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Users hate change

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Re: Users hate change

#251

Post by Silhouette »

Stratoscope wrote: post #176
8ytecoder wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the jetbrains model. You can always stop paying whenever you want and you get to own whatever last version you hold.

That's not exactly how the JetBrains perpetual fallback license works. You don't get a license for the last version you used under your subscription. You get a license for the version you had 12 months before you ended your subscription. If you buy an annual subscription, you are paying for 12 months up front, so you immediately get a fallback license for the version that is available at the time you start or renew t…

That looks like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory -- a model that could have been a beneficial arrangement for everyone, turned into something overtly customer-hostile with a rip-off feel to it.

Re: Users hate change

#252

Post by Silhouette »

cm2187 wrote: post #245
holy_city wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly? Because no software is free from bugs and there will always be a need for support. The difference between single sale and subscription can be life or death for a company, its products, and its support. But if you don't feel that a subscription to a service adds value, please don't buy it and voice your concern to the developers. Especially if they're a small shop. That said, subscriptions can be canceled. F…

I think software is one of the only industries where customers are charged for defects in the product.

Indeed. And software developers have largely enjoyed a free ride where they haven't been pursued under consumer protection laws for providing defective products because of the good will built by providing updates to fix defects for a reasonably long time after purchase. If the latter stops, why shouldn't the former?

Re: Users hate change

#253

Post by Silhouette »

a1369209993 wrote: post #145
msla wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, subscriptions can be canceled. Ideally. Assuming you haven't bought into a contract, and assuming the company... you know... stops charging you once you stop using their product and "cancel" using the mechanism they provide. That second problem can be mitigated with single-use credit cards, like what privacy.com offers, but if that gets to be too common, I can imagine companies requiring you not use thos…

> assuming the company [...] stops charging you This is what disputing charges is for. Once you have told them, even once, that you are canceling your subscription, any further charges are fraud and you should respond accordingly.

I agree with this, provided that you did notify them in a reasonable way.

A random email from an unverified address to the first point of contact you can find with Google is not a reasonable way, for the purposes of this discussion. Nor is a casual ambiguous statement during a long phone call whose meaning clearly wasn't understood, if you don't clarify it at the time but then quote it out of context later.

Personally, I like the rule of thumb that it should be no harder to cancel a subscription than to take one out and you should be able to give that notice via the same channel(s) you could use to sign up in the first place, but no-one on either side is required to go any further than that. It keeps everyone honest, but it's also obviously reasonable and proportionate.

Re: Users hate change

#254

Post by Silhouette »

ken wrote: post #196
dataflow wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference between single sale and subscription can be life or death for a company, its products, and its support. Oh come on. Companies have been in business selling stuff for the longest time. It wasn't exactly wrecking capitalism before subscriptions became the normality in the last decade.

It's been wrecking software companies for decades. Name one consumer software company from the 1980's that still exists, besides Microsoft. In software, monopolies, consolidation, and integration are the name of the game. In contrast, I can easily name dozens of companies in other fields that have been around for 50 years or more, including some small ones that have stayed small yet successful.

Name one consumer software company from the 1980's that still exists, besides Microsoft.

Just down the road from me is Frontier, which was founded by David Braben. He was working on the original Elite back in the early 80s, and although Frontier didn't come along until a decade or so later and doesn't strictly meet your condition, I'd argue that it's a good example of a successful consumer software business and has got there by producing a sustained track record of successful products. A few years ago it was listed on the stock market, but by then it had already managed almost two decades as an independent and grown to hundreds of people.

Re: Users hate change

#255

Post by dredmorbius »

Causality1 wrote: post #65

I'll add to the OP that implementing new features isn't the only reason change happens. Many developers and marketers have a fetish for change for the sake of change. There have been many times when a product I use has undergone a redesign, except along with a visual redesign most of its features took twice as long to access. Information that was available with one click now required two or three.

There are several XDDs that drive this; fad, resume, and other driven-development methodologies.

"Implemented site in X" may not help either users or operators, but may advance the developer's career. Or evenmerely provide the developer the impression it might.

