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Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

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Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#111

Post by williamtrask »

pakitan wrote: post #98
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, it's usually nothing to do with the fact they weren't viable before, it's just that subscriptions are more profitable. With cost of living crisis and such, soon enough though it won't be able to last. People are already cancelling one of the biggest main subscriptions they have (netflix). Also I fear this is really changing society. Many years ago, as you got older you got into a better place in life because…

> Also I fear this is really changing society. Many years ago, as you got older you got into a better place in life because you had saved up and bought all the stuff you need and slowly aqquired good equipment and everything you need. Your grandfather's wheelbarrow didn't need replacing every 2 years but he also didn't have Netflix. You can easily have your grandfather's lifestyle by buying a future-proof wheelbarrow…

Believe it or not the wheelbarrow was considered modern technology at one point.

Software is fixed cost to create and near-free to distribute. Sure there are tiny cloud costs for running things and maybe you need a couple engineers to fix bugs, but the subscription pricing model doesn’t fit this.

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#112

Post by alanfranz »

daveoc64 wrote: post #96
danielvaughn wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It blows my mind that there are people in this thread who think that a business should charge once for a product that requires iteration or continued backend support.

That's how a lot of games work (and have done for decades). You buy the game once, then get access to online multiplayer servers. Subscription models encourage constant needless changes to the product.

Very few follow that trend, though, and servers sometime get shut down after a while, exactly because they have a price.

And expansions, dlcs, seasons, are a way to subsidize such online services.

How many games that offer no additional packages keep their online offering working forever?

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#113

Post by soylentgraham »

K0balt wrote: post #62

We get that subscription is more lucrative. But offer an option to purchase the current version at a higher price, or use the jet brains model of new versions as subscription.

We used to have purchase v1, and a cheaper upgrade to v2... but jetbrains' doesnt let you keep the upgrade if you unsubscribe?

Or do you then perpetually own v2 after a year?

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#114

Post by xg15 »

prmoustache wrote: post #99
xg15 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the whole point of this thread is that everything is moving to subscriptions. So... dont use any service ever then I guess?

That is untrue. Also you named it: service. Not everything is a service, and not all services are required. While you can't easily avoid insurances, bankings, healthcare, internet/mobile provider you can easily avoid spotify, office365, netflix, evernote or telegram or a gym subscription.

Yeah, and technically, I don't need housing either, I can just live on the street.

> telegram

Not if important contacts are on there.

The point is, there is a clear trend. Various things we traditionally saw as "products" already morphed into services and I don't see any indication this will reverse in the near future.

On the contrary, with more devices becoming connected, the trend will likely increasingly include physical devices. See BMW's experiments with requiring subscriptions to use hardware you already own. See also the whole John Deere debate from a few years ago. Etc.

So while not technically impossible, it will become increasingly harder to not use services.

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#115

Post by cinntaile »

daveoc64 wrote: post #96
danielvaughn wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It blows my mind that there are people in this thread who think that a business should charge once for a product that requires iteration or continued backend support.

That's how a lot of games work (and have done for decades). You buy the game once, then get access to online multiplayer servers. Subscription models encourage constant needless changes to the product.

That was before the infrastructure to properly support monthly or seasonly subscriptions or passes existed. What are some other business models?

Microtransactions, usually a lootbox like system so the gamblers pay for the rest of the players (quite profitable)

DLCs

I can't think of any other common ones.

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#117

Post by drdec »

dotancohen wrote: post #73
withinboredom wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You own a license, instead of paying for a license in perpetuity.

It's actually a fair question. The online service still has hosting and bandwidth to pay for at a minimum. Paying them once does not mean that they will be able to pay for hosting and bandwidth for the next twenty years that I expect to use the product. For scale, I've been using VIM for almost thirty years. Twenty years is not an exaggerated number.

Graveyards manage to do this, i.e. sell once and provide maintenance for a long period afterwards.

It might make the software prohibitively expensive though.

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#118

Post by safety1st »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #50
xg15 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But our businesses are viable as subscription services, and not as one-off or ad-hoc puchase models. Doesn't explain businesses that had been per-purchase for a long time and are now still switching to subscriptions though. (E.g. photoshop, jetbrains...)

Agreed, it's usually nothing to do with the fact they weren't viable before, it's just that subscriptions are more profitable. With cost of living crisis and such, soon enough though it won't be able to last. People are already cancelling one of the biggest main subscriptions they have (netflix). Also I fear this is really changing society. Many years ago, as you got older you got into a better place in life because…

It's certainly cause for concern but I would say the major change over the years has been that in addition to buying good and reliable things that last (and maybe are expensive), you can also buy cheap crappy stuff that breaks down.

To use headphones as an example you can still go get a pair of wired Sony headphones that will have great sound and last for a decade for $50. I just did. (Or you can spend more and get even better.)

I've also bought $15 Chinese Bluetooth earbuds that were janky and dead in less than a year.

Sometimes the simple, older, reliable stuff is better.

You can build a desktop PC that will last you for a decade with occasionally upgrading components. Now you can do it with a Framework laptop too.

Personally I bought a nice i7 laptop about a decade ago and will only get around to retiring it this year, it stopped being my main workhorse several years ago but has been great as a secondary living room entertainment machine.

I don't need the latest greatest, I play a lot of retro and indie games and watch movies at picture qualities that video snobs would sneer at, but that gets back to whether you want to develop expensive tastes or not.

Not that life has fundamentally become unliveably expensive.

There are some places where cost of living really is a serious problem - homes, health care, education.

But a lot of this I feel is really about younger generations having voracious consumer appetites, like an absolutely off-the-charts, record-setting desire for luxury and status. A lot of it is driven by a heightened sense of needing to keep up, look good on Instagram etc. which is a whole other can of worms. Do you really need to keep up with the rat race, the Joneses, the latest fashions etc.? Maybe it's different now, but the Boomers went through their own version of this, they had their big hippie anti-materialism movement in the 60's (and then by the 80's they seemed to have forgotten all about it).

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#119

Post by hendersoon »

mattjenner wrote: post #21

Dear innovative people: think of a better model. 1. Free = problematic with the lack of money 2. Freemium = looks good if the balance is right 3. Ads = Mostly works but the model is flawed and skewed 4. Subscription = Love/Hate currently trendy but too relied on 5. Pay-what-you-can = Fans provide the service for everyone 6. Premium only = Only what it's worth, when it's worth 7. Enterprise = S'ok because my company/o…

The answer is simple. Release a new version every year and sell it for a reasonable amount of money.

Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)

#120

Post by SQueeeeeL »

williamtrask wrote: post #111
pakitan wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also I fear this is really changing society. Many years ago, as you got older you got into a better place in life because you had saved up and bought all the stuff you need and slowly aqquired good equipment and everything you need. Your grandfather's wheelbarrow didn't need replacing every 2 years but he also didn't have Netflix. You can easily have your grandfather's lifestyle by buying a future-proof wheelbarrow…

Believe it or not the wheelbarrow was considered modern technology at one point. Software is fixed cost to create and near-free to distribute. Sure there are tiny cloud costs for running things and maybe you need a couple engineers to fix bugs, but the subscription pricing model doesn’t fit this.

Yeah, your grandfather was still respectable to the average person in his class/social group. Now it's really hard to imagine someone being able to engage socially without having technology of some form.
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