for the next twenty years that I expect to use the product.
For scale, I've been using VIM for almost thirty years. Twenty years is not an exaggerated number.
For scale, I've been using VIM for almost thirty years. Twenty years is not an exaggerated number.
Graveyards manage to do this, i.e. sell once and provide maintenance for a long period afterwards.
It might make the software prohibitively expensive though.
It might make the software prohibitively expensive though.
4.5 people per second turn 18 years old. Surely you can convince at least one of those people to make a purchase every month?
One $10 - $50 sale per month won't pay for hosting and bandwidth. Not to mention developers' salaries, rent, insurance, electricity, equipment, and a few pence into my childrens' funds.
And how frequently would said license be renewed?
How about for maximum flexability we do a per user rolling monthly license.
How about for maximum flexability we do a per user rolling monthly license.
Surprisingly, people figured this out a long time ago. When you create something substantially different from what the customer originally paid for, you sell it as something different.
Self hosting option.
It goes into the premium category only
And who pays for the maintenance and bug fixes?
Softwares can't sell like hardwares. When you buy a toaster for example, after the warranty expires you pay for every time you take it out for repairing. With softwares customers expect a life time of warranty, bug fixes and improvements.
Softwares can't sell like hardwares. When you buy a toaster for example, after the warranty expires you pay for every time you take it out for repairing. With softwares customers expect a life time of warranty, bug fixes and improvements.
The customer pays when a feature they actually care about breaks, and they upgrade.
Sell it as is, or with a very short one year support window. Exactly like all sorts of companies used to profitably do until they realized they could extract more value for the same work with a subscription.
Rent-seeking in the most literal form...
Sell it as is, or with a very short one year support window. Exactly like all sorts of companies used to profitably do until they realized they could extract more value for the same work with a subscription.
Rent-seeking in the most literal form...
Not sure why you're downvoted, but this is exactly what we saw early on with the app store. People paid 99c for an app, and then expected it to work with every new version of the OS and incorporate new OS features forevermore.
The stores also lack (and still do) an easy way to sell new versions, so here we are. Subscriptions.
The stores also lack (and still do) an easy way to sell new versions, so here we are. Subscriptions.
I will gladly pay for the new version, when they amount to something I care about. Most of them isn't worth it - I would rather accept some minor bugs.
Jetbrains has very good model in that regard. Hope they will not ruin it (new pricing for self hosted Spaces is bit concerning).
Jetbrains has very good model in that regard. Hope they will not ruin it (new pricing for self hosted Spaces is bit concerning).
The problem with software is that even though the program itself doesn't change, the OS and hardware that it runs on often changes and customers expect to be able to use the same app on new hardware too. This requires a continuous maintenance work from the developer side. So, it's often not only "minor bugs" but major bugs introduced by hardware or API changes.
I am aware and I have zero issues with that. Honestly until app is connected to some evolving API, probably it will work for many years before OS upgrade makes it non-functional. Lots of software I used 20 years ago still runs ok.
It would be nice, Intellij does something similar where you pay for one year of updates. If you stop paying it still works.
But in general if it's an evolving product, I don't think you can avoid a rolling payment.
How does that work when there is a vulnerability or updates that are required? How long does the company have to support the software?
If there’s backing services associated with it such as data storage then the duration of the asset and liability don’t jive.
No but then it's really a service.
The problem is that a lot of things that aren't a service are being rebranded "as a service" just to extract free revenue.
The problem is that a lot of things that aren't a service are being rebranded "as a service" just to extract free revenue.
Would you like feature updates with that purchase?
Usually, no. If the updates are worth it, I'd purchase the next version. I used Adobe Photoshop 5 for _years_. I wouldn't have paid for the CS version.
>. Ads = Mostly works but the model is flawed and skewed
I would argue that it has been proved that this model doesn't work, because it unalgins incentivess between the developer and the user: the developer will look tho maximize revenue, catering to better paying ads and more clicks/interaction with them, while the User will try to get more usage from the main app.
I want applications that give me an EXE that I can use forever , even if the company disappears. And then the option to pay yearly or monthly for updates to said Exe (even as replacement EXEs) that give me more functionality, bugfuxes and secfixes .
I would argue that it has been proved that this model doesn't work, because it unalgins incentivess between the developer and the user: the developer will look tho maximize revenue, catering to better paying ads and more clicks/interaction with them, while the User will try to get more usage from the main app.
I want applications that give me an EXE that I can use forever , even if the company disappears. And then the option to pay yearly or monthly for updates to said Exe (even as replacement EXEs) that give me more functionality, bugfuxes and secfixes .
Another idea: pausable subscription (like cancelling then re-subscribing, but without the hassle or stigma). I think I've seen a music plugin do this before. It's the idea of losing money to "idle time" that makes me allergic to subscriptions. You'd have to be a business that constantly uses the product for that to make sense.
The opposite effect is you are pressured to keep using the product and I feel my friends are losing valuable time because of their Netflix subscriptions.
Pay-per-use might also be a similar option, and I'm happy with many web services working this way.
The opposite effect is you are pressured to keep using the product and I feel my friends are losing valuable time because of their Netflix subscriptions.
Pay-per-use might also be a similar option, and I'm happy with many web services working this way.
Pausable subscriptions sounds hard to market. If netflix said that you need to pay $0.10 / hr people would be less comfortable with spending time on the platform. Every time they watch something they need to make a mental decision of if this episode is going to be worth paying $0.10 or if I should just browse TikTok for free.
It need not be per hour. You're right in pointing out the challenges of making it per hour. But that also should best be considered a metered model instead. And that could easily be annoying considering its too close to a show/movie run length.
I was thinking monthly as that is the usual billing interval. Minimum 1 month subscriptions, then pause the next month if you want to be busy for example. Maybe even weekly or 24 hours would do.
I was thinking monthly as that is the usual billing interval. Minimum 1 month subscriptions, then pause the next month if you want to be busy for example. Maybe even weekly or 24 hours would do.
I am surprised that the model of one off payment plus subscription after is not more common. I am happy to pay for ongoing support and updates to latest OS plus whatever MODEST margin, but I don’t really want to pay for product development cycle of features I might not even want or need. Some apps are just good as they are, I don’t want to pay for constant reinvention of UI or gimmicky features that developers feel like they have to add to justify subscription.
I’d love to say pay for a feature set that I really like and pay a “lower” subscription for it for ever. Even if at some stage I am forced to upgrade because developers have too many versions that they need to maintain.
I’d love to say pay for a feature set that I really like and pay a “lower” subscription for it for ever. Even if at some stage I am forced to upgrade because developers have too many versions that they need to maintain.
Let me add some more fuel to the debate - How can software-as-a-service be regulated in a way that it balances consumer rights and the rights of a business? Perhaps:
1. Every SaaS business should be compelled to offer both a subscription price and perpetual license at a fixed price.
2. The fixed price of a perpetual license should not be more than 10x or 20x (?) of the monthly subscription price.
3. If a user has opted for subscription payment, they should get a perpetual licence after they have paid a certain subscription amount over a period that is not more than 2x or 3x of the fixed price of the perpetual license.
4. SaaS businesses should not be allowed to hold users data hostage if the user decides to end the subscription. (This can be tricky if the data is in some proprietary format).
5. As much as possible, the SaaS should be able to run offline on a user's computer without needing to offload computing to servers.
Ofcourse, most of the above are practical only for software that you can actually run on your computer and don't require massive computing powers from data centers that some services may need. But then again, that's exactly the kind of software that don't need to be SaaS at all in the first place, as the article too points out.
1. Every SaaS business should be compelled to offer both a subscription price and perpetual license at a fixed price.
2. The fixed price of a perpetual license should not be more than 10x or 20x (?) of the monthly subscription price.
3. If a user has opted for subscription payment, they should get a perpetual licence after they have paid a certain subscription amount over a period that is not more than 2x or 3x of the fixed price of the perpetual license.
4. SaaS businesses should not be allowed to hold users data hostage if the user decides to end the subscription. (This can be tricky if the data is in some proprietary format).
5. As much as possible, the SaaS should be able to run offline on a user's computer without needing to offload computing to servers.
Ofcourse, most of the above are practical only for software that you can actually run on your computer and don't require massive computing powers from data centers that some services may need. But then again, that's exactly the kind of software that don't need to be SaaS at all in the first place, as the article too points out.
Regulation is the worst solution to any of this. Let the free market figure it out and you'll find enough competition if there really is enough demand.
The "free market" will always, always end up with large fish eating up the small fish and extracting rents once the competition is eliminated and the startup costs too high for startups to enter the market.
> The "free market" will always, always end up with large fish eating up the small fish
I still think this has much more to do with market interventions enabling 'artificially' large economies of scale. Infrastructure, police, subsidies/grants, IP protections--all played and continue to play a massive role in shaping markets today.
I still think this has much more to do with market interventions enabling 'artificially' large economies of scale. Infrastructure, police, subsidies/grants, IP protections--all played and continue to play a massive role in shaping markets today.
The number of successful new companies contradicts that statement.
Regulation, on the other hand, does tend to lead to rent seeking behavior as incumbents use those laws to their advantage and forcibly block new companies.
It’s much easier to overcome high costs than bad laws.
Regulation, on the other hand, does tend to lead to rent seeking behavior as incumbents use those laws to their advantage and forcibly block new companies.
It’s much easier to overcome high costs than bad laws.
> The number of successful new companies contradicts that statement.
And that's only because of current regulations and anti-competition laws. Turns out "free market" is only "free" when the giants are asked to behave and punished for bad behaviours.
And that's only because of current regulations and anti-competition laws. Turns out "free market" is only "free" when the giants are asked to behave and punished for bad behaviours.
The so-called "free" market doesn't care about consumer rights, though.
What part of this is about consumer rights?
With web applications, the right to privacy, not to deal with unwanted and / or forced updates or ToS changes, to retain the rights on our data and access it etc.
The answer is simple. Release a new version every year and sell it for a reasonable amount of money.
Pay-for-use is a fair and transparent variant, don't use the service? don't pay.
Metered usage, pay for what you use
Could you theoretically tokenize individual features? Only pay for the features you need, as and when you need them.
Definitely - that's basically what cloud platforms do. AWS doesn't charge you for S3 unless you're using it, and every feature has its own pricing
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Dear governments, I hate that I can't unsubscribe from services without going through the provider's dark-patterns first.
this was just codified into law in the EU. easy online subscription = easy online unsubscription.
Ha, I just commented elsewhere in this thread that it should be written into law. Now we just need it here in the USA.
So don't subscribe to them.
You can see the unsubscription flow only after subscribing. Thus you can't make your buying decision based on it.
You usually can with a bit of research or asking for it. You are however not certain it won't change.
You cannot get this information fron the business offering you the subscribtion, and its not in the contract, therefore it basicslly doesn't exist.
You can't rely on information from 3rd parties - those parties are under no obligation to tell you the truth, could be wrong or out of date
You can't rely on information from 3rd parties - those parties are under no obligation to tell you the truth, could be wrong or out of date
But the whole point of this thread is that everything is moving to subscriptions. So... dont use any service ever then I guess?
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That is untrue.
Also you named it: service. Not everything is a service, and not all services are required. While you can't easily avoid insurances, bankings, healthcare, internet/mobile provider you can easily avoid spotify, office365, netflix, evernote or telegram or a gym subscription.
Also you named it: service. Not everything is a service, and not all services are required. While you can't easily avoid insurances, bankings, healthcare, internet/mobile provider you can easily avoid spotify, office365, netflix, evernote or telegram or a gym subscription.
Yeah, and technically, I don't need housing either, I can just live on the street.
> telegram
Not if important contacts are on there.
The point is, there is a clear trend. Various things we traditionally saw as "products" already morphed into services and I don't see any indication this will reverse in the near future.
On the contrary, with more devices becoming connected, the trend will likely increasingly include physical devices. See BMW's experiments with requiring subscriptions to use hardware you already own. See also the whole John Deere debate from a few years ago. Etc.
So while not technically impossible, it will become increasingly harder to not use services.
> telegram
Not if important contacts are on there.
The point is, there is a clear trend. Various things we traditionally saw as "products" already morphed into services and I don't see any indication this will reverse in the near future.
On the contrary, with more devices becoming connected, the trend will likely increasingly include physical devices. See BMW's experiments with requiring subscriptions to use hardware you already own. See also the whole John Deere debate from a few years ago. Etc.
So while not technically impossible, it will become increasingly harder to not use services.
You usually don’t know the pain until you try it.
