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For something like jetbrains, I'm okay with a renewal fee because if I choose not to pay it, I can still use the older version.110% agreement.
Further, the only thing I like less than subscriptions is IAP not of new feature sets but ‘pay-to-play’ where the mechanics of use are negatively distorted to gamify purchase impulse.
I’ve argued — here, since inception of IAP on Apple’s app store — that the worst thing Apple has done to consumers was normalize removing the ability to show only single purchase paid apps in the app store. An vast class of less fortunate consumers either resign to less utility or waste time on an artificial “grind”, to encourage another class of “whale” to drive corporate revenues.
I don’t mind extracting cash from whales who can afford it. I do have a problem inflicting artificial digital scarcity of utility or enjoyment on the masses to create the ‘hook’ for whales.
As for subscriptions, it’s not clear to me that the treadmill of software/hardware upgrades is benefiting core use cases.
I like paying for generational or disruptive change, “voting with my wallet” on what’s of worth to me, but after a couple decades of purchasing generations of Adobe software only when the features mattered to my work, I moved from Adobe to e.g. Affinity and feature sets I own instead of rent when these recurring subscriptions don’t appear to meaningfully benefit my productivity or output.
For instance, it’s remarkable to me how similar the principles are between today’s (re-)emergence of Markdown for document composition and the early WordStar / WordPerfect / AppleWriter tools of the 80’s. I also like the experimentation by these Makers in ability to purchase a ‘pinned’ feature set, or support ongoing refinement. (Editors whether text or code, like JetBrains mentioned, seem to have a jump on this clever — and rare positive — use of IAP.) It’s difficult to show what increased utility of word processing has come from the most recent 20 years of paying for word processing upgrades. Today’s dev efforts suggest the sweet spot may be 30 years back.
The flip side of this, economic models are still dissatisfying for affordability of basic bricks and mortar world rights such as housing. The least worst answer appears to be rent (with a dystopian jag into ad-supported!), and it may be the least worst for software is rent as well.
Except when the ongoing annual software rents have risen to the same cost as one-time purchase (again, Adobe!), contrary to bricks and mortar where the over under is often 7 years of possession and use.
Back to artificial digital scarcity — I’m concerned that advertiser funded access to quality writing is losing ground to monthly subscriptions for content. Are less fortunate kids going to be able to subscribe to NY Times, WaPo, Atlantic, Guardian, National Review, American Spectator, and so on, for $5 a month each? (News aggregations such as Next Issue could resolve this, but even as Apple’s “News+” this struggles.) Even more dissatisfying when a print publication goes down the same path as cable, first charging for something that was free, then eventually layering in the same ad content as when it was free.
Artificial scarcity based IAP, data-broker supported (ad supported is fine, individual data for content is not), and the descent into the ironic sounding “gacha” model for software or content happy meals (utilities, clickers, news, etc.) — something thoughtful has to shift before we’re living in a future less Roddenberry than Idiocracy.