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Ask HN: What software do you actually pay for?

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11–20 of 47 posts

Re: Ask HN: What software do you actually pay for?

#11
I just had the realization that I can’t remember ever paying for a console application (at least not since the 1980s and I can’t remember any in particular) and I can’t think of any that are currently for sale. Every command line tool I use, and I use a lot of them, is free software.

Maybe I’m just drawing a blank. I’d be curious to know if anyone pays for command line tools.

Re: Ask HN: What software do you actually pay for?

#12

The reason I ask is that we're in the monetization phase of my app and it's also Open Source: https://getpolarized.io/ It's basically a PDF and document management repository. It's kind of like Mendeley/Zotero meets Kindle+Github. I'm kicking around some ideas including just make it flat out free and just focusing on growth to charging for some premium features like cloud sync. One of the things we're struggling with…

For what it's worth:

I pay for software when it has value to me, and your product does have value to me. I haven't used it much yet (see below), but I really like what it can offer.

I have paid for:

iOS: GoodReader, Working Copy, OmniFocus, Anki, and Scrivener (these are also among my more frequently used apps). I've paid for some games over the years but mostly board game ports to iPad (because carrying around boxes of games is a PITA). The rest of the apps on my iPhone (iPad isn't handy) are communication apps, media consumption apps (that I may pay a subscription for), or apps for a specific business (like a bank or airline). My iPad will be similar except it'll have the games.

macOS: I've paid for HeroLab, Scrivener, OmniFocus, YNAB4 (of the apps still on my laptop). I have also, in the past, paid for Parallels and some other things but they're not installed and I haven't missed them. I have also bought video games, but none presently installed. The rest of what I use is generally open source. I have Anki and would pay for it if the author sold it.

I would get more value from Polar Bookshelf if you had an iOS offering as that is where I do the bulk of my PDF reading (or Android, I do have a Kindle Fire I use for reading though less frequently). If it were available there, I'd happily pay for it. But I don't need cloud sync. I have sufficient cloud storage already and plenty of room to host the files I'd add to Polar (actually, most of what I'd add I actually have but haven't read in my Dropbox account already).

Re: Ask HN: What software do you actually pay for?

#13
It's been more than a decade since I paid for any software, Mathlab for Linux. It was a requirement for a class I was taking - Ironically, I never did have to use it. Octave proved more than adequate. Before that... well... I think the only other software I ever paid for was a shareware game (Commander Keen) when I was a kid in the early 90's. Generally I'm always surprised when I hear a reference to commercial software thinking "That's still a thing?!"

Re: Ask HN: What software do you actually pay for?

#17

It's been more than a decade since I paid for any software, Mathlab for Linux. It was a requirement for a class I was taking - Ironically, I never did have to use it. Octave proved more than adequate. Before that... well... I think the only other software I ever paid for was a shareware game (Commander Keen) when I was a kid in the early 90's. Generally I'm always surprised when I hear a reference to commercial softw…

You find paying for software to be unusual? How can that be?

Re: Ask HN: What software do you actually pay for?

#18
I paid for 1password last year and still use it. Very convenient.

Paid for sublime text around 3-4 years ago, used it for 1-2 solid years, now a days am on VIM + TMUX but don't regret having paid.

Paid for PyCharm, used less than 1 month, regretted paying for.

And that's about it.

Re: Ask HN: What software do you actually pay for?

#19
I pay for software pretty often. Most of of it is $10-15 max unless it's professional tools. That's not a lot of money for me.

Most recently, I paid for the Mac version of Soulver (https://www.acqualia.com/soulver/) because I got the iOS version for free and I really liked it. I regularly purchase apps on my phone if they solve my problems and are high quality.

Re: Ask HN: What software do you actually pay for?

#20

It's been more than a decade since I paid for any software, Mathlab for Linux. It was a requirement for a class I was taking - Ironically, I never did have to use it. Octave proved more than adequate. Before that... well... I think the only other software I ever paid for was a shareware game (Commander Keen) when I was a kid in the early 90's. Generally I'm always surprised when I hear a reference to commercial softw…

You find paying for software to be unusual? How can that be?

Having not run DOS/Windows since 1995 I haven't needed to. I can't imagine dealing with an OS without the kind of enormous and comprehensive software repository of Debian or pretty much any distro.
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