Yes. At Deckmill (https://deckmill com) we hated subscriptions for language products, so we built a language product that you buy once and get the content forever (much like a book).
Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
181–190 of 710 posts
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not going out of business, but on the iPad there is a drawing app called Procreate which is a one time purchase. It’s decent, but in the two years I’ve had it, nothing has really improved and there is a whole lot missing or to be desired. Meanwhile some subscription apps have come to the iPad and they are absolutely packed with every feature you could possibly want. For any well run company, the more the users are pa…
In my opinion you shouldn't expect future updates of any kind from software that you own. I wouldn't expect them to keep updating it because it obviously makes them no money. I would expect them to release a new product to keep making money.
> I wouldn't expect them to keep updating it because it obviously makes them no money.
What do you mean by this exactly? There are always new customers to sell to, so of course you can make money by updating your product.
Will the buyer continue to receive free software updates forever? No, probably not. Eventually they may have to pay an upgrade fee. But the great part about upgrade fees compared to subscription is that the choice and timing of whether or not to upgrade is in the buyer's hands. Whereas with a subscription, it's a forced update, with the timing determined by the software developer, not the buyer. You pay yearly, or the software stops working now.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am on Ubuntu and it constantly bugs me to upgrade: > New release '20.04.5 LTS' available. > Run 'do-release-upgrade' to upgrade to it.
At least it doesn't say you must buy a new computer to update :)
Well on my older 4770 PC, Windows doesn't bug me to upgrade to 11, since it knows it can't.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#184Pretty much hate it.
It's a consequence of companies believing their purpose for existing is to make money, rather than to serve customers, however, so that's what they're optimizing. "The invisible hand of the market" may eventually smack it down, but consumers seem largely happy to participate in user-hostile decisions so far.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It gives me faith that they can actually sustain their business and pay their employees to maintain and improve the service over time. > Owning software is worthless to me because their effective lifespans are so short anyway, usually just a couple years, before the ecosystem has moved on and left them behind anyway. I find it strange that these two sentences are in the same comment.
Yes, it's a very modern take on a recent problem. I used VLC, Firefox (Phoenix), LibreOffice (OOo), MSOffice, paint, photofiltre, and notepad++ when I was a teen. They still work today. The trending app ecosystem, the social network du jour and the JS framework fever seem to have given the impression to the new generation that there is not other way to do this.
It's not necessarily a generational thing. I grew up on DOS before Windows was common, remember v1 of OpenOffice and Phoenix and the birth of CSS and JS, and have been making webpages since before the div tag was invented. I bought and used many tools like Notepad++ and Ultraedit and Sublime, and used the heck out of Paint Shop Pro and some GIMP and the rest.
But many of those tools are quite a bit less powerful than the commercial subscription ones. Creative Cloud CC is very powerful when you use it professionally, as is IntelliJ. Worth it to me because I know the difference, having used both kinds of tools and payment models for more than 20 years. These days I make a little more money than I did back in the 90s, so I don't pirate or demand freeware and would rather pay for something sustainable and have it work well because my time is worth it.
Take IntelliJ for example. There was a big uproar when they moved to a subscription model, but their products have continued to get better since. The company would've gone bankrupt otherwise. Instead, their pricing is now both very fair and includes a perpetual fallback license, while their software still keeps improving. I am happy to pay for it because it adds tremendous value over VSCode or Notepad++ in my workflows.
Of course some FOSS software is still amazing. VLC is still the best player I know of. Audacity is still useful and I find myself using that more than Audition.
But other times the subscriptions just deliver better software that I'm happy to pay for.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not the OP, but I have to disagree too. Creative Cloud, IntelliJ, Figma, Google Workspace, Postman, Spotify, Vercel, Adguard, Google storage space, Alltrails, 1password.. They're all subscriptions and getting better all the time. Meanwhile it's the old purchased software like Windows and Office that get worse with every version.
> Creative Cloud … all subscriptions and getting better all the time. I may be an atypical user—I'm definitely sub-power user in this domain—but everything Adobe has got worse for me since moving to "Creative Cloud".
Opposite. I'm an infra-power user that uses AI once every two months, and I like the experience. Can't tell how it is for power users though. Maybe they hate it.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#187Not really, because I saw too many software companies go out of business because not enough people wound up upgrading to the next major version -- the ownership model of software can be awfully feast-or-famine for developers' income, it's a very tough/risky business model. Generally speaking, I'm happy to pay a subscription because this way I get a steady stream of all the updates, and it's much more likely the compa…
I get that modern software is a living breathing thing, but it's absurd to compare that to music albums, which should not be constantly modified and reissued post-release.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#188Bonus points for those cunts at 1Password who have updated the non-subscription version so it is nagware and pops up an upgrade window every time I add a new password.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#189People are usually focused on how the payment model changed, but in fact, the products themselves have changed as well. Cloud storage and synchronizing data across multiple devices are now the norm, which incur continuous costs. And I think this is not something that's shoved into the customers' throat. Synchronization is indeed a valuable feature for many users.
Some of the subscriptions are certainly silly, like subscription for car features.
At least in the world of computers, I don't find too many products which are unjustifiably subscription-based. Subscriptions are usually paired with some form of synchronization/storage. And if you don't want cloud storage (or if you have your own cloud external to the application, or if you want to self host), there are usually non-subscription or even free options. Bitwarden, libreoffice, gimp, inkscape, etc.
So, I'd say as someone who's not currently into car purchase, I'm relatively content with the subscription models in the tech world. The services I subscribe to really do need continuous maintenance, and I've never been forced to subscribe to something that I think should not have been a subscription.
Adobe, though, has never been affordable to hobbyists in my opinion. Now, at least you can use it for a month and turn off the subscription.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not the OP, but I have to disagree too. Creative Cloud, IntelliJ, Figma, Google Workspace, Postman, Spotify, Vercel, Adguard, Google storage space, Alltrails, 1password.. They're all subscriptions and getting better all the time. Meanwhile it's the old purchased software like Windows and Office that get worse with every version.
And your work pays for a lot of that? Must be nice.
No, they pay for a couple, but I pay for most of it. IntelliJ in particular I pay for one because it's affordable enough and two because the corporate price is much much higher than than the individual price and I'm tired of begging companies to buy it, especially when other web devs are happy enough with VSCode.