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Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

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Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#121
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most business in the United States is done despite the management, not because of it.

Where’s the list of awesome companies that succeed without managers?

I have yet to encounter a manager who motivates me to get up and find a way to eat that day.

Just because they are there doesn’t mean the achievements are due to them.

There have been a number of attempts, tens of millions of dollars spent on one study alone, trying to quantify what technologies and people generate value.

The meta-conclusion considering all the studies I know of (traveling and not looking them up), is the math becomes so Byzantine it’s a pointless measure and we should just stick with ideology to avoid blowing up society in people’s minds (an idea that was peddled for thousands of years already, reaffirmed by math, glad we spent the time on it.)

Just because we’ve emotionally conditioned ourselves to engage our mechanical agency towards these ends does not imply it’s because of management.

Manufactured consent is a thing.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fully loaded cost of an employee for a business is not the employee's salary. "The fully-loaded costs of employees are much higher than their salary: exactly how much higher depends on your locality’s laws, your benefits package, and a bunch of other HR administrivia, but a reasonable guesstimate is between 150% and 200% of their salary." - https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

Most employees' salaries are not 100k.

> Most employees' salaries are not 100k

I'd hypothesis that most employees on whom companies spend $10k for cloud software are making $100k+.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#123
post #8

If you are already spending >$200K per employee, spending another $10K to make them even 10% more productive is a bargain.

Exactly this. Unfortunately, way too often I see execs saying "that's too expensive, we just have to do it manually" instead of using good tool. Then what happens is somebody making $100+/hour would spend several hours to do the job that would be covered by a tool that costs under $50/month.

Most employees don’t make nearly $100+/hour

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#124
post #88

SaaS is a disaster without controls. They make it damn hard to automatically disable users who are no longer active. Then you have users picking competing duplicative tools, and now users can't work together without having duplicate accounts in each tool. Once they get you in, you've got no leverage--they'll just keep increasing prices because you're locked in. Companies are pushing you from perpetual license to clou…

Name some examples of price increases that were unfair? Price increases due to inflation are a necessity. I can't see a world where I would buy a software once and use it forever , so paying for upgrades is necessary at some point.

There's a hell of a gap between "paying for upgrades is necessary at some point" and "my supplier can choose when I have to pay more".

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#125
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java, PHP, MySQL, Postgresql, OpenSSL, Linux come to mind.

Perhaps this is an effect of learning to program in the 2010s, but paying for a programming language (Java, PHP) sounds crazy to me. Do people actually do this?

Embedded compilers/IDE as well.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#126
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most business in the United States is done despite the management, not because of it.

Where’s the list of awesome companies that succeed without managers?

Early Google. It worked for quite a while, but hit scaling limits.

Github made it all the way until 2014 (and was a massive success by then) too, IIRC.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. Unfortunately, way too often I see execs saying "that's too expensive, we just have to do it manually" instead of using good tool. Then what happens is somebody making $100+/hour would spend several hours to do the job that would be covered by a tool that costs under $50/month.

Most employees don’t make nearly $100+/hour

The number to look at isn’t the employee’s wage, but the employee’s cost to the company. I cost my company about $100/hr more than I make.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#128

It seems to me companies should instead invest in open source alternatives. They could pay less, funding the development of open source alternatives and everyone wins. Blender is a good example of this.

Yes there are so many open-source alternatives to popular SaaS nowadays and more are popping up. The barrier of building a great application has gone down significantly the past 4-5 years.

I'm work on building an extensive alternatives list here: https://opensource.builders. Which commercial product is Blender an open-source alternative to?

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#129
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, did piracy kill the music industry's ownership model or was SaaS just more popular/lucrative/financially gamable? My take is that SaaS is just a more predictable business model with fewer operating complexities and easier sales funnels.

> did piracy kill the music industry's ownership model yes

of the artists, certainly.

Re: Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

#130
post #8

If you are already spending >$200K per employee, spending another $10K to make them even 10% more productive is a bargain.

They are just going to pay their employees less. Companies have to be profitable, temporary exceptions notwithstanding, and the money has to come from somewhere.

Companies don't pay employees what they can, they pay what they have to (decided by the market). If they can't afford to do that, they won't survive.
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