Yeah, this whole subscription thing sucks. I refuse to engage. The only thing I have a subscription to is Disney+ because the wife wants it for the kids. I have no other software or service or device subscriptions. If nobody has a pay once option I do without.
Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)
361–370 of 438 posts
Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)
#362Part 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?
The subscription model is all about securitizing cash flows and selling it to Wall St. Cash flows from subscriptions are more regular and reliable than from one-time purchases. It’s why everyone and their mother is trying to shift to a subscription model, even for things like hardware where it makes no sense.
Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
Operating systems are starting to make that impossible. I used to use an old version of Quicken for Mac (this was back in the MacOS 10.2 days). It was "finished" in that it did absolutely everything I needed and there were no bugs that affected me. As time marched on, Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel which was fine because they had technology (Rosetta) which allowed me to run PowerPC applications. Then they dropp…
>Operating systems are starting to make that impossible. Microsoft operating systems have always strived to make that impossible. Apple has to compete somehow. When you push unfinished, not-fully-tested code out the door, even if you can confidently patch it later, it's just never been the most professional thing to do. Especially for something that could be mission-critical like an OS. Getting it into people's hands…
>> "Microsoft operating systems have always strived to make that impossible."
That's the one thing I've never seen someone accuse Microsoft of. They're famous for their obsession with backward compatibility.
It sounds like you've had a different experience, and now I'm curious. Care to share?
Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)
#364I'm a very, very firm believer on not paying for "subscription" to software. New content, I can understand (I spend about 40€ monthly on several Patreons, mostly comic artists; and I have a couple news subscriptions as well), although I still hate music/tv subscriptions and I don't want Netflix, Spotify or whatever. But for software, no matter how useful it is , I just refuse to choose between an unbounded price and…
What do you think of the pricing model that I'm using[0] - one-time payment with optional paid subscription for updates and support? I tried one-time only, but it's simply not sustainable or leads to the product not being updated anymore. [0]: https://www.uxwizz.com/pricing
Seems similar to JetBrains
Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you think of the pricing model that I'm using[0] - one-time payment with optional paid subscription for updates and support? I tried one-time only, but it's simply not sustainable or leads to the product not being updated anymore. [0]: https://www.uxwizz.com/pricing
Seems similar to JetBrains https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32286209
Interesting, thanks, I didn't know that they call it "perpetual fallback license". I guess this makes it sound more like a benefit than "paid updates".
Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)
#366The 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?
Then they should be even more amenable to offering subscriptions. Unlike VCs, bootstrappers can't afford to sell only one time licenses to their products, especially at a sub 10 dollar price.
Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)
#367As a bootstrapped developer though, I love subscriptions. They offer consistent and predictable cashflow with which I can hire other developers and employees. A one time purchase, unless you have data [0] on how it's going, is less predictable.
Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
> How many games that offer no additional packages keep their online offering working forever? All the games that actually released binaries for hosting your own servers. That used to be the standard back in the day.
Oh, sure. but then they don't keep their online offering; users do. And you need to pay for a VPS instead of a service.
Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
That works for a stand-alone app, but not SaaS, a web-app, or an app that uses 'cloud features'.
Okay, but there are plenty of subscription apps that could just drop the cloud features and like 99% of the user base would be fine with that, Office and Adobe suites being obvious examples.
Sure, I don't intend to dispute that at all. There are also cloud-based apps that absolutely could not be, and at least part of the reasoning is probably to make it easier to charge a subscription fee.
I think the model's seen as being more lucrative, so even businesses that don't inherently need it so much try to find a way to adopt it.
Re: Dear startups: I hate subscription services (2021)
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Like I never understood why most of these basic tools morph into 100+ people companies. Simple answer: They've signed a deal with the devil (VC funding) and now need to grow to make a > 1 billion dollar exit.
Vercel is going down this path now.
Interesting, they have 50? 60? open jobs: https://vercel.com/careers - I think that's a lot?
Gatsby to maybe?