Re: Users hate change

#256

Post by sizzle »

_pghu wrote: post #246
sizzle wrote: post #228

Wow this person is projecting their ignorance of the decades of academic HCI studies and industry best practices, including UX design and research methodologies for bringing the user into the design process (to understand their needs) and uncovering user insights from testing designs early on in the design process. Would love to see some concrete examples of redesigns that support the author's argument because I can…

I imagine you’re being downvoted because your post comes across as another smug designer/product person saying “I know better than you, you uneducated philistine”, with a side of “you just haven’t seen it done right and your personal experience is wrong.” I’m sure Reddit’s abortion of a redesign has went through hundreds of rounds of UX testing and has been signed off on by the masters of the field, but it’s still sl…

The author's post came off the same way you've described (to my ears), while targeting design without any concrete examples so it's all conjecture as far as I'm concerned. Designers and developers should work closely together, I depend on them for their technical feasibility/performance subject matter expertise.

"Reddit redesign [...] it’s still slow, unnecessary, and buggy."

I agree Reddit's redesign is a mess and it's largely the implementation and development by the hands of developers whose job it is to code and otherwise discuss performance tradeoffs with product team/design stakeholders for exactly all the items you describe.

How are designers to blame for how it was coded? Devs should have voiced concern if they knew the proposed designs would be a performance disaster on the publicly facing front-end.

Re: Users hate change

#257

Post by oarsinsync »

phkahler wrote: post #248
lars_francke wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your examples but I think a piece of software is different because users expect it to change over time. New Mac OS version? Users want to support it. Found a bug in a library uses? Users expect to get a fixed version etc. And while as a software user/buyer myself I like the idea of paying once and be done with it I kinda understand why people need recurring income if they keep on working on a piece of so…

>> New Mac OS version? I have been avoiding the available OS update for my Macbook Air because I've heard it kills performance, reduces battery life, may not run one of my favorite applications, and AFAIK brings nothing that I actually want.

> brings nothing that I actually want

You might not want security updates, but you probably need them, and probably should have them.

Re: Users hate change

#258

Post by Jedd »

lars_francke wrote: post #174
nofunsir wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"everybody who wanted your software bought it and then the revenue stops." That's... how it should work. You don't get to hook into their wallets for time and all eternity. everybody who wanted your bought it and then the revenue stops. everybody who wanted your bought it and then the revenue stops. everybody who wanted your bought it and then the revenue stops. ... and then you go do something else! That is the prec…

I agree with your examples but I think a piece of software is different because users expect it to change over time. New Mac OS version? Users want to support it. Found a bug in a library uses? Users expect to get a fixed version etc. And while as a software user/buyer myself I like the idea of paying once and be done with it I kinda understand why people need recurring income if they keep on working on a piece of so…

> I agree with your examples but I think a piece of software is different because users expect it to change over time.

A delightful assertion that is the precise opposite of TFA's entire point.

Re: Users hate change

#259

Post by mgbmtl »

torstenvl wrote: post #223
mgbmtl wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old version support has a cost for the company supporting it. I guess it shows to the maturity of the company when they do. It's not easy to pull off. As a dev on a mid-size project, I'd say that those UI changes often have two sides, with people who will also complain "why can't you just fix/change X, it's such a small change, but so annoying". Everyone wants their issue fixed, but not the issues of others. Our proj…

> Old version support has a cost for the company supporting it. Old UI support has zero cost to it. Arbitrary new UIs have significant cost to them.

It means, at a minimum, to support two versions.

Re: Users hate change

#260

Post by dragonwriter »

ken wrote: post #196
dataflow wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference between single sale and subscription can be life or death for a company, its products, and its support. Oh come on. Companies have been in business selling stuff for the longest time. It wasn't exactly wrecking capitalism before subscriptions became the normality in the last decade.

It's been wrecking software companies for decades. Name one consumer software company from the 1980's that still exists, besides Microsoft. In software, monopolies, consolidation, and integration are the name of the game. In contrast, I can easily name dozens of companies in other fields that have been around for 50 years or more, including some small ones that have stayed small yet successful.

> Name one consumer software company from the 1980's that still exists, besides Microsoft.

Others have, but Microsoft always been primarily B2B/Enterprise, not primarily consumer.

For that kind of company from the 1980s or earlier, MicroFocus.

> In contrast, I can easily name dozens of companies in other fields that have been around for 50 years or more

In any one field, though? And one as young as software?

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