Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions (2019)

The problem is not the self-hosting aspect - it's not taking into consideration the lifecycle.

It's worth self-hosting if you have a good reason for it, and the software is old and boring (aka "battle tested") and packaged by someone else so the lifecycle is someone else's problem.

If it can be installed/maintained/upgraded by running `apt` or `yum`, and isn't a pile of custom hacks then go for it. Server software like Apache/Postgres/MySQL or even fairly nontrivial apps like Jenkins fall into this category. You can literally run these for years, staying updated, with an insignificant amount of maintenance.

Atlassian products with the "download this tarball and run a script" update method aren't as nice as the `apt-get upgrade` you get with the items mentioned above.

> but it's also effectively subsidized by Matrix's patreon backers, such as myself.

I think that's the wrong way of putting it, since that Patreon money is clearly paying for the open component of Matrix. That's work that needs to be done anyway, whether Slack exists or not, and whether businesses choose to host their service instances via Vector or not. And it's definitely a Good Thing that FLOSS suppliers can now get funded via those crowd-based mechanisms - both for aligning incentives and for enhancing the overall "community"/"bazaar" aspect that has helped make a lot of FLOSS software successful in the past.

Just an interesting idea, if no one wants to have employees (lets face it, they are a mess, they waste oxygen, they fart, producing CO2, are corona virus friendly, produce road accidents... and you need to pay them so they can live) maybe everyone is having wrong bussiness plan. Whole world should transform to produce only SAAS products for SAAS people as they are the only customers who will in long term still have money to buy SAAS. /s

This is becoming a joke.

In my whole life I didnt buy a one single software product, that is based on subscription model (unless necessary as there are ongoing costs for its development like antiviruses (which I dont use, but this is another story)). Why? As it tells me, the product is at the end of its inovative phase and has nothing more to offer. I am fine with paying for update hunderds of dollars if, and only if, i need the added functionality. Or in different words Microsoft Office 97 was more than enough for 99% of its users (I dare you to install it and find something that you miss, it wasn't perfect but it did get the job done).

But there is more. I wont pay for cloud products either. Why? I believe that what is giving you the "edge" is your knowlidge. Using, for instance, gmail is taking you the chance to increase it. Yeah sure, time to market, but if you stick to DIY logic, this is not going to be a problem (I can set up a mail server with left hand while coding with right hand... and offer it as a SAAS to those that ignore DIY and earn extra bucks ;) /s ). If you ignore the lack of knowlidge, you will end up always paying to someone else or stuck in a problem that wouldn't be a problem if you wouldn't be ignoring it for so long. Not to even go into lack of inovation and reinventing / copying the solutions that were solved long time ago, but this is just another story.

Look, either it's worth it or it's not. Costs may be soaring, but companies wouldn't be buying them if they weren't providing more value than they cost. But:

> enterprise companies are spending an average of more than $10,000 per employee per year on software

Sorry but I can't wrap my head around this. Is that really accurate? Between Office and cloud and HR/payroll and a few other tools I can imagine $1,000/year. And certain employees need SalesForce or Adobe CC or whatever which adds another, say, $500-2,000.

But I just cannot possibly imagine how an average employee is using $10K worth of subscription services?! Does anyone else think this is accurate?

Read up on the history Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System (C3). The team worked for 7 years and although they achieved some technical goals they never managed to deliver a working payroll system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Comprehensive_Compens...

Payroll is harder than it looks due to all the edge cases. For example, it is literally possible for an employee to have so many payroll deductions including court-ordered wage garnishment that net pay would be negative. How do you handle that in all legal jurisdictions where the company operates?