Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021) • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by dangus » Sat, Jul 30, 2022, 2:23 PM UTC

parkingrift wrote: post #129

You can throw absolutely all of the blame on MBA and finance culture. Businesses routinely sell for 7-20x annual recurring revenue. However, non-recurring revenue is worth maybe 2-3x. It’s the same story with raising funds. If you need capital you can raise substantially more for substantially less if you have recurring revenue. It would be more valuable for a business owner to take a $1M non-recurring revenue busine…

The thing you haven’t addressed is why this is asinine. I don’t think it’s asinine!

It makes logical sense to me that recurring revenue is more valuable than non-recurring revenue.

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

#302

Post by closewith » Sat, Jul 30, 2022, 2:27 PM UTC

fiprofessor wrote: post #295

closewith wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just reads to me that you don't want to have to accept any liability for the work you produce. Why shouldn't you be liable for the initial flawed software that you sold to an unsuspecting buyer? Why should you be able to suddenly shift liability onto your customer by releasing a patch? In the United States, the landmark product liability case was Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. . In the majority decision, one o…

But very few physical consumer goods are designed to be robust to adversarial or malicious use, and there is no standard of liability for such failures. On the other hand, often in these discussions, people advocate for such a standard for software products. Consider the example of a music player that was mentioned in another comment upstream in this thread. Suppose a company sells music player software that turns ou…

> It's helpful to consider a physical product analogy: imagine the company sold a cassette player instead. Now, let's say that someone designs a malicious tape that is lined with noxious chemicals, which when played in the cassette player causes it to catch on fire and explode. Would anyone regard the cassette maker as liable if this caused someone to die or a house to burn down?

With respect, a malicious tape lined with noxious chemicals is not analogous to a maliciously crafted .mp3 file for several reasons. First a tape lined with noxious chemicals is dangerous unto itself.

Second, it is not reasonably foreseeable that a tape deck would be used to play a chemically sabotaged tape. If there were millions of tapes in circulation that could cause a tape deck to self-combust, the manufacturer would be (at least partly) liable for that foreseeable outcome. They would be required to take steps to ameliorate that possible outcome.

It is now reasonably foreseeable that software designed to open arbitrary files may be subject to a maliciously crafted attack.

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

#303

Post by biztos » Sat, Jul 30, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

clement_b wrote: post #89

Yes, subscriptions for everything isn't good for consumers, but, if it was 'easy' to sell software as a one off before the cloud, it's a bit harder now with all the costs associated with cloud features such as everlasting storage, security, sync, compute, you name it. How do you sell something that consumes resources continuously at a one-off cost? SaaS can only work with a continuous revenue stream because the softw…

A lot of the cloud stuff can be offloaded to cloud providers. It’s pretty common for apps to let you choose between local storage, iCloud, Dropbox, et al. And for compute, well, the software runs on computers?

If you need more server side action than that, I think you’re selling a service in addition to your app, and then yes, you need subscription revenue.

Often it’s bad idea though, I doubt you’d find many people who prefer Photoshop “cloud” to old-school Photoshop-on-a-Computer.

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

#304

Post by hnarn » Sat, Jul 30, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

I have no problem understanding the logic behind it but I really hate being forced into a subscription only to cancel it immediately to get what I actually wanted: one month.

If your customers only want one month, sell them one month and be done with it. If you’re selling something good, it will be missed, and if you’re not maybe try doing that instead of building a business on the hope that customers will forget about you.

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

#305

Post by caeril » Sat, Jul 30, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

danielvaughn wrote: post #79

codeptualize wrote: post #63

I don't mind subscriptions, I actually prefer them for many things. Especially for software I rely on I want the developers to consistently earn money so they keep motivated to work on it, do maintenance and fix bugs. I don't pay for software, I pay for the thing it allows me to do. Me paying a subscription fee creates an incentive and responsibility to keep things working. If there is a backend component to its even…

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.

> or continued backend support

This is part of the problem. Give me software that runs locally only, and there's no need for "backend support". This insane integration of local software with unnecessary remote services is absurd.

But yes, obviously one should pay for feature upgrades, as it was in the 90s. Everything went to hell when software started having the Internet as a core dependency.

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

#306

Post by bergenty » Sat, Jul 30, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

BonoboIO wrote: post #256

I don't know anybody who pays for adobe products beside some professional photographers/artists. The support is nonexistent and their pricing is consumer unfriendly. You can only make yearly subscriptions and even the student prices are high. Acrobat for 180€ a year and it crashes one in 10 times when I convert some things and takes all the edits with it to the grave. Ridiculous.

I use illustrator, audition and photoshop a lot. My wife works for a university though and I have a free subscription.

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

#307

Post by bdcravens » Sat, Jul 30, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

chrisandchris wrote: post #265

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #180

Part of the problem is that most of these startups simply have too much overhead to offer their product for free or cheap. Like I never understood why most of these basic tools morph into 100+ people companies. A tool like Evernote can be built and maintained by under 20 people. Even at inflated salaries, your yearly burn would be under $10M. This is part of a broader trend of startup overhiring. Like Better.com had…

> Part of the problem is that most of these startups simply have too much overhead to offer their product for free or cheap. I think that is not the issue. The issue is having a physical product that is tied to a subscription which could also be a one-time fee. Like a subscription for your dorbell - just why?

> Like a subscription for your dorbell - just why?

Servers (and the staff to maintain them) have an ongoing cost. Human labor is also a pesky subscription.

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

#308

Post by malloryerik » Sat, Jul 30, 2022, 2:43 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #254

The VC model is to blame, I think. The default VC calculation goes something like this. $100 million fund invested in 20 companies at $5 each. 18 or so go bust, break-even, get acquihired. The remaining two return maybe $100m each after 10 years. With this outcome the VC fund has a meager return, barely outperforms the S&P on a risk-adjusted basis. What VCs are really looking for are big multibillion dollar exits. An…

> It's a real shame, because most software I use can be written by a handful of good engineers in a couple of years.

And what if the engineers bootstrap instead of taking VC lucre?

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

#309

Post by pyrrhotech » Sat, Jul 30, 2022, 2:49 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #203

pyrrhotech wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

take a look at ADBE stock chart before and after they switched to SAAS model

stock pricings are poor indicators of performance.

in the short run, yes, in the long run, no

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

#310

Post by thfuran » Sat, Jul 30, 2022, 2:54 PM UTC

tomrod wrote: post #260

ghaff wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're talking about an unusually serious flaw and almost certainly for some bounded period of time--and assuming the purchasers even learns of the recall. Automobiles aside, I don't think in my 60+ years I have ever been aware of a recall on a product I purchased.

That may be the case, but a lot of people do pay attention to recalls. Whether a majority, plurality, or minority of the population I have no idea, but folks in my social circle do search for recalls when purchasing used.

It's surely not just a minority but a very small minority if you're not counting the recalls that either end up in the news or go through the trouble of informing customers.