The immense majority of subscription services go to great lengths to make it as easy as possible to get you on and too many go to great length to make it very hard to let you stop.
We are at the point where I believe there should be regulations that forces a company to make it as easy to stop as it is to join.
The immense majority of subscription services go to great lengths to make it as easy as possible to get you on and too many go to great length to make it very hard to let you stop.
We are at the point where I believe there should be regulations that forces a company to make it as easy to stop as it is to join.
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Most subscriptions are just way too expensive!
I make good money, but I can’t afford to have 10 subscription services for 9,99 per month. I have a few for 0,99 per month.
I make good money, but I can’t afford to have 10 subscription services for 9,99 per month. I have a few for 0,99 per month.
> I make good money, but I can’t afford to have 10 subscription services for 9,99 per month.
So 100 a month total? Surely that's not any kind of issue if you're making good money? I get tons of value from the services I subscribe to.
So 100 a month total? Surely that's not any kind of issue if you're making good money? I get tons of value from the services I subscribe to.
After paying for housing, power, food, insurance, transportation, savings, …, I have maybe 1000$ left for spending every month. I don’t want to spend 10% of it for some apps/services that save me maybe a few minutes every months, for tasks that can be also somehow achieved with the apps that came with my phone.
Then you’re not the target market.
It’s just supply and demand. If not enough people want to pay that subscription, they will stop and change model (or shut down).
But if this is sustainable enough to pay for their dev, it doesn’t look like they should cater to you as those are non critical tasks for you and they barely have any impact on your life.
It’s just supply and demand. If not enough people want to pay that subscription, they will stop and change model (or shut down).
But if this is sustainable enough to pay for their dev, it doesn’t look like they should cater to you as those are non critical tasks for you and they barely have any impact on your life.
> Then you’re not the target market.
This is correct. Most of the complaints here amount to “it’s too expensive” which like, yeah, it’s too expensive for you. So don’t buy it.
(Somehow HN — on average, obviously not everyone, but the zeitgeist say — manages to at once complain about companies constantly losing money, and also about companies that charge money!)
This is correct. Most of the complaints here amount to “it’s too expensive” which like, yeah, it’s too expensive for you. So don’t buy it.
(Somehow HN — on average, obviously not everyone, but the zeitgeist say — manages to at once complain about companies constantly losing money, and also about companies that charge money!)
> Then you’re not the target market.
Seems like it, that’s why we are complaining :)
Seems like it, that’s why we are complaining :)
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There are a couple of services I would love to use, but I have a strict no-subscription policy. It just gives me bad vibes, I would rather pay 24 months upfront and have the full application/service.
Of course this does not matter, because the MBAs in charge showed in a PowerPoint presentation that the subscription model will squeeze 11.1% more money for customers, mostly from people who forget to unsubscribe.
Of course this does not matter, because the MBAs in charge showed in a PowerPoint presentation that the subscription model will squeeze 11.1% more money for customers, mostly from people who forget to unsubscribe.
The author hates subscription services, but the author doesn’t fit the ideal customer profile.
Someone who only pays for something once isn’t a customer that any company should want to attract in the first place, especially when you consider marketing costs.
The author would pay the LTV or even more, but the author is in the minority. Most people would pay some small amount of money once and then happily never pay another dime. They don’t drop hundreds of dollars on their LTV.
The author used Adobe as an example, and that’s where I should point out that it was one of the most pirated pieces of software on the market. SaaS basically eliminates that issue entirely.
Also, most consumers budget on a monthly basis. Ten bucks a month is easier to swallow than $150 all at once for a permanent copy of something like Microsoft Office.
For businesses, they were buying support contracts anyway, SaaS makes even more sense for them.
So, yes, that’s why everyone is SaaS. These businesses that operate on the model know it’s successful and more lucrative than one-time sales.
You might hate it, but the balance sheet doesn’t.
Someone who only pays for something once isn’t a customer that any company should want to attract in the first place, especially when you consider marketing costs.
The author would pay the LTV or even more, but the author is in the minority. Most people would pay some small amount of money once and then happily never pay another dime. They don’t drop hundreds of dollars on their LTV.
The author used Adobe as an example, and that’s where I should point out that it was one of the most pirated pieces of software on the market. SaaS basically eliminates that issue entirely.
Also, most consumers budget on a monthly basis. Ten bucks a month is easier to swallow than $150 all at once for a permanent copy of something like Microsoft Office.
For businesses, they were buying support contracts anyway, SaaS makes even more sense for them.
So, yes, that’s why everyone is SaaS. These businesses that operate on the model know it’s successful and more lucrative than one-time sales.
You might hate it, but the balance sheet doesn’t.
Software is expensive to make. It can take years to build and if the price tag resembled true cost of software, very few would be ready to pay the full price. Subscription makes software available to the masses.
This. Maybe people forgot about the days of having to buy software one-time for $59.99 and then have to buy a new version if you want the latest. Today, you can probably get that same service for $10/month and you're continuously getting updates.
Subscriptions make more sense for both users and businesses. It's not like you can fire the entire product team once you finish shipping a version of the product. And for users, the upfront cost is less and you're getting updates more frequently. You can also cancel if the service isn't what you expected. The power swings in the favor of the user more.
At the end of the day, it's all about life-time value anyways. Selling two copies of your software for $120 total is the same revenue as selling $10 subscriptions for 12 months.
Subscriptions make more sense for both users and businesses. It's not like you can fire the entire product team once you finish shipping a version of the product. And for users, the upfront cost is less and you're getting updates more frequently. You can also cancel if the service isn't what you expected. The power swings in the favor of the user more.
At the end of the day, it's all about life-time value anyways. Selling two copies of your software for $120 total is the same revenue as selling $10 subscriptions for 12 months.
There's also the manufacturers' side of this equation. If you have lifetime purchase versions, users will expect a period of support that will probably be longer than the cadence between new releases. As a result you wind up supporting multiple versions of your software, as famously happened with Microsoft's Windows and office franchises
> Today, you can probably get that same service for $10/month and you're continuously getting updates.
I remember when you could buy software, learn it, and use it effectively, without having constant habit-breaking changes stuffed down your throat. I remember when you owned your data and didn't have to rent it from a service provider. I remember what it was like to trust my machine, because everything was happening locally and software wasn't phoning home.
I remember when you could buy software, learn it, and use it effectively, without having constant habit-breaking changes stuffed down your throat. I remember when you owned your data and didn't have to rent it from a service provider. I remember what it was like to trust my machine, because everything was happening locally and software wasn't phoning home.
Then most people wouldn't be purchasing name-brand AAA software and would likely settle for FOSS or indie apps. Even better, you wouldn't be expected to be using said commercial solutions.
Subscriptions incentivize selling programs that are in a perpetual unfinished state. We lost the opportunity to call a project "feature-complete". LZMA2, H264, and RSA/AES were developed years ago, yet 7zip, netflix, and ssh still need regular updates for some nonsensical reason.
Subscriptions incentivize selling programs that are in a perpetual unfinished state. We lost the opportunity to call a project "feature-complete". LZMA2, H264, and RSA/AES were developed years ago, yet 7zip, netflix, and ssh still need regular updates for some nonsensical reason.
One reason to hate on subscriptions: I can't tell what the hell is charging me and why from my credit card and bank records. What is AVUT**aidurhbwkansj and why did it charge me $19.99? Sometimes I have to guess based on the transaction amount.
Do these businesses want me to find out who's charging me by doing a chargeback and seeing who gets mad? Can there be some better standards for how transactions are documented in financial records?
Do these businesses want me to find out who's charging me by doing a chargeback and seeing who gets mad? Can there be some better standards for how transactions are documented in financial records?
privacy.com perfectly solves this
They abide by KYC so not good for true privacy, but they are very very good at containerizing your recurring expenses
They abide by KYC so not good for true privacy, but they are very very good at containerizing your recurring expenses
One thing the article seems to miss out: price.
Some subscriptions are horribly expensive. $8/month for something I’d be happy to pay $10/year.
That’s the real problem. A lot of services come out at $50/$60 per year with minimal improvements over an OSS or ad-supported tool.
Some subscriptions are horribly expensive. $8/month for something I’d be happy to pay $10/year.
That’s the real problem. A lot of services come out at $50/$60 per year with minimal improvements over an OSS or ad-supported tool.
Very good point. I think paying for something useful let's say 5 USD one month when you use it is quite alright. But then go four months when you don't use it at all and pay 20 USD for that privilege is harder to motivate. But on the other hand, if the price was 1 USD / month it would not be such a big deal for those months, if it turns out you use it a few times per year.
But can a developer live off of $10/year? You would need a lot of customers, compared to a more expensive $8/month model.
Of course. But maybe you don’t need one million features and $500M vc investment.
Assuming a developer gets paid (before any taxes) $5000/month you would need 6000 customers, it's definitely possible but it's a lot harder than a monthly subscription. I have read many times that higher prices also filter out a lot of high maintenance customers.
I don't know anybody who pays for adobe products beside some professional photographers/artists.
The support is nonexistent and their pricing is consumer unfriendly. You can only make yearly subscriptions and even the student prices are high.
Acrobat for 180€ a year and it crashes one in 10 times when I convert some things and takes all the edits with it to the grave. Ridiculous.
The support is nonexistent and their pricing is consumer unfriendly. You can only make yearly subscriptions and even the student prices are high.
Acrobat for 180€ a year and it crashes one in 10 times when I convert some things and takes all the edits with it to the grave. Ridiculous.
I do, and I'm not a professional photographer/artist by any measure.
I pay for the "photography bundle", which is Lightroom + Photoshop + some cloud storage (which I don't use). Before the subscription-based model, these two would cost some 8-900 euros.
At 12 € a month and 800 € for the bundle, that's 66 months to break even, or 5.5 years.
Sure, you could use the same version for 20 years if you wanted. It probably works on Windows, but probably not on the mac, what with the CPU architectures changing. And there have been improvements that I, as an amateur photographer, am happy to have. For example the new automatic selection that landed a year or two ago in Photoshop. Could the same be achieved by a skilled professional with the path tool? Probably, and maybe even better. But I'm not that professional, and I don't want to sink hours and hours into this.
To me that's actually a pretty good deal.
Now, you could argue that the product isn't worth it because X is better. But that's a totally different argument.
I pay for the "photography bundle", which is Lightroom + Photoshop + some cloud storage (which I don't use). Before the subscription-based model, these two would cost some 8-900 euros.
At 12 € a month and 800 € for the bundle, that's 66 months to break even, or 5.5 years.
Sure, you could use the same version for 20 years if you wanted. It probably works on Windows, but probably not on the mac, what with the CPU architectures changing. And there have been improvements that I, as an amateur photographer, am happy to have. For example the new automatic selection that landed a year or two ago in Photoshop. Could the same be achieved by a skilled professional with the path tool? Probably, and maybe even better. But I'm not that professional, and I don't want to sink hours and hours into this.
To me that's actually a pretty good deal.
Now, you could argue that the product isn't worth it because X is better. But that's a totally different argument.
We’re a small game studio and we pay for all adobe products ($84/mo/user). It’s an underestimation that people don’t pay for Adobe products. No other offerings match their products, and Acrobat is something that we rarely use. Other products work perfectly.
If you're a small game studio I guess you're very much included in the professional artist category. Hell, back when we were slicing up templates to use in table-based layout I used photoshop every day and even being a 100% web developer I would put myself in that category.. not artist, but professional user ;)
I use illustrator, audition and photoshop a lot. My wife works for a university though and I have a free subscription.
Startup culture, the name already says it, is about attracting investors and huge profits.
Starting a software business, the sort that used to be based on the shareware model, or one time fees, can be enough to sustain a small or one person team. But that's not enough for the startup crowd, they're looking to be millionaires.
Starting a software business, the sort that used to be based on the shareware model, or one time fees, can be enough to sustain a small or one person team. But that's not enough for the startup crowd, they're looking to be millionaires.
Subscription services, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of a disposable society. Everything is ephemereal, nothing lasts, and people are dependent on their corporate overlords to bring "updates", which are often nothing more than a stream of ugly hacks working around the rotten core.
Evernote is worth mentioning. There was a time when everyone used it but really it wasn't that special. I wonder if they had any buyout offers they rejected and now regret?
I'm with the authoro on most of this. It's gym memberships, basically. The ideal customer is one who never uses the facilities but auto-renews forever. But software is an interesting exception.
IMHO subscription is the best monetization model for software. Why? Because it aligns incentives between the consumer and the seller. Many people would rather pay $5/month than $150 upfront. It means the company (generally) is constantly updating and fixing it. With shrinkwrap software, there's a direct incentive to declare a new major version, sell an upgrade and stop fixing/updating the old version.
