I think about this a lot as well, but I always come back to the idea that many companies raise venture capital and they need consistent revenue to be able to raise future rounds. They get that predictability with the subscription model and in exchange they provide a product that gets consistent updates and new features.
I agree with your sentiment though — as a consumer, I don’t love how I don’t have much control over the products I use. I might subscribe for a certain set of features, but those might be removed or changed down the road as the company’s needs change.
But ultimately people have come to expect that their products just work indefinitely and it takes a ton of resources to make that happen, hence the subscription.
Do you have any other ideas for models that enable a company to continue making money after the initial purchase? I don’t think I’d be opposed to a model where we pay for each time the product delivers value. Some examples that come to mind are paying per news article or paying a small fee each time I save a design in Figma, etc. But I think that gets super complicated to explain to customers and it makes it hard to justify charging enough to not only support that specific feature while also earning enough to invest in future product features and improvements.
Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
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Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#12Yes, I also feel in many cases is not abuse but scam. For example, I bought a Muse Brain device just to discover that plain retrieving of EEG (not meditation or sleep options in the mobile app) metrics was a subscriber only option. So what are you selling Muse? Refrigerators?
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#13Not enough yet. Too much is still free or free-with-ads.
Stuff costs money to maintain
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#14I dunno. I felt like it was a mistake to get a Plex Pass that I paid for once because Plex had my money and didn't have to listen to me with product direction and Plex got worse and worse at serving media from my local server while it became increasingly focused on showing me ads for off-brand streaming services. I think the subscription model actually works for Adobe in that the upfront price of creative cloud was a…
Eh, lifetime Plex Pass pays itself for three years even at normal pricing. I got mine during a discount so mine pays itself off in about 2 years and 3 months, which would have been in November 2022. I don't also remember seeing any streaming services in my Plex instance.
I'm definitely happier having my lifetime Plex Pass over a monthly subscription.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#15> So yeah, why is that? Because like media or newspapers, the product continues to require work and has no defined expiration date. I assume you want updates for your password manager? Companies also love the idea of subscriptions for cash and approval management reasons. In government, subscriptions can even prevent you needing to go through a formal procurement phase, which might lead to some important infrastructu…
+1. Also companies take advantage of the taxation benefits of SaaS as an operational expense, instead of having to depreciate the capital expenditure when buying software over x years.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#16> So yeah, why is that? Because like media or newspapers, the product continues to require work and has no defined expiration date. I assume you want updates for your password manager? Companies also love the idea of subscriptions for cash and approval management reasons. In government, subscriptions can even prevent you needing to go through a formal procurement phase, which might lead to some important infrastructu…
Sure, Ill happily pay for the next version of my password manager as well…as long as I buy a license instead of renting it.
But I truly won’t rent a note taking app.
Overall JetBrains’ model of “subscription with fallback license” seems the best compromise here, you do get to keep a license permanently if you quit your subscription, it just happens to be the one from 12 months ago.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#17Most software is fundamentally a service. You want to be able to sync your passwords and notes, and receive security and bug fix updates. Companies need to fund that infrastructure and ongoing development.
I already fund it by paying for iCloud. App makers need to stop reinventing the wheel and then using that to justify subscription pricing.
Edit: 1Password is a perfect example. It worked fine for years with any kind of third party sync I wanted - from Dropbox to Syncthings - but now I need to pay for a subscription because 1Password wants me to use their infrastructure.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#18I dunno. I felt like it was a mistake to get a Plex Pass that I paid for once because Plex had my money and didn't have to listen to me with product direction and Plex got worse and worse at serving media from my local server while it became increasingly focused on showing me ads for off-brand streaming services. I think the subscription model actually works for Adobe in that the upfront price of creative cloud was a…
I got PLEX Lifetime just last year, cause I realized that I've basically paid for it multiple times across the years I've been a subscriber. So Lifetime's been worth it for me, especially when it's on discount.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#19[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#20And this is exactly the reason I self host[0]. I am pretty sure it's not just me. I have seen r/selfhosted[1] skyrocket in it popularity over past year or two. The number of applications that you can self host are increasing daily. The only problem at the moment with self hosting seems to be the maintenance and setup but that also will be solved once many people start doing it. History repeats itself. Self hosting to…
Great, let’s make a subscription based service to help people easily self-host…
so KubeSail, Cloudron