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When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

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Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#221

Post by mfru »

mrtksn wrote: post #213
ohgodplsno wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when the product dies, you know what you still have? Your fully up to date product with the latest updates, until the very last day. My wallet isn't here to pay for your company's inability to find a market.

Buying a dollar for pennies always feels good, sure. However, using products of unsustainable businesses means you can't depend on it. For some products that's not a problem, for others it can become huge problem when you find yourself locked in maintaining old version of an OS or a companion software. The effect of not getting updates is very pronounced in professional or industrial software where to this day some p…

> It's a win-win because the developer has the incentive to provide the best possible service in order to retain customers.

Only that a lot of users of Adobe Suite, Microsoft Office and so on will tell you otherwise.

The sentiment seems to be that the products got worse after switching to subscription pricing.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#222

Post by 2b3a51 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #56
duxup wrote: post #43

Maybe it works to have a free tier and yank the rug out from everyone, and maybe the solution is that we should just pay for what things cost? The whole internet is like this, people often don't want to pay, they want it free, then the advertisers pay, we get pissy about advertising, and we become the product, and we flock to the next free thing after the free thing stops being free ... I wish things weren't all free…

> maybe the solution is that we should just pay for what things cost? Well I bet how much those free accounts were costing is way less than $10 per month per user. The self hosting page suggests that you can have "up to 1,000 users" on a few dollar VPS. A little more if you need to upload tons and tons of images.

posteo.de is an example of a company offering an email account with some storage for 1 euro a month on Roundcube webmail or IMAP/POP3. Not a customer, nor anything to do with them, but I do keep this in mind in case my current ISP gets taken over or goes under. Once there is a credit card registered and all it is easy to upsell ( more storage and more aliases &c).

I wonder if they make any money on the 1 euro accounts given the tendency of most people to not use the max resources?

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#223

Post by mrtksn »

mfru wrote: post #221
mrtksn wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying a dollar for pennies always feels good, sure. However, using products of unsustainable businesses means you can't depend on it. For some products that's not a problem, for others it can become huge problem when you find yourself locked in maintaining old version of an OS or a companion software. The effect of not getting updates is very pronounced in professional or industrial software where to this day some p…

> It's a win-win because the developer has the incentive to provide the best possible service in order to retain customers. Only that a lot of users of Adobe Suite, Microsoft Office and so on will tell you otherwise. The sentiment seems to be that the products got worse after switching to subscription pricing.

That’s really not about the business though. People hate on new versions all the time if a behavior or UI changed, this is old as the days of software.

Some software companies handle it better than others.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#224

Post by lolinder »

kragen wrote: post #101
jxf wrote: post #2

This blog post is from the "never let a competitor's mistake go unnoticed" school of thought.

i would rather say it's from the 'never let a competitor's dishonesty go unnoticed' that you call it a 'mistake' speaks very poorly of you

> that you call it a 'mistake' speaks very poorly of you

There is zero need to launch personal attacks in this context.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#225

Post by Sebb767 »

ziml77 wrote: post #209
pikdum wrote: post #73

If a company gets rid of my free forever plan with them, there is a 0% chance that they're getting any money or positive word of mouth from me in the future. It's incredibly scummy behavior. If you're not willing to actually offer it forever, just call it a free plan instead of lying about it.

Still a net gain for the company. Getting something from them for free means you are costing them money. And I would bet your word of mouth was also worth negative dollars to them since you're going to be telling people about the free tier.

> And I would bet your word of mouth was also worth negative dollars to them since you're going to be telling people about the free tier.

The whole point of having a free tier is to onboard customers and then upsell them to a paid tier. If a referral is costing them money, they are missing the point of a free tier.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#226

Post by ludston »

dmurray wrote: post #159
langsoul-com wrote: post #158

Nothing will be free forever if the company foots the bill. Eventually, the number of free users, who don't transition aren't worth it. They can go nuclear and kill the free, but most often it's reducing the free tier until it's no longer usable.

How long do you think we have with Gmail?

Gmail already isn't free. Don't you see the advertising?

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#227

Post by duckmysick »

dmn322 wrote: post #132
swyx wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you’ve never made a mistake in your future predictions? youve never committed to something you couldnt deliver? i understand the outrage but remember the people on the other side of that screen are just humans too. many things dont turn out the way the initial intention was (im not excusing this specific instance, im just hoping for less vitriol when i someday make some over promising mistake in future). let he who i…

1) it's not people, it's a company. They're 2 different things. People have consciences and families. Companies are beholden to shareholders. People can find a different job if their company fails. I don't think we need to be forgiving to companies. They're not forgiving to people. They act on policy. 2) While I admit that I'm guilty of it too, overpromising is pretty destructive. It causes you to have to work harder…

Regarding the first point: you're right in the context of large corporations (such as Mattermost). We also have sole proprietorships, which are strongly tied to the owner.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#228

Post by brookst »

mrtksn wrote: post #207
taffronaut wrote: post #188

For 25 years, Image Line have been shipping the FLStudio DAW as a one-off purchase with free lifetime updates, and since I've been receiving those updates for a significant chunk of those 25 years since I bought the Producer Edition, it seems pretty sustainable. In their words "Why? Because we believe you should get the program you paid for, bug-fixed and updated for as long as we develop FL Studio." [1] [1] https://…

One time payment and forever free updates means the product dies when the growth stalls OR they create other services around it and sell those. It can work for some products and often those turn into freeware once they find a subscription or consumables for which the users are eager to pay for.

1000% this.

It also means that the company is incentivized to continually add features that will lead to new sales, rather than improve existing features to make the product better for previous purchasers.

I want to subscribe to pay for the products I depend on. Because I want to be an important stakeholder in product decisions. I do not want the company to consider me as sunk profit and a drag on expenses from here on out.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#229

Post by nocoiner »

j16sdiz wrote: post #130
nocoiner wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a lawyer. I think a reasonably competently drafted terms of service could obviate most legal exposure. In the event that a promissory estoppel cause of action was established (like other posters have, I think, correctly noted, but which would also be an expensive affirmative burden to prove in court) then the plaintiff would still have to prove damages. And what is that, $10 per month per user for the affected pe…

I guess you can at least claim the cost for migrating off the platform, no?

Quite possibly. But not certain; and quite likely not with the cost of lawyer bills and court fees to get to that point (to say nothing of the distraction that would cause to the business and/or key executives).

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#230

Post by mkimball »

taffronaut wrote: post #188

For 25 years, Image Line have been shipping the FLStudio DAW as a one-off purchase with free lifetime updates, and since I've been receiving those updates for a significant chunk of those 25 years since I bought the Producer Edition, it seems pretty sustainable. In their words "Why? Because we believe you should get the program you paid for, bug-fixed and updated for as long as we develop FL Studio." [1] [1] https://…

I too am a long time owner of of FLStudio. However, I have noticed that many new features added to FLStudio are not added to the base program, but rather sold as an add-on.

Perhaps the free lifetime updates plan is the reason for this.

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