Adobe used to do this with the RAW camera plugin for Photoshop. New camera came out? It was only added to a new version of the RAW plugin. That RAW plugin for no reason whatsoever required the latest version of Photoshop.
The negatives about software subscriptions here are really negatives about Adobe. Adobe does use dark patterns to get renewals, only offers annual subscriptions and probably charges too much. The price here is off. You can get Photoshop/Lightroom for (IIRC) $10/month. The complete collection is $50/month.
The standard counterexample here is Jetbrains. Monthly or annual billing, lots of notifications about upcoming renewals, decreasing pricing for long-term customers, reasonably priced personal licenses and you get to keep the version you had when you stop paying indefinitely.
My point is that software subscriptions aren't inherently bad. Adboe is bad.
I'm with the authoro on most of this. It's gym memberships, basically. The ideal customer is one who never uses the facilities but auto-renews forever. But software is an interesting exception.
IMHO subscription is the best monetization model for software. Why? Because it aligns incentives between the consumer and the seller. Many people would rather pay $5/month than $150 upfront. It means the company (generally) is constantly updating and fixing it. With shrinkwrap software, there's a direct incentive to declare a new major version, sell an upgrade and stop fixing/updating the old version.
Adobe used to do this with the RAW camera plugin for Photoshop. New camera came out? It was only added to a new version of the RAW plugin. That RAW plugin for no reason whatsoever required the latest version of Photoshop.
The negatives about software subscriptions here are really negatives about Adobe. Adobe does use dark patterns to get renewals, only offers annual subscriptions and probably charges too much. The price here is off. You can get Photoshop/Lightroom for (IIRC) $10/month. The complete collection is $50/month.
The standard counterexample here is Jetbrains. Monthly or annual billing, lots of notifications about upcoming renewals, decreasing pricing for long-term customers, reasonably priced personal licenses and you get to keep the version you had when you stop paying indefinitely.
My point is that software subscriptions aren't inherently bad. Adboe is bad.
Evernote isn't that bad, both me and my partner uses it frequently and I feel we got our worth.
But Evernote is garbage with their API, their SDK's are rarely updated and they use odd protocol called Thrift.
But Evernote is garbage with their API, their SDK's are rarely updated and they use odd protocol called Thrift.
Thrift was (and is) Facebook's answer to protocol buffers. Like protocol buffers it a language and platform independent way of storing structured data.
But Thrift adds and RPC mechanism on top of that. Google had their own protocol buffers based RPC (called Stubby) that wasn't open source at the time (we're talking 10-15 years ago).
But Thrift adds and RPC mechanism on top of that. Google had their own protocol buffers based RPC (called Stubby) that wasn't open source at the time (we're talking 10-15 years ago).
>Lack of customer retention. If a user pays upfront for a product, they will feel compelled to use it daily to get their money’s worth
No, if anything it's the opposite since you don't want this month's payment to go to waste. Although I don't have the data, I wouldn't be surprised if consumers actually don't care that much about "getting their money's worth" for most products.
No, if anything it's the opposite since you don't want this month's payment to go to waste. Although I don't have the data, I wouldn't be surprised if consumers actually don't care that much about "getting their money's worth" for most products.
I have half a mind to start a database SaaS so apps can connect to it. So, you buy your Amazing Notes phone app for $9.95 or whatever, connect it to my paid service, and you have all your syncing/backend needs on one service, paid once, instead of for every app you buy.
Probably wouldn't be very popular with apps, because now they can't sell a subscription, but it's an idea.
Probably wouldn't be very popular with apps, because now they can't sell a subscription, but it's an idea.
iCloud does that on iOS right now.
Some, like Bear, still sell a subscription while using iCloud for syncing (not to bash on Bear, the price is reasonable).
Some, like Bear, still sell a subscription while using iCloud for syncing (not to bash on Bear, the price is reasonable).
You know what I hate even more… it’s limits to subscription models.
This year Ahrefs, a popular marketing tool that indexes the web, changed their pricing model to impose a strict 3,000 token limit on report generation. That limit used to be 1,500 and reset on a weekly basis. This is for the $200/month plan.
Now if you “accidentally” use all 3,000 reports you are essentially locked out of the platform, like I was.
What that means is that you can no longer use the export feature, which left me with a million+ unused rows.
I had been their customer before, and I was told they did send out an email about the new changes (just not to people who weren’t active subscribers), and their official blog post was very sparse on appropriate wording that the report limit was changed so drastically.
Was it my fault in the end? In more than one way, yes. But does that make me hate this approach less? Not in the slightest.
This year Ahrefs, a popular marketing tool that indexes the web, changed their pricing model to impose a strict 3,000 token limit on report generation. That limit used to be 1,500 and reset on a weekly basis. This is for the $200/month plan.
Now if you “accidentally” use all 3,000 reports you are essentially locked out of the platform, like I was.
What that means is that you can no longer use the export feature, which left me with a million+ unused rows.
I had been their customer before, and I was told they did send out an email about the new changes (just not to people who weren’t active subscribers), and their official blog post was very sparse on appropriate wording that the report limit was changed so drastically.
Was it my fault in the end? In more than one way, yes. But does that make me hate this approach less? Not in the slightest.
I assumed everything was going to SaaS hell and was pleasantly surprised to find I could still buy Microsoft Office when I recently got a new Mac.
Office for Mac wasn't great, especially in 2008 when I first got it, but it still gave me a good 13 years of use. Given a purchase price of $200 and a subscription price of $65/year for Office365, I'm very confident I get a better deal with the one-time purchase, even though I know I will probably eventually need to purchase again. (The fact that I don't get low quality add-ons like OneDrive is an added bonus.)
Constant maintenance of software is overrated. Most features being added these days bring negative value.
Office for Mac wasn't great, especially in 2008 when I first got it, but it still gave me a good 13 years of use. Given a purchase price of $200 and a subscription price of $65/year for Office365, I'm very confident I get a better deal with the one-time purchase, even though I know I will probably eventually need to purchase again. (The fact that I don't get low quality add-ons like OneDrive is an added bonus.)
Constant maintenance of software is overrated. Most features being added these days bring negative value.
> They don’t want to see another monthly number chipping away at their bank balances month after month, year after year.
They don't?
My uneducated take?
- People won't buy anything full boat that they can buy monthly - People prefer monthly payments - People don't actually track their monthly payments, because generally people are bad at money stuff
It's not an accident that BNPL companies like Affirm and apparently Apple now are mooning right now
Personally? I really like software subscriptions. They are zero commitment, auto-updating, and usually a good value relative to the price. When I'm done with them, I stop paying. Easy.
Amazon Subscribe and Save is a perfect example. The items I get that I'd usually skip on getting until I absolutely had to (because work and life get in the way) come in bulk every three to six months when I need them. That's incredibly valuable for me.
Most of y'all who are for paying full boat are speaking from a privileged position where full boat isn't much. For a lot of people, Office 365 with Word, Excel and PowerPoint for $6.99/mo is a much more achieveable than the $99 for a single version with feature-toggled restrictions (and better than dealing with cracks).
Then again, I think that ownership in general is overrated, so I realize that I'm a contrarian on this
They don't?
My uneducated take?
- People won't buy anything full boat that they can buy monthly - People prefer monthly payments - People don't actually track their monthly payments, because generally people are bad at money stuff
It's not an accident that BNPL companies like Affirm and apparently Apple now are mooning right now
Personally? I really like software subscriptions. They are zero commitment, auto-updating, and usually a good value relative to the price. When I'm done with them, I stop paying. Easy.
Amazon Subscribe and Save is a perfect example. The items I get that I'd usually skip on getting until I absolutely had to (because work and life get in the way) come in bulk every three to six months when I need them. That's incredibly valuable for me.
Most of y'all who are for paying full boat are speaking from a privileged position where full boat isn't much. For a lot of people, Office 365 with Word, Excel and PowerPoint for $6.99/mo is a much more achieveable than the $99 for a single version with feature-toggled restrictions (and better than dealing with cracks).
Then again, I think that ownership in general is overrated, so I realize that I'm a contrarian on this
You will own nothing and you will continue to be very happy with the subscription service griftopia.
Unrelated:
Dear customers: I hate demanding of free plan, self-host and open source. My family is starving.
Dear customers: I hate demanding of free plan, self-host and open source. My family is starving.
When I had a gig at a start up, I remember the owner couldn't stop banging about subscriptions. It was the main priority, how to get people to subscribe and anything else was an afterthought.
The main idea was that even if people stop using the product, a good % will forget to unsubscribe.
I remember something like 30% of users were people who subscribed, used the product for a month or so and then never unsubscribed.
I have no problem understanding the logic behind it but I really hate being forced into a subscription only to cancel it immediately to get what I actually wanted: one month.
If your customers only want one month, sell them one month and be done with it. If you’re selling something good, it will be missed, and if you’re not maybe try doing that instead of building a business on the hope that customers will forget about you.
If your customers only want one month, sell them one month and be done with it. If you’re selling something good, it will be missed, and if you’re not maybe try doing that instead of building a business on the hope that customers will forget about you.
Yes, subscriptions for everything isn't good for consumers, but, if it was 'easy' to sell software as a one off before the cloud, it's a bit harder now with all the costs associated with cloud features such as everlasting storage, security, sync, compute, you name it. How do you sell something that consumes resources continuously at a one-off cost?
SaaS can only work with a continuous revenue stream because the software provider has to keep delivering the service, and doesn't know how long it will be necessary to do so. LTV predictions are based on the assumption that customers churn, but what if they don't? If you charge the LTV as a one off but got that wrong, you're out of business.
With proper software, that you install on your device, you power everything, therefore one off licences can work.
There is also the whole way to ship software that has to change for a shift away from subscription, but are consumers ready to wait for yearly releases and pay for these ? Are consumers ready to install software again? Not so sure!
SaaS can only work with a continuous revenue stream because the software provider has to keep delivering the service, and doesn't know how long it will be necessary to do so. LTV predictions are based on the assumption that customers churn, but what if they don't? If you charge the LTV as a one off but got that wrong, you're out of business.
With proper software, that you install on your device, you power everything, therefore one off licences can work.
There is also the whole way to ship software that has to change for a shift away from subscription, but are consumers ready to wait for yearly releases and pay for these ? Are consumers ready to install software again? Not so sure!
Yeah, please let me install software. No, I don't need your cloud.
I agree yet see the challenges too. What OS do you have? How often does it break compatibility? Once product is mature and market saturated how can business continue to exist?
A lot of the cloud stuff can be offloaded to cloud providers. It’s pretty common for apps to let you choose between local storage, iCloud, Dropbox, et al. And for compute, well, the software runs on computers?
If you need more server side action than that, I think you’re selling a service in addition to your app, and then yes, you need subscription revenue.
Often it’s bad idea though, I doubt you’d find many people who prefer Photoshop “cloud” to old-school Photoshop-on-a-Computer.
If you need more server side action than that, I think you’re selling a service in addition to your app, and then yes, you need subscription revenue.
Often it’s bad idea though, I doubt you’d find many people who prefer Photoshop “cloud” to old-school Photoshop-on-a-Computer.
This boils down to simple economics. Most softwares built by startups run over the cloud (which incur recurring costs to the startup) and most softwares are not just a one-time delivered unit like a physical object. They need patches and continuous improvements, which means it needs a supply of human intellect (which is again a recurring cost in terms of salaries)
The challenge is how would you reconcile this underlying costs with a one-time-payment? It's a tougher problem than it seems, if yoy include other variables in the equation like inflation, volatile nature of softwares , etc.
Nonetheless, this has to be solved. I strongly believe a simple pricing model that makes instant sense - is an important part of the UX. And a one-time payment like buying a physical product is the simplest of all.
The challenge is how would you reconcile this underlying costs with a one-time-payment? It's a tougher problem than it seems, if yoy include other variables in the equation like inflation, volatile nature of softwares , etc.
Nonetheless, this has to be solved. I strongly believe a simple pricing model that makes instant sense - is an important part of the UX. And a one-time payment like buying a physical product is the simplest of all.
I think in some cases having a core paid/free owned software is good, then paying subscriptions for extra features within it. Additionally blockchain software is new area for example holding purchased tokens providing liquidity to the software company is another model to be explored.
But some software just due to the interconnected nature of it needs to be subscription based to cover the cost of running it before even getting into the ongoing development, bug fixes etc. In many cases I'd sooner pay for well maintained software than something under funded and as such not maintained. Subscriptions is opex vs capex meaning paying less than what a lot of software would be affordable to buy as a one off purchase at this point.
