What the heck subscription models are you using? In my experience the software gets broken over time and you can't do anything about it, including RUN THE OLD VERSION WHICH WORKED. There's no longer as much incentive for companies to improve because they'll get paid anyway instead of payment being contingent on actually delivering something useful. Yes subscription models are good for developers, no this doesn't make…
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.
Spotify have sound disapearing for licensing reason. I guess that improvement ?
What the heck subscription models are you using? In my experience the software gets broken over time and you can't do anything about it, including RUN THE OLD VERSION WHICH WORKED. There's no longer as much incentive for companies to improve because they'll get paid anyway instead of payment being contingent on actually delivering something useful. Yes subscription models are good for developers, no this doesn't make…
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.
You don’t think that’s because companies pour more resources into the subscription model software that is making them more money?
You could consider https://kagi.com/ for a subscription-based, ad-free search. I've been using it for a few months and haven't had a case where the Google results were superior.
I tried Kagi for a couple of weeks and the results were painfully inferior to Google's. I was really hoping they'd be good.
Try Neeva. Similar idea of a subscription search engine but I find their results just as good as Google, esp for technical queries.
Richard Stallman tried to warn people about this https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s... >. As usual, nobody heeded his warnings, and now we're all living through exactly what he tried to prevent.
Enough people have paid attention that I am able to use Emacs and be insulated from any practical impact from SaaS, since it can handle everything I need as a developer. In fact, I have my passwords and my notes on it, to mention some things from OP.
I'd rather just pay for the subscription, honestly. Especially in a bigger family or team / company context. To each their own.
I'd advise against it. Again, what many of us are saying is third party password managers are always a bad idea for fundamental reasons. Before, it was just the account owners and the site. Now there's a third party that has some kind of access, and that third party is a juicy target. Under what guarantee then? Why believe they are safe, especially since time has shown that many are not. It's dumb, and I will continu…
The modicum of security these companies offer are better than the nonexistent security practices at the places I've worked for, lol. I trust them way more than the average user or small business.
The entire point of "everything being a subscription" is a marketing ploy.
(Also revenue. "I forgot to cancel the subscription" pays the bills like no other, see Comcast's revenue.")
Subscriptions have to be renewed, subscriptions send billing emails.
All of these things create more "daily active impressions." And in the attention economy, the more daily active impressions you have, the more your net promoter score rises (any publicity is good publicity).
The reason it's tiring is that humans have FINITE ATTENTION.
We're living in "the attention economy." Subscriptions are simply the latest strategy to monetize our attention.
The cure is to cleanse your email inbox of all "SaaS" emails like it's a Covid outbreak. And to be genuinely distrustful of all subscription products.
> I saw too many software companies go out of business because not enough people wound up upgrading to the next major version Do you have examples? Most new businesses fail regardless of their business model, so you'd have to argue that this phenomenon was somehow worse for non-subs. > Not to mention that a yearly subscription is cheaper than buying outright Not in the long term.
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…
Maybe the way by which the subscription software becomes better is different: perhaps because the SaaS model provides higher recurring revenues, these businesses and products draw more investment, which allows them to develop more quickly and leapfrog the competition.
I think your point about non-SaaS being a Ponzi scheme is valid. However, I think it conflates several separate phenomenon, at least in my mind.
I’ll use Fitbit as an example, since I have one. I purchased a piece of hardware that has certain capabilities, and links to the Fitbit app, which ought to provide me access to those capabilities. I can only use the app to access those capabilities (at least without some hacking; not sure if anyone has done this). I’d much rather use an open source app and self host the data - Google hosting the data and providing me an app to interface with it isn’t valuable to me except to the extent I cannot access it any other way. The fact that they paywall certain components behind a monthly subscription, when the device I purchased is fully capable of interacting with the app in the same way without me having a subscription, is exploitative, in my opinion. And I would be more than happy to pay money for new software versions if they provided me anything useful. Instead, Fitbit has become more SaaS-y, and I have gotten nothing of value from that.
Sorry if that’s not a very cohesive set of thoughts; I think there are a lot of viable reasons for subscription services (I have no issue with Spotify, for instance). At the same time, I do not think worthless software upgrades, holding users’ data captive, and bug fixes are worth a dime, morally nor economically.
Except as a user, the next version had to be better, or I wouldn't pay for it. Now they can just downgrade my product, and I have to continue paying for it.
Like what happened with Stronglifts 5x5.. yep.
What happened? Isn't that just a body weight exercise routine?
It may not be advisable, but tell that to the XP-for-life or 7-for-life people. It won't actually stop working, it just means you're much more vulnerable to malware.
It won't actually stop working, it just means you're much more vulnerable to malware. The biggest threats haven't come from direct external assaults on the OS for years. I expect a typical consumer device is more at risk from an out of date browser than any other type of vulnerability now. The biggest risk for most of us as personal users is someone stealing our data via a hack, which often doesn't require root/admin…
Browsers and messaging apps also rely on OS security to a degree, it's part of why they don't support old operating system versions.
Not 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…
As a user, software companies are usually not producing good enough software to justify paying for the price of incremental updates ;).
In many ways, I feel much software needs to transition to "be maintained," very quickly.
So much engineering time and energy is spent releasing not very useful, incremental features.
Engineers... ironically, need to give up sooner in many cases.
The hubris of "the thing I make is genuinely useful, surely" is the profession's Pandora's box.