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Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

boringbar.app

251–260 of 327 posts

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#251

I love that you've made this, but in a world of never ending subscriptions, a subscription to a taskbar is just not something I (or many I imagine) can justify - no matter how low the price. We really have entered the age of everything being a subscription.

They have a perpetual pricing option available alongside the subscription one. It's still worth thinking about the economics of this.

How are they supposed to fund development? It's important to differentiate independent devs and the goliaths. When you release an app like this, it is "good enough" for more people. Your incentive to build the thing is that you can make a living off of it and continue crafting it with the intent of building other great things. The biggest software companies have many revenue streams and ways to cover costs that are very different from independent devs.

When you sell perpetual use software, you have the incentive to release yearly versions (or whatever cadence is best.) You are incentivized to only put bugfixes into next year's version to force upgrades. Users lose out because they don't get bug fixes and the developer is put in a spot where they have to look for more devious ways of making a profit.

To make money the cost of perpetual software is also very high. Devs make terrible compromises here to seem reasonable, but you need to move a lot of units to reduce the price to the level possible with subscription software.

Subscriptions are far from perfect, but they bring some balance. Next time you complain, it would be an interesting exercise to state what you would be prepared to pay and how often.

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally prefer the monthly payments of a nominal amount where $2-8/month is my usual small app tolerance. It feels like I’m supporting the development of useful tools while having the option to discontinue my patronage when the tool is no longer relevant or useful to my workflow. This gives products a natural lifespan and aligns the developer incentives to keep the product functional and continue developing new…

Who maintains the list of all of these a la carte subscriptions? Your credit card company? Seems like a pain to have to review it every month and discern the service from the ACH transaction name. Additionally, it would be a reactive approach, as you would already need to be charged for the month you didn't want in order for it to show up on the ACH ledger. I don't have a problem with paying subscriptions, I have a p…

I have a budget, which is an excel file, that lists my fixed expenses. I add a row, select the frequency, and let the formula I wrote a while back work out how much discretionary funds are left. There are dozens of other software products out there that also serve this purpose as well as actual paper ledgers you could use instead.

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was your justification for the monthly fee in the first place? There is a model that worked for decades: If you spent a _significant_ amount of work enhancing an existing tool you'd release a new major version. The would be a discount for license holders of the old version. Why reinvent the world over and over again?

Simple answer right? It makes more money. Not saying that was OPs motivation but that's obviously why the shift happened.

Well, I'm all for making money but the way it was tried here sounds like a pretty bad idea.

Developers (or power users for that matter) aren't really known to be generous with their personal money for recurring software fees. But this is the primary target group. I want value in return for my money. If you have monthly recurring costs then I can understand the monthly fee. If not then it's a rip-off.

Can you try? Of course. But I guess I'm not the only one who has been pushed away from that particular software product. Even if it's good I will not give it another try. First impressions count.

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#255
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey. I'm seeing this issue with some other users as well and I'm trying to reproduce this - do you have the reduce transparency accessibility option enabled by any chance?

I do! edit: Checking now I'm back in arm's reach of my laptop, I can further confirm disabling the option does resolve the issue on Sonoma. Nice catch!

Aha! Same here. No wonder there were gui issues if that's the common factor. (Didn't verify behavior, only setting.)

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#259
Nice first impression butI was VERY surprised that there are no Themes at all? Or maybe a config.json ? The default theme looks very dark, and I would use something like to make my life easier, not harder...

edit: also it didn't work for me - I can tap buttons but the corresponding window won't open.

edit2: after a restart it did work...

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#260

The issue I have with UI replacements is that I now have a dependency that MUST be installed, otherwise I have to learn how to UX again from scratch. If I ever get a new Mac, I now MUST install boringBar, otherwise it will be like learning a new OS workflow, akin from switching from Mac to Windows. If Apple ever updates anything to where the plugin would stop working, I now need to do the same adaptation. It's fun fo…

I do the same, to the point that I avoid updating the OS so Apple can’t break my flow/heart.
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