But some software just due to the interconnected nature of it needs to be subscription based to cover the cost of running it before even getting into the ongoing development, bug fixes etc. In many cases I'd sooner pay for well maintained software than something under funded and as such not maintained. Subscriptions is opex vs capex meaning paying less than what a lot of software would be affordable to buy as a one off purchase at this point.
For software, the subscription model makes sense to me. It costs money to develop a working product, then it costs money to maintain it, and, in the case of cloud-hosted software, it costs money to serve it.
The subscription model benefits the consumer because it incentivizes use of the software. For example, suppose I want to learn web design. If I subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, I am now committed to use it because if I do not I am wasting money.
The subscription model benefits the consumer by reducing the up-front cost to use software. For example, Adobe Photoshop used to cost hundreds of dollars before use, and now it costs $20 (per month).
I suggest that we, as consumers, may need to reconcile with the cost of labor.
The subscription model benefits the consumer because it incentivizes use of the software. For example, suppose I want to learn web design. If I subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, I am now committed to use it because if I do not I am wasting money.
The subscription model benefits the consumer by reducing the up-front cost to use software. For example, Adobe Photoshop used to cost hundreds of dollars before use, and now it costs $20 (per month).
I suggest that we, as consumers, may need to reconcile with the cost of labor.
> The subscription model benefits the consumer because it incentivizes use of the software.
Is that really a benefit? I buy a hammer to meet my needs, not to incentivize myself to hammer things. Even in leisure I don't want to subscribe to my snowboard.
> I suggest that we, as consumers, may need to reconcile with the cost of labor.
Fair if there truly must be on going labor. But some things don't need to keep changing constantly. And if backward compatibility were taken more seriously then we wouldn't be wasting so much effort just keeping shit working.
Is that really a benefit? I buy a hammer to meet my needs, not to incentivize myself to hammer things. Even in leisure I don't want to subscribe to my snowboard.
> I suggest that we, as consumers, may need to reconcile with the cost of labor.
Fair if there truly must be on going labor. But some things don't need to keep changing constantly. And if backward compatibility were taken more seriously then we wouldn't be wasting so much effort just keeping shit working.
How come you published this article on a subscription based service?
This article is a very long rant that ultimately doesn’t make any useful claims.
Of course subscription models aren’t for every business. Of course customers would prefer to not have to subscribe. What’s your point?
If you’re saying that subscription is a bad decision for the products referenced in your article, I’m afraid that you’re almost definitely wrong. These big businesses have tested their pricing models and know that subscription maximizes LTV per prospective customer, which is ultimately what matters to them.
Of course subscription models aren’t for every business. Of course customers would prefer to not have to subscribe. What’s your point?
If you’re saying that subscription is a bad decision for the products referenced in your article, I’m afraid that you’re almost definitely wrong. These big businesses have tested their pricing models and know that subscription maximizes LTV per prospective customer, which is ultimately what matters to them.
For technical learning material do you prefer a SAAS model where you pay $10-20 / month for all-in access to short isolated videos in a related subject (potentially ~4 new videos a month) or dropping $50-150 one time for a course that could be anywhere from 3-15 hours long?
It's kind of comparing apples to oranges but as someone who has made courses for a while I've always thought about the idea of doing weekly screencasts instead. HN is one of the best places to ask this sort of question.
It's kind of comparing apples to oranges but as someone who has made courses for a while I've always thought about the idea of doing weekly screencasts instead. HN is one of the best places to ask this sort of question.
Why not offer both? Paying $10/m for as long as you like and get all new and old courses. A basic streaming subscription essentially.
But for $100 get lifetime access to only that one purchased course?
Then if the consumer wants more they have the option to spend another $100 for a different course or add the $10/m subscription for other/new content.
I personally would benefit from this immensely in course style learning. I tend to browse lots of content until I find the right info. Then deeply consume the single topic slowly as I teach it to my team. I'm usually stuck paying monthly for something I use for a month then don't use until I begin the training a few months later then dormant again until the next training x months later.
An example.. pay for a Spotify/Netflix/etc monthly subscription but have the ability to purchase a cd/series/movie/book so that if you end your subscription you still have access to the purchased items. Essentially paying a monthly rate to peruse through material then purchasing to deeper dive/repeatedly use an item. The service might even make more money this way.
But for $100 get lifetime access to only that one purchased course?
Then if the consumer wants more they have the option to spend another $100 for a different course or add the $10/m subscription for other/new content.
I personally would benefit from this immensely in course style learning. I tend to browse lots of content until I find the right info. Then deeply consume the single topic slowly as I teach it to my team. I'm usually stuck paying monthly for something I use for a month then don't use until I begin the training a few months later then dormant again until the next training x months later.
An example.. pay for a Spotify/Netflix/etc monthly subscription but have the ability to purchase a cd/series/movie/book so that if you end your subscription you still have access to the purchased items. Essentially paying a monthly rate to peruse through material then purchasing to deeper dive/repeatedly use an item. The service might even make more money this way.
Thanks, that's a good idea -- especially for standalone courses that are kind of pre-made and done.
I guess it's a bit tricky to balance with "screencasts vs courses" which I suppose is a different conversation than a SAAS model or not, although these 2 are pretty tightly coupled. For example, you could have 100 isolated 5-15min screencast videos released once a week about let's say Flask or Rails or whatever topic you're interested in or a 5-10 hour course that covers a cohesive project from beginning to end using a specific tech.
The appeal of screencasts to me is you can make a video about anything around that topic, it's completely standalone where as a course is more like you pick the material, record it and that's it but then 8 months later something changes and you'd like to refactor something which could mean re-doing half the course because now you want to use esbuild instead of Webpack for your assets.
Full courses tend to be better at taking someone who is a beginner and guiding them to a finished solution and screencasts are good for anyone who wants to solve a very specific problem like "how do I do pagination with Flask". In theory you could have screencasts grouped together as a learning path to solve bigger problems tho so you can technically maybe get the best of both worlds with screencasts which is something I've always wondered about as someone who has made a couple of one time standalone courses.
I guess it's a bit tricky to balance with "screencasts vs courses" which I suppose is a different conversation than a SAAS model or not, although these 2 are pretty tightly coupled. For example, you could have 100 isolated 5-15min screencast videos released once a week about let's say Flask or Rails or whatever topic you're interested in or a 5-10 hour course that covers a cohesive project from beginning to end using a specific tech.
The appeal of screencasts to me is you can make a video about anything around that topic, it's completely standalone where as a course is more like you pick the material, record it and that's it but then 8 months later something changes and you'd like to refactor something which could mean re-doing half the course because now you want to use esbuild instead of Webpack for your assets.
Full courses tend to be better at taking someone who is a beginner and guiding them to a finished solution and screencasts are good for anyone who wants to solve a very specific problem like "how do I do pagination with Flask". In theory you could have screencasts grouped together as a learning path to solve bigger problems tho so you can technically maybe get the best of both worlds with screencasts which is something I've always wondered about as someone who has made a couple of one time standalone courses.
I don’t see what’s SAAS about a content subscription but yes, I prefer that.
Reason being that I’m often unsure how deep I want to go in a subject, so putting up say $20/mo gives me the option of only spending $20 if during the first month I decide it’s not what I want.
If you want to see a very good (IMO) implementation of this model, check out Ray Wenderlich. Lots of free stuff to show you the style. Then $20/mo or $40/mo for “pro.”
Reason being that I’m often unsure how deep I want to go in a subject, so putting up say $20/mo gives me the option of only spending $20 if during the first month I decide it’s not what I want.
If you want to see a very good (IMO) implementation of this model, check out Ray Wenderlich. Lots of free stuff to show you the style. Then $20/mo or $40/mo for “pro.”
> I don’t see what’s SAAS about a content subscription but yes, I prefer that.
Yeah that's a fair point. I boiled this down to paying per month or a 1 time purchase. It was coming from a more general angle where it could be content, a product / service or heated seats which when you think about it all have different tastes. Content and a service could be classified as different. For example I don't mind the idea of paying a one time fee for a photo editor but paying per month bothers me on principle because it doesn't feel justified, which is weird because in both cases you'd want or expect updates and if you're going down this rabbit hole of paying for 1 year's worth of updates this boils down to paying per month but on a different schedule with an added bonus of controlling if you want to pay for a major update or not.
Thanks for the feedback! Ray's site looks like he has hundreds of courses available, does your answer change if there's "only" ~30 standalone videos (not courses) on a specific topic with intent that more are being delivered every week? I guess the question there is at which point do you deem the catalogue large enough to pay? With one time course you at least know what you see is what you get with a possibility of there being more added over time in the form of updates.
Yeah that's a fair point. I boiled this down to paying per month or a 1 time purchase. It was coming from a more general angle where it could be content, a product / service or heated seats which when you think about it all have different tastes. Content and a service could be classified as different. For example I don't mind the idea of paying a one time fee for a photo editor but paying per month bothers me on principle because it doesn't feel justified, which is weird because in both cases you'd want or expect updates and if you're going down this rabbit hole of paying for 1 year's worth of updates this boils down to paying per month but on a different schedule with an added bonus of controlling if you want to pay for a major update or not.
Thanks for the feedback! Ray's site looks like he has hundreds of courses available, does your answer change if there's "only" ~30 standalone videos (not courses) on a specific topic with intent that more are being delivered every week? I guess the question there is at which point do you deem the catalogue large enough to pay? With one time course you at least know what you see is what you get with a possibility of there being more added over time in the form of updates.
Even Wenderlich started small!
I’m backing someone on Patreon who has maybe a dozen videos out, but it’s a hard subject and I’m determined to learn it and she releases about one new video a week. The production quality isn’t very high but you can see she puts a lot of work into it, planning and transcripts and stuff.
Teaching is hard!
So yeah my advice is market test by asking people you know who know your subject, then yes put it out there with some free content and some paid monthly. Or just try Patreon if the audience is big enough.
I’m backing someone on Patreon who has maybe a dozen videos out, but it’s a hard subject and I’m determined to learn it and she releases about one new video a week. The production quality isn’t very high but you can see she puts a lot of work into it, planning and transcripts and stuff.
Teaching is hard!
So yeah my advice is market test by asking people you know who know your subject, then yes put it out there with some free content and some paid monthly. Or just try Patreon if the audience is big enough.
Not every service, not every software lends itself to the subscription system.
E.g. if you sell an obscure format converter that I need once every year (but then I really need it) it should not be an subscription. I would gladly toss 20 Euros at the developer for something like this once. What I will not do is do any subscription, just because it takes up space in my mind perpetually.
E.g. if you sell an obscure format converter that I need once every year (but then I really need it) it should not be an subscription. I would gladly toss 20 Euros at the developer for something like this once. What I will not do is do any subscription, just because it takes up space in my mind perpetually.
Everybody hates subscription services. It's called generating a steady and long revenue stream and to et rid of that you will have to burn the world down.
> Everybody hates subscription services.
I think they're great. Continual updates, ability to cancel when I stop getting value. Some services I sign up to just for a single project.
I think they're great. Continual updates, ability to cancel when I stop getting value. Some services I sign up to just for a single project.
Having worked in plenty of startups I know the critical need to have (a more than fair chance) your subscription customer is going to give you money in the future. MRR is the king of metrics, and without it most companies would be sunk.
However, for guys like Netflix or for those companies that ship cooking ingredients and recipes to your door, I would happily be gouged by them for one or two on demand purchases.
However, for guys like Netflix or for those companies that ship cooking ingredients and recipes to your door, I would happily be gouged by them for one or two on demand purchases.
I am pretty sure there is a business that can be built over managing all these subscriptions - something like European OpenBanking but that includes credit cards - and you just get a dashboard showing you all the subscriptions you have (that will be ticket shock) and then you can turn them off as needed.
Not sure if credit cards are in openbanking but that would be the core of it
Not sure if credit cards are in openbanking but that would be the core of it
This is why we subscribe to things like Disney+ through the App Store app. On iPhone/Mac you can just get an overview of all your subscriptions and cancel them there.
As a bootstrapped developer though, I love subscriptions. They offer consistent and predictable cashflow with which I can hire other developers and employees. A one time purchase, unless you have data [0] on how it's going, is less predictable.
[0] https://remoteok.com/open
[0] https://remoteok.com/open
I agree completely. Taking more but giving the same in return. What companies lose is brand loyalty. Startups want to be Apple but plan for sprints instead of a marathon. Spotify and Netflix work as a subscription model because the model provides more value to customers. The artists get screwed over but I digress.
