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Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

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Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#41

Post by AlexandrB »

einherjae wrote: post #16
MattGaiser wrote: post #4

> So yeah, why is that? Because like media or newspapers, the product continues to require work and has no defined expiration date. I assume you want updates for your password manager? Companies also love the idea of subscriptions for cash and approval management reasons. In government, subscriptions can even prevent you needing to go through a formal procurement phase, which might lead to some important infrastructu…

Sure, Ill happily pay for the next version of my password manager as well…as long as I buy a license instead of renting it. But I truly won’t rent a note taking app. Overall JetBrains’ model of “subscription with fallback license” seems the best compromise here, you do get to keep a license permanently if you quit your subscription, it just happens to be the one from 12 months ago.

> Overall JetBrains’ model of “subscription with fallback license” seems the best compromise here, you do get to keep a license permanently if you quit your subscription, it just happens to be the one from 12 months ago.

Yeah, this model is pretty good and should be the default if you're offering subscriptions. Subscriptions where your data is basically hostage to a monthly payment are awful.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#42

Post by ghaff »

he11ow wrote: post #2

Because of all the free, open source software, I don't see it as a big deal. I don't mean to say that you can just get the free version of everything in OSS. Rather, that the entire software landscape has shifted, in a meaningful way. On the one hand, you get A TON more software for free, and on the other, for something that has a real moat - yeah, you pay. I think it's fair, software moats are hard, and therefore ex…

The thing with subscriptions is that you need to be intentional about them and review them semi-regularly. In fact, writing that, I think I'm going to put them all down in a spreadsheet when I have a chance.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#44

Post by zzo38computer »

geocrasher wrote: post #5

When something is web based, I get it. That requires infrastructure to run. When it's a downloadable program that requires nothing but yearly or monthly licensing, then I am in full agreement with you. I would argue however that for most SaaS or subscription based services though, there are alternatives to them that follow a different business model or are FOSS. I do know, though, that in some cases this is not true.

I agree with you, it makes sense that they may want to charge money for a service, but if you download a program then you should be able to use it on your own computer without subscriptions (unless you want to subscribe to automatic updates, I suppose). However, local programs should be made possible too. In the cases where it is not currently available, we should make them, I hope. (I often find what I am looking for is not available, although "web based" is not the only problem that may exist with what is found)

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#45

Post by SkaBunkel »

> why is that?

It is essentially for licensing and DRM reasons. It's been around for years in B2B stuff. But as it turns out it works for B2C stuff too, and you can actually charge more by charging less.

Let's look at it by using an example. Many people see a 9$ fee as something they can afford right now, and the company sees it as a 108$ per year, per person, payment for the service. Even if they loose 30% of that in operating costs, it is still 75.6$. If 1000 people pay, you have 75 600$ in annual reoccurring income. If you have to sell hardware for people to use your service, you can now sell that at a loss and recoup the loses via the subscription.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#46

Post by bee_rider »

Subscription is definitely better than ad-driven.

Unfortunately connected devices require continuing development to close security holes.

At this point, though, the ability to run something locally and just not have the internet touch it is a huge perk.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#47

Post by solardev »

I actually prefer the subscription model for my software, if the monthly price is reasonable.

It gives me faith that they can actually sustain their business and pay their employees to maintain and improve the service over time.

I hate the other model, where with Windows and Office you end up getting useless forced upgrades and terrible makeovers because they need that upgrade revenue every few years. Or the ad driven model. I wish I could pay a personal Google subscription for better results and no search ads, for example.

Subscriptions allow companies to better develop organic roadmaps that's not tied to an upgrade cycle, and deemphasizes the needless shiny that's often there for no reason. They don't need to refresh the UI unless there's just an underlying good reason to (like with IntelliJ), but can still keep adding new features.

As a user it means I don't have these huge spikes in my budget every few years and can just plan for a predictable monthly cost. Or sub for something for a month or two and cancel when I don't need it, which I do often.

Owning software is worthless to me because their effective lifespans are so short anyway, usually just a couple years, before the ecosystem has moved on and left them behind anyway. It's not like code is collectible or appreciates over time. Owning it just means you prepay years in advance and lose access to the present value of that money in the meantime, and can't easily switch to a competitor if and when one appears. The subscription forces companies to keep delivering value unless they want you to cancel.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#48

Post by ngoilapites »

crazygringo wrote: post #40

Not really, because I saw too many software companies go out of business because not enough people wound up upgrading to the next major version -- the ownership model of software can be awfully feast-or-famine for developers' income, it's a very tough/risky business model. Generally speaking, I'm happy to pay a subscription because this way I get a steady stream of all the updates, and it's much more likely the compa…

Agonise? Seriously, capitalism is based on your decision power, and you give it away and call it Agonise? I might need to write a new book, about consumer disempowerment phenomena.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#49

Post by 88913527 »

The end state of all of this is fewer customers, but each customer is more passionate about what they're buying (and paying far more). Customers who were only marginally interested in the service are de-prioritized, and the business focuses on people who, for whatever reason, literally cannot go without the service and accept 10x prices (captive markets).

Why is it happening? Slowing macroeconomic growth means dividing the existing pie rather than going for maximizing volume in a world where there is more pie. You need to take someone else's lunch.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#50

Post by unity1001 »

Its much better than the ad driven model of the Internet where advertisers and investors called the shots instead of the users.

Maybe subscription model would have been de facto model of the Internet from the start if the unlimited amounts of VC money that was made possible through low interest rates and the dominant foreign ex currency position of the dollar did not enter the landscape and turned everything into a growth race without heeding any healthy financials.

So we ended up with gigantic social media companies that do not have actual revenue that could justify their stock price like Twitter, FB etc, companies that basically rode on attempting to corner a market with the assumption that it would end up being profitable at some point like WeWork, Uber etc.

Companies that had healthy financials and unit economics were belittled and ignored, they were not ambitious enough and they were not growing fast enough.

Now that the global economics is changing with competing currencies eating into dollar's foreign currency dominance and cash-awash economy through low interest rates not being possible, the startup game will likely change.

The subscription model is one of the models that could make things work. But everything being a subscription does not feel like its sustainable consumer-side - $3-$5 apiece, dozens of subscriptions for different things, amounting to a hundred dollars or more - that doesnt look like manageable or affordable. So eventually bundled services may rise - subscribe for $x, and get all of these services across the Internet.

Not the open Internet we want yet, but its better than the corporate dominated Internet - at least this format gives an opportunity to small players too.

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