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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?

#361

Post by alwayslikethis »

itake wrote: post #234
f1refly wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how do you sync passwords across my 3 laptops and 3 phones without a SaaS offering? Syncthing. Set up once, runs reliably forever. > How can I securely share credentials with family members? I don't do this either (and don't know anyone who does) but I imagine it'd be easy to just create a different shared database for the family for that? With password store, it's also possible to set multiple different gpg keys f…

Syncthing doesn't work for iOS https://forum.syncthing.net/t/syncthing-for-ios/16045 > it's also possible to set multiple different gpg keys for a specific directory. I don't think the last option is doable for most people though. this seems really complex...

that's on Apple, not on Syncthing. Guess what, when you lock down your devices so much they can't perform many useful functions. Next time, just get a phone you can actually own.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#362

Post by phrom »

vinyl7 wrote: post #217
oytis wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the idea of "owning" software feels positively archaic to me, as strange as "owning" a music album. Is it still alright to own a book?

Don't give them any ideas. Could you imagine having to have separate subscriptions for O'Reilly, Shuster, and Penguin, etc.

They already got the idea. Look up the "O'Reilly Learning Platform"

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#364

Post by aplummer »

thot_experiment wrote: post #107
crazygringo wrote: post #40

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…

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…

> I don't believe SaaS is moral

> I basically pirate everything that requires a subscription now or us a FOSS alternative… and now when I can afford to pay for subscriptions but the situation with lack of control over SaaS is so fucking untenable that I just can't.

Imagine stealing peoples work you admit you can afford, and claiming their business model is immoral!

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#365

Post by cletus »

The paid upgrade model creates some perverse incentives and support headacches. It encourages a company to declare something a major (and thus paid) upgrade0 Years ago, Adobe used to do this with supporting new RAW formats that came out. it would only add them to the newest Photoshop version when there was absolutely no reason they couldn't add it to the RAW plugin for all versions.

This fragments the user base and creates support headaches. If a user has a problem, is it a KP with that version? They won't pay for an upgrade. Are you going to backporta a fix? It might be a little used version. This leads you to having policies that EOL software. Nobody really understands that. The customer gets mad because they paid for the software in 1987 and it should still work.

Subscriptions solve these problems. It can create problems too eg:

1. The Adobe dark pattern model of having to subscribe for a year and hiding the auto-renewal and how to cancel;

2. Once again, the Adobe model of setting the subscription price of basically the sticker price you once paid divided by 12; and

3. Requiring you to be online to monitor your subscription status meaning software that should work offline doesn't.

The gold standard for a good subscription model is Jetbrains.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#366

Post by JohnFen »

amelius wrote: post #63
quaintdev wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exact behavior drives planned obsolescence. This has led to so much waste over past century that it's going to be very hard to go back. I was baffled that we invented a bulb that could last 100 years over a century ago and I still have to change bulbs every year or two. There are nice documentaries about this [0] The end of ownership https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOO-pYUl9-w [1] This is why we can't have nice…

Wait, the subscription economy puts planned obsolescence to an end, because keeping the product in working condition is now the service-provider's problem.

Just the opposite. Look at all the hardware that requires a subscription to keep running that is ultimately obsoleted, causing existing units to become instant trash as the company forces everyone to replace it.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#367

Post by thot_experiment »

SteveNuts wrote: post #245
krater23 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello from the past. I'm typing this on a Windows 7, without the most of the updates. Most works fine, just can't install the newest Office or Games. But who wants that? p.s.: Nope, no viruses or things like that. Windows 7 is so old that it's not supported by botnets anymore.

This is like bragging about not wearing a seatbelt because "I haven't flown through the windshield yet"

I've flown through the windshield a couple times in my life WRT malware.

I've lost so much more time to work computers where I'm forced to use retail Win 10/11 and have to deal with intrusive update policies than I have due to malware.

Having to nuke a few computers from orbit once a decade is a small price to pay for having systems that I can trust to work the same as they did yesterday, systems that never interrupt my flow.

EDIT: to expand on this a little bit, I think a lot of cybersecurity concerns are basically forced upon us by SaaS as a model. Attack surfaces become much smaller if you can just block things from communicating with the outside entirely. Not to mention the wonderful technology known as a "hardware power switch" good luck remotely turning on my SSD full of tax documents and embarrassing photos.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#369

Post by 7speter »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #306
Silhouette wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It has been several years since WannaCry, but absolutely nothing guarantees that another such vulnerability does not surface.

We also dont know if some bad actor has already found that vulnerability and are building/already built and exploit.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#370

Post by Tade0 »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #92
quaintdev wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exact behavior drives planned obsolescence. This has led to so much waste over past century that it's going to be very hard to go back. I was baffled that we invented a bulb that could last 100 years over a century ago and I still have to change bulbs every year or two. There are nice documentaries about this [0] The end of ownership https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOO-pYUl9-w [1] This is why we can't have nice…

>I was baffled that we invented a bulb that could last 100 years over a century ago and I still have to change bulbs every year or two. You need to buy better bulbs. In 2015 my local utility subsidized the purchase of LED light bulbs and I replaced 59 light bulbs all at once from a variety of vendors including Cree, GE, and Philips. I've had one, an overhead PAR (led equivalent) bulb in my shower, fail since then and…

I've found, through experience, that LEDs aren't a drop-in replacement for incandescent bulbs due to thermals.

I've cooked three LEDs until I realized that the decorative aluminium housing they're put in is close enough to both disrupt the airflow and reflect failure-inducing amounts of heat.

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