Offer me self-hostable licenses. Simple as that. Offer everyone else the cloud with a subscription by default.
The per-seat subscription model for a lot of these services doesn't make any sense when you own the hardware already, or can roll it out in the cloud and only pay for what you use with elastic models.
The per-seat subscription model for a lot of these services doesn't make any sense when you own the hardware already, or can roll it out in the cloud and only pay for what you use with elastic models.
My solution is as follows:
1) I refuse to subscribe to apps, and 2) I complain about it on the internet
Thanks for helping out with numero dos, friend.
1) I refuse to subscribe to apps, and 2) I complain about it on the internet
Thanks for helping out with numero dos, friend.
Eventually, I imagine that open source alternatives to subscription productivity/creative software will get good enough (see Blender) that customers held hostage by these companies will migrate over en masse.
Personally, I find most of these subscriptions offensive, so I gladly look forward to this future.
Personally, I find most of these subscriptions offensive, so I gladly look forward to this future.
I think the simple reason why we have so many subscription-only services is that few people would buy it at the LTVs that these companies hope to (and often do successfully) extract via the subscription.
And people who see through it hate it because they realize how ridiculous the actual price is.
And people who see through it hate it because they realize how ridiculous the actual price is.
Yeah, this whole subscription thing sucks. I refuse to engage. The only thing I have a subscription to is Disney+ because the wife wants it for the kids. I have no other software or service or device subscriptions. If nobody has a pay once option I do without.
Partly, enterprise customers are driving the shift to subscriptions. They prefer opex to capex.
The problem with subscriptions is the difficulty in canceling. To join XM Radio or the Wall Street Journal is quick and easy. To cancel requires an hour long phone call navigating through high pressure sales.
The author alluded to it - but the pendulum will swing in the other direction as churn rates increase driven by lack of perceived value being diminished and stretch household subscription budgets
We don’t build them for you, we build them for the VCs. They love them.
We get that subscription is more lucrative. But offer an option to purchase the current version at a higher price, or use the jet brains model of new versions as subscription.
We used to have purchase v1, and a cheaper upgrade to v2... but jetbrains' doesnt let you keep the upgrade if you unsubscribe?
Or do you then perpetually own v2 after a year?
Or do you then perpetually own v2 after a year?
'Lifetime' one time payments end up being converted into monthly subscriptions. Always... Best example is Couchsurfing.
They broke the contract. The contract is the contract.
They broke the contract. The contract is the contract.
They hate subscription boxes, but surely they added an affiliate link to one said subscription box in their article and then spammed it on HN for more traction.
I'm not the author ;)
How do you feel about a non-renewable subscription, i.e. pay for 12 months access, and then having to re-pay at the end of the cycle to restore access?
More and more tics wanting to attach themselves to our financial bloodstreams..
I have come to be OK with some subscription models, but not all.
I think SaaS, and even many platform applications, are OK as subs.
"Buy once" platform app models are subs, anyway. It is unreasonable to expect a software developer to keep a package updated through many new operating systems. Some systems, like MS Windows (and, I suspect -but don't know for sure- Linux), do a great job of retrofitting, so older apps can often keep going, but most mobile systems won't. Apple is in the middle. It supports a ways back, but will deprecate features that older apps may require.
I used to buy the Adobe CS suite, yearly. Each year, I would get an upgrade, as the software would usually get new features that I wanted. I suspect that, eventually, the version I had, would stop working, but I never let it age that long. I probably could have gotten away with reupping every two, or even three, years.
I like the new sub model. I get access to every single Adobe app, at a lower price than what I paid for my yearly upgrades (but more than if I did it bi-yearly). This allows me to do something like install inDesign, if someone sends me an ID file. I don't want to keep the app around, otherwise.
SaaS is basically built around a "service," and "services," by definition, are subs. If I subscribe to a newspaper, that paper hits my doorstep every weekend, until I stop paying the bill. That's an ancient model, that has not changed; nor does it need to.
Hardware is another matter. I can see having a piece of hardware that could benefit from regular firmware updates, but I think it should keep running at spec, with a single firmware setup, despite new versions coming up.
I'm also pretty cynical about hardware that is sold with "lifetime upgrades." It's been my experience that "lifetime," is actually only a couple of years, before the firmware stops being upgraded. As long as the device keeps working with the last firmware, then that's basically what I paid for, anyway. If the device is "time-bombed," though, that's just evil.
If the device works, but uses a SaaS subscription, then I would think that the manufacturer needs to figure out how to keep supporting the device for as long as possible, and have some way to transition the device to “standalone” operation; especially if the company is going out of business, or phasing out support for the hardware. This would probably require legal backing, against corporate officers, personally, as corporations can get off the hook, fairly easily.
Also, I think we should do away with "lifetime" anything. I think the expected lifespan of stuff (like firmware updates and SaaS support) should be spelled out at purchase time, and legally enforced.
I think SaaS, and even many platform applications, are OK as subs.
"Buy once" platform app models are subs, anyway. It is unreasonable to expect a software developer to keep a package updated through many new operating systems. Some systems, like MS Windows (and, I suspect -but don't know for sure- Linux), do a great job of retrofitting, so older apps can often keep going, but most mobile systems won't. Apple is in the middle. It supports a ways back, but will deprecate features that older apps may require.
I used to buy the Adobe CS suite, yearly. Each year, I would get an upgrade, as the software would usually get new features that I wanted. I suspect that, eventually, the version I had, would stop working, but I never let it age that long. I probably could have gotten away with reupping every two, or even three, years.
I like the new sub model. I get access to every single Adobe app, at a lower price than what I paid for my yearly upgrades (but more than if I did it bi-yearly). This allows me to do something like install inDesign, if someone sends me an ID file. I don't want to keep the app around, otherwise.
SaaS is basically built around a "service," and "services," by definition, are subs. If I subscribe to a newspaper, that paper hits my doorstep every weekend, until I stop paying the bill. That's an ancient model, that has not changed; nor does it need to.
Hardware is another matter. I can see having a piece of hardware that could benefit from regular firmware updates, but I think it should keep running at spec, with a single firmware setup, despite new versions coming up.
I'm also pretty cynical about hardware that is sold with "lifetime upgrades." It's been my experience that "lifetime," is actually only a couple of years, before the firmware stops being upgraded. As long as the device keeps working with the last firmware, then that's basically what I paid for, anyway. If the device is "time-bombed," though, that's just evil.
If the device works, but uses a SaaS subscription, then I would think that the manufacturer needs to figure out how to keep supporting the device for as long as possible, and have some way to transition the device to “standalone” operation; especially if the company is going out of business, or phasing out support for the hardware. This would probably require legal backing, against corporate officers, personally, as corporations can get off the hook, fairly easily.
Also, I think we should do away with "lifetime" anything. I think the expected lifespan of stuff (like firmware updates and SaaS support) should be spelled out at purchase time, and legally enforced.
Is the author publishing this on medium to troll his point?
Dear users: but our VCs love subscription services.
You have choice not to use them, init?
[deleted]
Dear customers: we know. But our businesses are viable as subscription services, and not as one-off or ad-hoc puchase models. We know because we tried them. So we're catering to the people who are OK with buying a subscription because there are enough of them. Sorry if that doesn't suit you.
> But our businesses are viable as subscription services, and not as one-off or ad-hoc puchase models.
Doesn't explain businesses that had been per-purchase for a long time and are now still switching to subscriptions though. (E.g. photoshop, jetbrains...)
Doesn't explain businesses that had been per-purchase for a long time and are now still switching to subscriptions though. (E.g. photoshop, jetbrains...)
Agreed, it's usually nothing to do with the fact they weren't viable before, it's just that subscriptions are more profitable.
With cost of living crisis and such, soon enough though it won't be able to last. People are already cancelling one of the biggest main subscriptions they have (netflix).
Also I fear this is really changing society. Many years ago, as you got older you got into a better place in life because you had saved up and bought all the stuff you need and slowly aqquired good equipment and everything you need.
Now our lives are full of tech that needs to be replaced every couple of years, heck even now headphones have gone wireless, your headphones needs replacing every few years and now with more and more things being subscription, it's fine when your are young, but your not able to save so much as your constantly having to replace/buy new stuff, when your older what happens? You don't have the same stuff you would have built up in the past, you need to keep paying for it all.
With cost of living crisis and such, soon enough though it won't be able to last. People are already cancelling one of the biggest main subscriptions they have (netflix).
Also I fear this is really changing society. Many years ago, as you got older you got into a better place in life because you had saved up and bought all the stuff you need and slowly aqquired good equipment and everything you need.
Now our lives are full of tech that needs to be replaced every couple of years, heck even now headphones have gone wireless, your headphones needs replacing every few years and now with more and more things being subscription, it's fine when your are young, but your not able to save so much as your constantly having to replace/buy new stuff, when your older what happens? You don't have the same stuff you would have built up in the past, you need to keep paying for it all.
What happens is that you'll have to use less stuff and learn to be content with it.
What this means for the endless, exponential "consumer" ideology is that it isn't sustainable in the long run. This should be blindingly obvious but for some reason many people weren't or aren't seeing it.
What this means for the endless, exponential "consumer" ideology is that it isn't sustainable in the long run. This should be blindingly obvious but for some reason many people weren't or aren't seeing it.
There is a difference though between "making the most of what you have" and "navigating a growing amount of deliberate, arbitrary restrictions".
Only because you can't afford a subscription won't mean that people will stop trying to upsell. Instead you'll be constantly confronted with all the things you're supposedly missing out on, will be stuck with purposely annoying workflows and generally will feel like constantly using the shareware version of everything. That's not a future I personally look forward to.
Only because you can't afford a subscription won't mean that people will stop trying to upsell. Instead you'll be constantly confronted with all the things you're supposedly missing out on, will be stuck with purposely annoying workflows and generally will feel like constantly using the shareware version of everything. That's not a future I personally look forward to.
Maybe in the short term, but I'm talking about a somewhat longer time frame where the entire world will realize exponential growth is no more. Eventually there will be no more upselling because there will be no one left to buy it.
> your headphones needs replacing every few years
This part is absolutely bonkers to me and absurd that we’ve accepted it.
I’m an amateur music producer. Many producers I know, even pros, use headphones that are years old, some even decades old. Most of the bestselling models haven’t changed at all in decades. You can use them for years and the only parts you need to replace are the ear cushions and cable. Most manufacturers even build them with replaceability in mind with detachable cups and cables.
This part is absolutely bonkers to me and absurd that we’ve accepted it.
I’m an amateur music producer. Many producers I know, even pros, use headphones that are years old, some even decades old. Most of the bestselling models haven’t changed at all in decades. You can use them for years and the only parts you need to replace are the ear cushions and cable. Most manufacturers even build them with replaceability in mind with detachable cups and cables.
Different headphones are suited for different use cases. I have AKGs for the studio, Pioneers for DJing and airpods for traveling and video calls. And if there was a more durable version of airpods, I wouldn't buy it anyway because I expect to lose them sooner than they would break anyway.
> Also I fear this is really changing society. Many years ago, as you got older you got into a better place in life because you had saved up and bought all the stuff you need and slowly aqquired good equipment and everything you need.
Your grandfather's wheelbarrow didn't need replacing every 2 years but he also didn't have Netflix. You can easily have your grandfather's lifestyle by buying a future-proof wheelbarrow and cancelling your Netflix subscription.
Your grandfather's wheelbarrow didn't need replacing every 2 years but he also didn't have Netflix. You can easily have your grandfather's lifestyle by buying a future-proof wheelbarrow and cancelling your Netflix subscription.
Believe it or not the wheelbarrow was considered modern technology at one point.
Software is fixed cost to create and near-free to distribute. Sure there are tiny cloud costs for running things and maybe you need a couple engineers to fix bugs, but the subscription pricing model doesn’t fit this.
Software is fixed cost to create and near-free to distribute. Sure there are tiny cloud costs for running things and maybe you need a couple engineers to fix bugs, but the subscription pricing model doesn’t fit this.
Yeah, your grandfather was still respectable to the average person in his class/social group. Now it's really hard to imagine someone being able to engage socially without having technology of some form.
Fixed cost to create, sure. Not fixed cost to keep up to date, running on the current version of OS, hardware. The basic design of a simple wheelbarrow has not needed to change since its invention. A wheelbarrow made 30 years ago will still work just fine. Almost no software written 30 years ago will still work on modern systems without someone doing additional work to support it. And for the few that do, no one wants to run the 1990s version. They want to run the 2020s version.
Are future-proof wheelbarrows being made now? If the trend of lower quality power tools has reached wheelbarrows, you probably still have to replace one every few years.
They're only slightly lower quality, but now you rent them in kg/m increments. Once your account is empty, the wheelbarrow will be disabled until you recharge through the app. If you're done with the wheelbarrow, you should just leave it on the sidewalk. I'm sure someone will pick it up.
This is a much bigger deal than most people appreciate.
It's certainly cause for concern but I would say the major change over the years has been that in addition to buying good and reliable things that last (and maybe are expensive), you can also buy cheap crappy stuff that breaks down.
To use headphones as an example you can still go get a pair of wired Sony headphones that will have great sound and last for a decade for $50. I just did. (Or you can spend more and get even better.)
I've also bought $15 Chinese Bluetooth earbuds that were janky and dead in less than a year.
Sometimes the simple, older, reliable stuff is better.
You can build a desktop PC that will last you for a decade with occasionally upgrading components. Now you can do it with a Framework laptop too.
Personally I bought a nice i7 laptop about a decade ago and will only get around to retiring it this year, it stopped being my main workhorse several years ago but has been great as a secondary living room entertainment machine.
I don't need the latest greatest, I play a lot of retro and indie games and watch movies at picture qualities that video snobs would sneer at, but that gets back to whether you want to develop expensive tastes or not.
Not that life has fundamentally become unliveably expensive.
There are some places where cost of living really is a serious problem - homes, health care, education.
But a lot of this I feel is really about younger generations having voracious consumer appetites, like an absolutely off-the-charts, record-setting desire for luxury and status. A lot of it is driven by a heightened sense of needing to keep up, look good on Instagram etc. which is a whole other can of worms. Do you really need to keep up with the rat race, the Joneses, the latest fashions etc.? Maybe it's different now, but the Boomers went through their own version of this, they had their big hippie anti-materialism movement in the 60's (and then by the 80's they seemed to have forgotten all about it).
To use headphones as an example you can still go get a pair of wired Sony headphones that will have great sound and last for a decade for $50. I just did. (Or you can spend more and get even better.)
I've also bought $15 Chinese Bluetooth earbuds that were janky and dead in less than a year.
Sometimes the simple, older, reliable stuff is better.
You can build a desktop PC that will last you for a decade with occasionally upgrading components. Now you can do it with a Framework laptop too.
Personally I bought a nice i7 laptop about a decade ago and will only get around to retiring it this year, it stopped being my main workhorse several years ago but has been great as a secondary living room entertainment machine.
I don't need the latest greatest, I play a lot of retro and indie games and watch movies at picture qualities that video snobs would sneer at, but that gets back to whether you want to develop expensive tastes or not.
Not that life has fundamentally become unliveably expensive.
There are some places where cost of living really is a serious problem - homes, health care, education.
But a lot of this I feel is really about younger generations having voracious consumer appetites, like an absolutely off-the-charts, record-setting desire for luxury and status. A lot of it is driven by a heightened sense of needing to keep up, look good on Instagram etc. which is a whole other can of worms. Do you really need to keep up with the rat race, the Joneses, the latest fashions etc.? Maybe it's different now, but the Boomers went through their own version of this, they had their big hippie anti-materialism movement in the 60's (and then by the 80's they seemed to have forgotten all about it).
> But a lot of this I feel is just the younger generations having voracious consumer appetites (and a lot of it is driven by a heightened sense of needing to keep up, look good on Instagram etc. which is a whole other can of worms).
I think a big part of this is just how much better advertising has gotten, basically cementing consumer goods as required to the average person. Add on to that how good high quality laptops are specialized goods for those who spend their lives obsessed with tech (i.e. the framework laptop). If you walk into Walmart or BestBuy, your options will be severely limited to products which aren't built to last. I can't blame anyone for feeling confused when it comes to which products to buy.
I think a big part of this is just how much better advertising has gotten, basically cementing consumer goods as required to the average person. Add on to that how good high quality laptops are specialized goods for those who spend their lives obsessed with tech (i.e. the framework laptop). If you walk into Walmart or BestBuy, your options will be severely limited to products which aren't built to last. I can't blame anyone for feeling confused when it comes to which products to buy.
Most stuff has significantly degraded in build quality, from clothing to tools to electronics. Planned obsolescence is real. So maybe it’s not the youths and their bad morals, but people getting used to having to replace shit often, or simply not knowing how to find the items that do last longer.
Also, capitalism can’t help but lower the quality of products as a way to increase numbers sold. It’s inherent to the system. Companies would be insane to produce for example a phone that lasts 15 years, it would cut into their profit marges.
Also, capitalism can’t help but lower the quality of products as a way to increase numbers sold. It’s inherent to the system. Companies would be insane to produce for example a phone that lasts 15 years, it would cut into their profit marges.
>nothing to do with the fact they weren't viable before, it's just that subscriptions are more profitable.
more profitable is more likely to be viable in more future situations
more profitable is more likely to be viable in more future situations
Software used to require little maintenance work. You would buy your software and run it without a single byte changed for 5 or 10 years, and then buy a new version. This worked because OS updates were rare, and everything was local and file-based. In the modern era though software requires continuous maintenance, because we expect our data to move freely between all our devices and the cloud, because operating system vendors force breaking changes often (especially apple), because we expect more integrations with other software, and in general because we expect software to continually receive feature updates. This maintenance has to be paid somehow, and subscriptions have proven to be the most acceptable model.
Jetbrains is a great example, because with a steadily growing ecosystem of third party developer tools that they must integrate with, their maintenance cost is probably high and rising. We expect our IDE’s to support everything under the sun but balk at paying for the never-ending work needed to support that. Something’s gotta give in that equation.
Jetbrains is a great example, because with a steadily growing ecosystem of third party developer tools that they must integrate with, their maintenance cost is probably high and rising. We expect our IDE’s to support everything under the sun but balk at paying for the never-ending work needed to support that. Something’s gotta give in that equation.
I fully agree with your JetBrains point. I use Rust and CLion and they have to continually adapt to new Rust features, etc. I happily pay for my JetBrains All Products Packs and their model is better than most subscriptions, since you get to keep versions that were released 12 months before the end of you subscription.
However, there are a bazillion other applications -- password managers, note taking applications, Git clients, you name it, for which this is not true. I made a very niche-specific GUI application in 2010-2012 (a search application for Dutch treebanks), written with Qt. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It's effectively abandonware or just done (depending on your perspective). I have released updates since then to make sure it keeps running on the latest OS versions. It takes me, maybe 2-4 hours per year? (Typically replacing some deprecated Qt APIs and I there was one libxml2 API change.)
I think a lot of software companies just want to get on the gravy train. Usually, their yearly price is close to what a perpetual license used to cost. So if you successfully switch to a subscription model, you have much more income than before.
The primarily loser here is the user. You are poorer after an application switches to a subscription model. If a company goes bankrupt or decides to pull the plug, better hope that your data is not in a proprietary format (while I can still run some old WordStar in DOSBox and open old files).
However, there are a bazillion other applications -- password managers, note taking applications, Git clients, you name it, for which this is not true. I made a very niche-specific GUI application in 2010-2012 (a search application for Dutch treebanks), written with Qt. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It's effectively abandonware or just done (depending on your perspective). I have released updates since then to make sure it keeps running on the latest OS versions. It takes me, maybe 2-4 hours per year? (Typically replacing some deprecated Qt APIs and I there was one libxml2 API change.)
I think a lot of software companies just want to get on the gravy train. Usually, their yearly price is close to what a perpetual license used to cost. So if you successfully switch to a subscription model, you have much more income than before.
The primarily loser here is the user. You are poorer after an application switches to a subscription model. If a company goes bankrupt or decides to pull the plug, better hope that your data is not in a proprietary format (while I can still run some old WordStar in DOSBox and open old files).
You can still run 30 year old accounting and manufacturing software on your midsize IBM. Plenty of people still do it.
They do it not because they want to but because they have no choice. The UX on those software are horrible by modern standards and incur massive wastes of manhours.
Had a subscription model been used, those software might have benefited from 30 years worth of usability updates...or they might still be garbage, looking at SAP.
Had a subscription model been used, those software might have benefited from 30 years worth of usability updates...or they might still be garbage, looking at SAP.
Jetbrains actually aren't that user hostile: buy a yearly subscription now, and you get a perpetual licence for the current version.
I wouldn't throw Jetbrains in the same boat. I quite like their pricing model. You get to keep the last version, so you're basically paying for updates in the end (which are worth it IMO). On top of that, you get a discount after the first year.
Yeah, Jetbrains' model is one of the better ones in that. At least your money doesn't completely vaporize with that, even though you'll still lose a year of features and improvements once you cancel.
You’ll lose it now, but under the old model you would never have had those features and improvements.
While it took a community outcry, I think Jetbrains now has the best subscription model, that’s a positive for both users and the company.
While it took a community outcry, I think Jetbrains now has the best subscription model, that’s a positive for both users and the company.
I still think there is a bit of a dark pattern in it, because when you cancel, you have to give up features which you've already been using for a year and likely integrated into your workflow. In the worst case, there were some breaking format changes and your project files are not compatible with the version you'll be rolled back to.
They could just let me keep the version I already have and block me from future updates. The way, they set it up right now, they are deliberately causing some disruption when unsubscribing.
They could just let me keep the version I already have and block me from future updates. The way, they set it up right now, they are deliberately causing some disruption when unsubscribing.
My favorite pricing model is by the note-taking app Agenda[0].
It's called a Cash Cow[1] model—you make a one-time purchase, which allows you updates for the next year. At the end of the year, you can either purchase another year of updates, or enjoy the full-featured app you currently have.
The thing keeping me from subscriptions is the fact that if you decide you no longer want to pay, you no longer get access. This encourages devs to continue to ship great updates, while not gimping your software at the end of the payment term.
[0] https://agenda.com/
[1] https://drewmccormack.medium.com/a-cash-cow-is-on-the-agenda...
It's called a Cash Cow[1] model—you make a one-time purchase, which allows you updates for the next year. At the end of the year, you can either purchase another year of updates, or enjoy the full-featured app you currently have.
The thing keeping me from subscriptions is the fact that if you decide you no longer want to pay, you no longer get access. This encourages devs to continue to ship great updates, while not gimping your software at the end of the payment term.
[0] https://agenda.com/
[1] https://drewmccormack.medium.com/a-cash-cow-is-on-the-agenda...
It does, as OP mentioned, they’re making money doing it and it’s a better business model for number of reasons.
For example, Adobe is the largest SaaS by revenue:
https://www.mikesonders.com/largest-saas-companies/
— Model clearly works if you look at Abobe’s revenue per year since 2004:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/266399/revenue-of-adobe-...
— Here’s a detailed history of Abobe, if you’re interested in the SaaS part, just search for “SaaS” on the page:
https://producthabits.com/adobe-95-billion-saas-company/
For example, Adobe is the largest SaaS by revenue:
https://www.mikesonders.com/largest-saas-companies/
— Model clearly works if you look at Abobe’s revenue per year since 2004:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/266399/revenue-of-adobe-...
— Here’s a detailed history of Abobe, if you’re interested in the SaaS part, just search for “SaaS” on the page:
https://producthabits.com/adobe-95-billion-saas-company/
Restate it as "more viable".
Yeah, I'll restate that as "more profitable", a.k.a. "we're greedy and if we can make more money by lowering the quality of our products and restricting the range of people who can use them, of course we'll do that."
More profitable, of course. Why do you assume a corporation wouldn't do that?
That doesn't mean the rest of your statement, but if that happened then competition in a free market would take care of it. Perhaps you can start the next billion-dollar Adobe?
That doesn't mean the rest of your statement, but if that happened then competition in a free market would take care of it. Perhaps you can start the next billion-dollar Adobe?
It does though. Once a new money-making strategy is found to work by a market participant, others will try that same path (it's a competition).
The fact that so many companies are moving to the subscription model shows that it works better than others.
The fact that so many companies are moving to the subscription model shows that it works better than others.
Yes, and if at some point drugging the users became legal, then the market would adopt this as well if it lead to more profit.
What explains some of that is that when the whole eco system shifts and now each of your competitors has recurring revenues you can not compete.
Want to run an ad? Prices have gone way up because you're the only one that's clinging to the old model. Want to pay premium to hire someone better? You can't, your competitor can because they have turned to subscriptions. In many cases your hand is forced.
Customers vote with their wallets and social shares. If you find a product that it a one time purchase, then you should share it, post about it since you will be rewarding the company, for they sure are not able to compete on customer acquisition.
Want to run an ad? Prices have gone way up because you're the only one that's clinging to the old model. Want to pay premium to hire someone better? You can't, your competitor can because they have turned to subscriptions. In many cases your hand is forced.
Customers vote with their wallets and social shares. If you find a product that it a one time purchase, then you should share it, post about it since you will be rewarding the company, for they sure are not able to compete on customer acquisition.
Dear customers: Also, we realized that even when our ad-hoc purchase models were working that we could triple our margins by making it a subscription service and most people just went along with it.
These kinds of software used to be always kind of subscription based - as new language features came out, new IDE features got added, the platform got updated to support new OSes, you would find that Company X would release IDE 2.0
Even if for some reason you didn't need all of this, IDE 1.0 would eventually stop getting updated and the bugs would stop getting fixed, so you would naturally need to update.
Considering people naturally want the latest and greatest, and devs hate maintaining legacy stuff, a subscription makes sense in this case.
Even if for some reason you didn't need all of this, IDE 1.0 would eventually stop getting updated and the bugs would stop getting fixed, so you would naturally need to update.
Considering people naturally want the latest and greatest, and devs hate maintaining legacy stuff, a subscription makes sense in this case.
That's moving the goalposts. "Paying for updates" is not the same as a subscription. A subscription is if I pay automatically, no matter what - and usually, I will get some negative change to the status quo once I stop paying: I might lose access to the service immediately, I might be downgraded to a previous version, etc etc.
> Considering people naturally want the latest and greatest
They often don't. Especially with updates, those are often far more in the interests of the developers than of the users. That's why so much development effort has gone into auto-updating schemes.
Remember how much effort Microsoft had to invest to get people off Windows XP. A large part of their userbase would have been perfectly fine with staying on XP for all eternity. It was Microsoft who wanted them to update to Vista, not the users.
> Considering people naturally want the latest and greatest
They often don't. Especially with updates, those are often far more in the interests of the developers than of the users. That's why so much development effort has gone into auto-updating schemes.
Remember how much effort Microsoft had to invest to get people off Windows XP. A large part of their userbase would have been perfectly fine with staying on XP for all eternity. It was Microsoft who wanted them to update to Vista, not the users.
Photoshop was way too expensive. Adobe’s subscription system saw most of their illegal users drop their cracked versions and move to a subscription.
take a look at ADBE stock chart before and after they switched to SAAS model
stock pricings are poor indicators of performance.
in the short run, yes, in the long run, no
Heated seats
These weren’t online, so you had to pay for new versions of the software. Do you want to pay again each time a new version of a website is released?
That sounds like a cynical take, but is actually close to the truth. The usual take is that businesses are "greedy" and subscription models are "lucrative". The word I'd rather use is "sustainable". Maintaining software (any software) is an ongoing process, not a one-time effort. It needs to be paid for on an ongoing basis. Even a tiny phone app needs regular maintenance work just to stay current with OS and tools development. It is unrealistic to expect to be able to pay once and use an app "forever".
Source: I run a SaaS business.
A related observation: we have unrealistic expectations of how cheap software should be. Software development is very expensive and has been becoming more expensive over the years, as system complexity grows and the pace of OS/platform updates increases. There are very few "mainstream" apps that can take advantage of economies of scale, and yet we still expect to be able to use hundreds of apps for cheap one-time payments. That leads to unsustainable business models and app churn.
Myself, I'd rather have a small number of expensive (subscription-based) good applications that are sustainably developed and maintained over many years.
Source: I run a SaaS business.
A related observation: we have unrealistic expectations of how cheap software should be. Software development is very expensive and has been becoming more expensive over the years, as system complexity grows and the pace of OS/platform updates increases. There are very few "mainstream" apps that can take advantage of economies of scale, and yet we still expect to be able to use hundreds of apps for cheap one-time payments. That leads to unsustainable business models and app churn.
Myself, I'd rather have a small number of expensive (subscription-based) good applications that are sustainably developed and maintained over many years.
> It is unrealistic to expect to be able to pay once and use an app "forever".
No it's not. This is very realistic: pay once for a license to use the software, and then you pay a maintenance fee every year to get the updates and new versions. You stop paying, you stop getting the updates, but whatever you have already still works. There's no shortage of examples but I'll give a shout-out to one of my favorite software products, PRTG: https://shop.paessler.com/shop/prtg/new/?preselected_license...
No it's not. This is very realistic: pay once for a license to use the software, and then you pay a maintenance fee every year to get the updates and new versions. You stop paying, you stop getting the updates, but whatever you have already still works. There's no shortage of examples but I'll give a shout-out to one of my favorite software products, PRTG: https://shop.paessler.com/shop/prtg/new/?preselected_license...
You've pretty much described a subscription, with the difference that you expect that whatever you have already still works and that you completely ignore the problem of support.
We can pretend it will work for a while, but I do not think this is realistic.
Support is not something you can ignore: people will request support, post negative reviews and opinions, and you will need to deal with that.
My point is that we should all stop pretending and just accept that apps cannot be used without regular maintenance anymore.
We can pretend it will work for a while, but I do not think this is realistic.
Support is not something you can ignore: people will request support, post negative reviews and opinions, and you will need to deal with that.
My point is that we should all stop pretending and just accept that apps cannot be used without regular maintenance anymore.
That works for a stand-alone app, but not SaaS, a web-app, or an app that uses 'cloud features'.
Okay, but there are plenty of subscription apps that could just drop the cloud features and like 99% of the user base would be fine with that, Office and Adobe suites being obvious examples.
Sure, I don't intend to dispute that at all. There are also cloud-based apps that absolutely could not be, and at least part of the reasoning is probably to make it easier to charge a subscription fee.
I think the model's seen as being more lucrative, so even businesses that don't inherently need it so much try to find a way to adopt it.
I think the model's seen as being more lucrative, so even businesses that don't inherently need it so much try to find a way to adopt it.
Agreed.
> It is unrealistic to expect to be able to pay once and use an app "forever".
That's the other extreme though.
There's a middle ground that http://reaper.fm/ uses. You buy the current x and x+1 versions. Then you pay for the license again for x+2, x+3 if you want to. The price is very reasonable and there's no subscription as such. If you're happy with the old major version, you can use it as long as it continues to work.
That's the other extreme though.
There's a middle ground that http://reaper.fm/ uses. You buy the current x and x+1 versions. Then you pay for the license again for x+2, x+3 if you want to. The price is very reasonable and there's no subscription as such. If you're happy with the old major version, you can use it as long as it continues to work.
In that case the number of users who would buy x+2, x+3 is probably not half as many as users who bought x, x+1 and the developers would no longer be incentivized to build any more versions, making such a business unsustainable. And newer versions of operating systems, especially Windows, break old software like Office 2003 to ensure that you are using the latest version of Office 365 so they can profit. You can stay on Windows XP to avoid that, would you?
I'm not sure why you make that assumption. X+2 is going to be bought both by users happy with x+1 and by new users who only just learned about it. Why would that be lower than the original buyers?
> You can stay on Windows XP to avoid that, would you?
People do. But realistically either you'd upgrade your computer since XP was sold and get a new license included, or just pay for the update once in almost 2 decades. I don't get the issue you're trying to point out.
> You can stay on Windows XP to avoid that, would you?
People do. But realistically either you'd upgrade your computer since XP was sold and get a new license included, or just pay for the update once in almost 2 decades. I don't get the issue you're trying to point out.
There are other and more important motivators in the world than money…
It is of course necessary to make ends meet and plenty of software shops do just fine with the business model of making a good product and charge for upgrades.
It is of course necessary to make ends meet and plenty of software shops do just fine with the business model of making a good product and charge for upgrades.
Not true, some things need to be updated with the OS, like Parallels.
I got my license back when 5 came out just as I was getting into music in 2015. That covers me to 6.99, and it's taken 7 years to reach 6.64. That's one heck of a bargain.
I didn't realise that. Now I actually want them to cut a new version soon. They deserve my money again and then some.
That's the neat thing. They're always making a new version. They dropped a whole notation editor in with nothing more than an item in the changelog. The video compositor is always improving.
You get all of whatever version you start on (Even if you start at x.99), plus the next, and then your license is done unless you renew it. So no matter what, I don't get updates after 6.99 unless I renew.
Most of what I do music-wise nowadays is making songs live in Ableton Live on Twitch, and I rarely bother to take them to a "produced" state, so what I have in the current Reaper is plenty. I probably won't upgrade, but I'll keep recommending it.
You get all of whatever version you start on (Even if you start at x.99), plus the next, and then your license is done unless you renew it. So no matter what, I don't get updates after 6.99 unless I renew.
Most of what I do music-wise nowadays is making songs live in Ableton Live on Twitch, and I rarely bother to take them to a "produced" state, so what I have in the current Reaper is plenty. I probably won't upgrade, but I'll keep recommending it.
Oh, I know they release new versions, I've been using them for over a year. I meant that I wouldn't mind if they released a major version every year or two. Still worth it.
No one should be able to stay on an outdated version, both for security and compatibility reasons. Supporting old versions of you have an api attached is a cost in it self as well.
It's a music editing app, not a public internet facing service. There's an argument to be made for providing updates, but "No one should be able to stay on an outdated version" is just being a dick to the users. Don't disrespect the users.
Shouldn't software be cheaper than ever? Features certainly haven't increased much. And we now have magnitudes more processing power, memory, bandwidth and storage space. And improved tooling should have made it much much more efficient process? So what has failed? The entire field? Do developers really deserve the expensive pay if their efficiency has not increased?
Features have increased, at least for the kind of apps that I write. My software does things which are quite complex, and were definitely not present in this class of software several years ago. Better languages and libraries make this possible.
In general, I do think software should be cheaper than ever. The main reason it isn't is the crazy pace of changes in platforms. I maintain a web app, which helps me keep my sanity, but I'm not even considering writing mobile apps: there is no way for me to keep up with the pace of changes and updates that vendors make there. It's just way too expensive.
In general, I do think software should be cheaper than ever. The main reason it isn't is the crazy pace of changes in platforms. I maintain a web app, which helps me keep my sanity, but I'm not even considering writing mobile apps: there is no way for me to keep up with the pace of changes and updates that vendors make there. It's just way too expensive.
That's like: Metal and materials are better now than ever before, so shouldn't it be simple, to design new airplanes, nowadays? Why do the aerospace engineers get paid so much
Due to all the frameworks, n0de junk, comp0se blather, I've seen devs write 200 lines of code, for what would have taken 20k lines in 2005.
Devs have it do easy now, that many are so abstracted away from DB, OS, network stack, persistence, that they literally have no idea how anything really works.
This is desired of course, devs today are in short supply, just like the bow vs the crossbow, years of practise turns into months.
But the point is, it is indeed far far far easier to deploy software today.
(why the 0 and now double u usage in place of w with auus?
I suspect auus, n0de, c0mposer dependant entities, such as auus,spend time defending their business model. I want honest discussion, not "omg, defend n0de" discussion, which latches on mention of such tech and pulls in the army)
Devs have it do easy now, that many are so abstracted away from DB, OS, network stack, persistence, that they literally have no idea how anything really works.
This is desired of course, devs today are in short supply, just like the bow vs the crossbow, years of practise turns into months.
But the point is, it is indeed far far far easier to deploy software today.
(why the 0 and now double u usage in place of w with auus?
I suspect auus, n0de, c0mposer dependant entities, such as auus,spend time defending their business model. I want honest discussion, not "omg, defend n0de" discussion, which latches on mention of such tech and pulls in the army)
What's "auus"?
I think systems nowadays are larger and more integrated, more complex.
Deployments sometimes are simpler, whilst other things instead are harder. Software will always be pushing the limits.
I think systems nowadays are larger and more integrated, more complex.
Deployments sometimes are simpler, whilst other things instead are harder. Software will always be pushing the limits.
Aha auus is AWS, I didn't read that part of your comment properly.
Maybe you don't want the comment to be found by search engines
Maybe you don't want the comment to be found by search engines
It may be unrealistic for your business plan and your product (which is fine, no criticism here), but the existance of software that still uses the pay-once-use-forever model proves that it is possible for many apps without being unsustainable. E.g: Serif / Affinity, JetBrains (as you still get a perpetual fallback license to the last version you payed for, so it still can be viewed as a one-time-payment, IMO - just cancel immediately).
Infinite support or updates and a one-time-payment is unrealistic, yeah, ruling out cloud-based SaaS. But for common desktop apps and on-prem stuff, that just isn't neccessary. Drop support at some (previously announced) point and the customer can decide if they want to upgrade. Adobe CS6 still runs fine.
Infinite support or updates and a one-time-payment is unrealistic, yeah, ruling out cloud-based SaaS. But for common desktop apps and on-prem stuff, that just isn't neccessary. Drop support at some (previously announced) point and the customer can decide if they want to upgrade. Adobe CS6 still runs fine.
One thing is that this doesn't currently work in the mobile space, because somewhat regular (~biyearly) updates are necessary to simply keep stuff working on the newest OS and hardware, and the majority of new software targets mobile, often even exclusively.
The problem with a subscription model is that there is a mathematical limit to how much MRR you can make. You can configure the limit by changing pricing, marketing, etc, but then that effects churn. There is simply no way to bypass this limit, no matter what you do unless you can remove churn completely, which is not possible with a subscription model.
With a one-off purchase, you can sell the same thing to a customer multiple times, you can sell upgrades, and you "magically" remove churn.
You own a SaaS, how long do your customers stay customers? If it's 8 months, sell a one-off purchase for the cost of 16 months. Bam, you've made more than you ever would from an average customer, and you don't have to hunt them down and try to get them to stay a customer. You can just focus on building an awesome product and not worry about churn at all. In a year or so, think about a new feature or two that increases the value of your product, sell that new feature (eg, discounted) to existing customers and increase the price for new purchases.
With a one-off purchase, you can sell the same thing to a customer multiple times, you can sell upgrades, and you "magically" remove churn.
You own a SaaS, how long do your customers stay customers? If it's 8 months, sell a one-off purchase for the cost of 16 months. Bam, you've made more than you ever would from an average customer, and you don't have to hunt them down and try to get them to stay a customer. You can just focus on building an awesome product and not worry about churn at all. In a year or so, think about a new feature or two that increases the value of your product, sell that new feature (eg, discounted) to existing customers and increase the price for new purchases.
What is the breakdown of your software maintenance costs?
One of my ideas is that we should package manage solutions to problems at a level higher than just code and subscribe to them. We all depend on BSD sockets due to history. BSD sockets Just Works™ and people don't really evolve the BSD socket API over time. If only the rest of the software stack was as feature complete as BSD sockets.
Imagine a labour market that was also a package manager.
When library "xyz" upgrades from version 1.2.0 to 1.3.0 there's an interface change that breaks everybody. If there's 1,000 dependents of "xyz" and it takes 1 hour to upgrade and 1 hour to pass all QA tests and get into production, then that upgrade takes 1,000 man hours + 1,000 hours automated testing.
If we don't depend on library "xyz" throughout our codebase, we reduce the number of callsites to change. If we use a facade, they're all in one place. If we use a Service Provider Interface, we isolate ourselves even more and add flexibility of implementation.
If our facade or SPI is in escrow on a labour market, someone can fix it for us for a cost of their time. Ideally the software maintainer fixes it so they don't break so many people.
One of my ideas is that we should package manage solutions to problems at a level higher than just code and subscribe to them. We all depend on BSD sockets due to history. BSD sockets Just Works™ and people don't really evolve the BSD socket API over time. If only the rest of the software stack was as feature complete as BSD sockets.
Imagine a labour market that was also a package manager.
When library "xyz" upgrades from version 1.2.0 to 1.3.0 there's an interface change that breaks everybody. If there's 1,000 dependents of "xyz" and it takes 1 hour to upgrade and 1 hour to pass all QA tests and get into production, then that upgrade takes 1,000 man hours + 1,000 hours automated testing.
If we don't depend on library "xyz" throughout our codebase, we reduce the number of callsites to change. If we use a facade, they're all in one place. If we use a Service Provider Interface, we isolate ourselves even more and add flexibility of implementation.
If our facade or SPI is in escrow on a labour market, someone can fix it for us for a cost of their time. Ideally the software maintainer fixes it so they don't break so many people.
> The usual take is that businesses are "greedy" and subscription models are "lucrative".
"Greedy" as a criticism of a for-profit business makes about as much sense as "predatory" does as a criticism of a cat.
"Greedy" as a criticism of a for-profit business makes about as much sense as "predatory" does as a criticism of a cat.
It does make a lot of sense actually. Because cats are predatory, we need to regulate our domestic cat population by keeping them indoors, otherwise their predatory nature will destroy local populations of birds and other animals.
So a for-profit business is greedy by nature, so we need to regulate its natural impulses since it can’t control them itself, much like the cat.
So a for-profit business is greedy by nature, so we need to regulate its natural impulses since it can’t control them itself, much like the cat.
I think greedy is still a valid criticism - just because it's "for profit" doesn't mean "max out the profit at the expense of others".
If we assume that not all people (as it is people who drive these organisations) are greedy, we can also assume that greed is not baked into every profitable org.
If we assume that not all people (as it is people who drive these organisations) are greedy, we can also assume that greed is not baked into every profitable org.
Windows 3.11, Office, Windows 95 etc seem to have done ok without monthly payments.
And they were all funded in the paid update model. Subscription is a consequence of products running on the cloud (where you certainly wouldn't want to operate old versions for customers who refuse to update) and of the lifetime background updates established by app stores.
That's exactly what should be. Pay to upgrade to major version, no subscription. Functioning app, fixing errors should be included in the selling price.
Microsoft respects developers. Google doesn't
Monopolies are great! /s
> So we're catering to the people who are OK with buying a subscription because there are enough of them.
Are there enough of them? Many services seems like they can only exist because many people forget to cancel their subscription.
Are there enough of them? Many services seems like they can only exist because many people forget to cancel their subscription.
I believe this to be untrue. People are very quick to unsubscribe to my app once they don't see a use for them for the paid version anymore.
As a B2B cloud vendor, I’d say 60% of my revenue comes from companies who don’t know are using our products. However, this is part of the business model which sponsors the creation of a product for the 10% who are intensively using our products.
I think of this illegitimate money as seed funding, by large companies, who certainly hope that we’ll reach the feature level of IBM’s products. Given they spend a million a year for IBM’s products, I think they’re doing good by seeding startups like us, even if we fail (which we won’t).
I think of this illegitimate money as seed funding, by large companies, who certainly hope that we’ll reach the feature level of IBM’s products. Given they spend a million a year for IBM’s products, I think they’re doing good by seeding startups like us, even if we fail (which we won’t).
There is also lock-in. In many services you will lose your data if you unsubscribe.
There’s many reasons someone may continue their subscription while they’re not actively using the product, so while some people may forget, it’s difficult to determine that without someone saying explicitly that they forgot — and many companies will refund unused subscriptions.
I have subscriptions that remain active despite not actively using the product: I could save money by unsubscribing and resubscribing but the money saved isn’t worth the effort to re-subscribe each time I want to use it.
I have subscriptions that remain active despite not actively using the product: I could save money by unsubscribing and resubscribing but the money saved isn’t worth the effort to re-subscribe each time I want to use it.
> but the money saved isn’t worth the effort to re-subscribe each time I want to use it.
The effort needed to un-/resubscribe is something that the service can directly control though.
The effort needed to un-/resubscribe is something that the service can directly control though.
From a monetization-persepective, the only difference between a subscription model and a purchase model is that in the former there are always some people paying for something they do not want to have anymore.
In the former there are always some people paying for something they do not want enough to go through the effort of buying (although they may still consider it reasonable enough value to stick with given it requires no further effort to do so).
First thing I see on "Shown HN:" threads after following the link is subscription "pricing" that pokes me in the eye. Terrible practice that I don't see a way out of, unfortunately.
Your businesses are only viable as subscription services because they suck. We had software industries long before everyone was starting to ask for a monthly subscription. You are just making the lazy decision to extract the most value from your existing customers with rent building instead of trying to expand to new markets and services.
I feel like this might be true, but if it is true wouldn't someone else take advantage of the fact? Competitors usually spring up when there is an advantage to be leveraged - and there usually is always an advantage when an incumbent is lazy or rent building.
On my orgs end... we LOVE support subscriptions (that include app update rights) but HATE license subscriptions.
Tying the ability to run with a subscription model means we can't use it for anything business critical (as per legal, regulatory, or just common sense reasons).
Tying the ability to run with a subscription model means we can't use it for anything business critical (as per legal, regulatory, or just common sense reasons).
Buyers want to pay as little as possible and get as much as possible, and sellers want the opposite, on any possible market. It's silly to try and assign moral values to what is simply a conflict of interest.
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This is how I feel as a happy customer of Fantastical calendar. The hate is just unwarranted.
But why is a calendar app a subscription service? That is ridiculous.
Well the calendar changes every year so that's a lot of maintenance work. /s
I think people underestimate how much maintenance work there is today. iOS alone adds features yearly that everyone expects the existing apps to support on day 1. While macos has fewer changes, same issue there.
And calendars...smh. It would be great if MS and Google both followed some standard perfectly, but based on what I've seen from various calendar apps, they do not. Otherwise, the apps would not have such a hard time dealing with multiple calendars.
And calendars...smh. It would be great if MS and Google both followed some standard perfectly, but based on what I've seen from various calendar apps, they do not. Otherwise, the apps would not have such a hard time dealing with multiple calendars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar - it's pretty standardised actually.
The basics have been standardized many times. People who pay for something like Fanstastical aren't looking for just the basics - delegates for example. ICal also support vendor extensions that need support.
HN of all places is one I wouldn't think would assume software maintenance is easy. But, it's where I saw people complain about the Uber app size until an Uber engineer showed up and explained the many screens for payments alone.
HN of all places is one I wouldn't think would assume software maintenance is easy. But, it's where I saw people complain about the Uber app size until an Uber engineer showed up and explained the many screens for payments alone.
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Rich coming from a blog that is on Medium. Once you run out of free access you have to sub. And even worse it's one of the rare subscription services where you don't even see the price on the landing page without making an account first https://medium.com/membership
Yeah medium has become a really nasty user- hostile service :( Substack is where it's at now IMO
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You can throw absolutely all of the blame on MBA and finance culture. Businesses routinely sell for 7-20x annual recurring revenue. However, non-recurring revenue is worth maybe 2-3x.
It’s the same story with raising funds. If you need capital you can raise substantially more for substantially less if you have recurring revenue.
It would be more valuable for a business owner to take a $1M non-recurring revenue business and convert it into a $500k recurring revenue business, stabilize, and then sell.
If you think that’s asinine… well, you’re right. Something is deeply wrong with MBA and finance culture in America. We have truly lost our minds when it comes to valuations.
It’s the same story with raising funds. If you need capital you can raise substantially more for substantially less if you have recurring revenue.
It would be more valuable for a business owner to take a $1M non-recurring revenue business and convert it into a $500k recurring revenue business, stabilize, and then sell.
If you think that’s asinine… well, you’re right. Something is deeply wrong with MBA and finance culture in America. We have truly lost our minds when it comes to valuations.
The thing you haven’t addressed is why this is asinine. I don’t think it’s asinine!
It makes logical sense to me that recurring revenue is more valuable than non-recurring revenue.
It makes logical sense to me that recurring revenue is more valuable than non-recurring revenue.
I understand the why, and still completely disagree with the base reasoning. I was part of a group that made a $10M acquisition of a software company with consistent $7M in annual sales. We converted that to $4.5M in recurring revenue and sold it for $30 million 3.5 years later. I was on the executive team that flipped the business.
And I find the whole thing disturbingly ridiculous. Your examples are pretty divorced from reality. What’s the fundamental difference between consistent annual sales and recurring revenue? Of course in your example the recurring revenue would be worth more, but that’s not an example from reality.
At the end of the day there is finite consumer spending. Companies aren’t really making more money by shifting to recurring revenue. They’re just increasing their value because finance bros say it’s the way to increase your value.
And I find the whole thing disturbingly ridiculous. Your examples are pretty divorced from reality. What’s the fundamental difference between consistent annual sales and recurring revenue? Of course in your example the recurring revenue would be worth more, but that’s not an example from reality.
At the end of the day there is finite consumer spending. Companies aren’t really making more money by shifting to recurring revenue. They’re just increasing their value because finance bros say it’s the way to increase your value.
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Like I never understood why most of these basic tools morph into 100+ people companies. A tool like Evernote can be built and maintained by under 20 people. Even at inflated salaries, your yearly burn would be under $10M.
This is part of a broader trend of startup overhiring. Like Better.com had 10k employees at one point. What are those people even doing at a “startup”?
This late in the startup cycle, you really need to ask why a 10k person company hasn’t IPOed and why is it still calling itself a “startup”