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Show HN: I made CSS Pro, a re-imagined Devtools for web design

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Re: Show HN: I made CSS Pro, a re-imagined Devtools for web design

#241

Post by Y-bar »

tiffanyh wrote: post #181
aceazzameen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Monthly subscriptions suck. Every company wants to "tax" me monthly for something that's feature complete. The ones I already pay, I do so very begrudgingly. There's simply too many SaaS products out there. Let's go back to perpetual licenses. And I'll gladly pay for upgraded versions, or not if the upgrade isn't worthwhile. When it's not SaaS, I also get to control what version I'm using. The product doesn't own…

I don't disagree with what you saying, but ... People seem to forget what the cost of a perpetual license use to be. Licenses would easily equate to 3-years (36-months) or more , of what a monthly subscription would cost. Case in point: $439, you can buy a perpetual license of Microsoft Office $7/mo, you can get the same functionality + hosting + storage as a monthly subscription It'd take over 5-years to breakeven.…

It's less about the number on the end of the invoice, it is more about the personal control of my finances, and _even more_ about the ability to keep on using a version without risking an update breaking stuff because. Sometimes it's perfectly good to not upgrade. Why should I then pay for a version I may not like, a version which may break the workflow I set up and worked great in the previous major release?

Re: Show HN: I made CSS Pro, a re-imagined Devtools for web design

#242

Post by tiffanyh »

wpm wrote: post #228
bombcar wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has to be a reason all these companies love SaaS vs yearly upgrades and I think it’s because “subscriptions” get forgotten or ignored or “it’s not worth worrying about”.

Yup, I wouldn't mind subscriptions so much if it was a simple "one and done, keep it going if you want" deal. Ask me for $10 per month, not $10 a month, with auto-renewal enabled, impossible to turn off or difficult to find the button due to a million toxic UI patterns trying to trick me into giving up, and 2 or 3 pathetic "pwease don't go!" prompts once I do. If I buy a month, and never renew, it means I'm done usin…

Usage based pricing?

It sounds like you want usage based pricing where for example, you pay $X for each day you use the tool and then get billed at the end of the month accordingly.

Similar in concept to how AWS bills for most of it's services.

Re: Show HN: I made CSS Pro, a re-imagined Devtools for web design

#243

Post by tuckerconnelly »

I'd say I'm the target market, and I don't have a hangup about subscriptions like other comments. I'm almost excited about this, but man, this feels painfully slow. Not like Salesforce slow. But death-by-a-thousand-cuts-everything-takes-500ms slow. "Retool" slow :)

If you could cut some of the animations, or use transforms instead of absolute positioning or something--whatever to improve performance--I'd be down to try it for a month.

Re: Show HN: I made CSS Pro, a re-imagined Devtools for web design

#244

Post by erickhill »

jchw wrote: post #161
not_a_shill wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are cheap. You're still basing your decision on the cost of using the product instead of the value it provides you. This isn't targeting you specifically though, most comments in this thread are stereotypical developers too.

No, I am not basing my decision on the cost of using the product. I'm basing my decision on factors that have nothing to do with money. I think a perfect example of this for me is IDA Pro, for which I own a license. When Hex-Rays switched over to a subscription model, I did not renew. I still use the old version today, and it works perfectly fine for my needs. The difference between buying it on subscription and not…

That's how it used to work, back when you could go to MicroCenter and pull a box off a shelf then take it home and hope to hell you had the right drivers installed.

But it's also why when I run across a company that shockingly lets you buy their product outright I fully support their efforts and invest in a purchase. It really is cool to sometimes be off WiFi somewhere and use software to your heart's content.

Re: Show HN: I made CSS Pro, a re-imagined Devtools for web design

#246

Post by Domenic_S »

n8cpdx wrote: post #160
marcosdumay wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't like subscriptions. And for entirely rational reasons, even if they can't articulate them. If you insist on selling subscriptions for people, they will treat it as predatory pricing (because for them it is) and will antagonize you. Companies, on the other hand, just love subscriptions. Also for entirely rational reasons. Now, if you insist on ignoring that fundamental difference, it's a "you" problem, no…

People keep saying there are rational reasons, but I haven’t seen a single response here that doesn’t boil down to “feels”. They have a perpetual license option, not hidden. I think maybe people have so much feels that they are just bandwagoning here rather than using their noggins and evaluating the value of the product. Disappointing. Wanting to pay $900 for a product that might stop existing or be outcompeted in a…

There are a bunch of good responses here.

1. You don't own the software. Company decides to turn off the license server you're SOL.

2. Managing subscriptions is hard. So hard that multiple companies have popped up that purport to save you money by finding subscriptions you forgot about. I can think of a few that I have that I forget about until I see the invoice every month (and then forget it again).

3. Canceling subscriptions can be hard but it's impossible to know until you try. Some companies let you sign up with 2 clicks but make you call a phone number (that's only open odd hours) to cancel, and other well-known dark patterns. Aversion to that is aversion to subscriptions.

Re: Show HN: I made CSS Pro, a re-imagined Devtools for web design

#247

Post by erickhill »

bombcar wrote: post #184
tiffanyh wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with what you saying, but ... People seem to forget what the cost of a perpetual license use to be. Licenses would easily equate to 3-years (36-months) or more , of what a monthly subscription would cost. Case in point: $439, you can buy a perpetual license of Microsoft Office $7/mo, you can get the same functionality + hosting + storage as a monthly subscription It'd take over 5-years to breakeven.…

There has to be a reason all these companies love SaaS vs yearly upgrades and I think it’s because “subscriptions” get forgotten or ignored or “it’s not worth worrying about”.

It also saves a ton of $ and resources supporting older versions.

Re: Show HN: I made CSS Pro, a re-imagined Devtools for web design

#248

Post by Aperocky »

rcconf wrote: post #69

Honestly the comments are a good example on how difficult it is to sell to developers and why startup ideas that target developers are dangerous to bootstrap. Developers have high incomes, but are quite frankly, extremely cheap. And I actually mean cheap and not frugal. They will spend 40 hours/week for months to save $5/mo. There's basically no logic apart from that developers have a poor concept of time and money a…

I'd be very surprised there's any developer that spends more than 4 hrs per week to tweak CSS to begin with, I just don't see the savings that you outlined.

I also think that you might be misunderstanding developers, we'll pay for lots of things to save time, but not when we either don't need it or can do it ourselves. I wrote my own cron jobs that saved countless hours - I don't need to buy that.

Re: Show HN: I made CSS Pro, a re-imagined Devtools for web design

#249

Post by sgallant »

rcconf wrote: post #69

Honestly the comments are a good example on how difficult it is to sell to developers and why startup ideas that target developers are dangerous to bootstrap. Developers have high incomes, but are quite frankly, extremely cheap. And I actually mean cheap and not frugal. They will spend 40 hours/week for months to save $5/mo. There's basically no logic apart from that developers have a poor concept of time and money a…

After seeing the demo, I was really stoked about this product and was ready to buy but then I was turned off from the recurring monthly price.

FWIW, if it were a 1-time price I would have paid probably $50 - $99 for that.

Here's a good interview with Adam Wathan from Tailwind about lifetime pricing:

https://hackersincorporated.com/episodes/lifetime-pricing-is...

Congrats on making it to the homepage of HN!

Re: Show HN: I made CSS Pro, a re-imagined Devtools for web design

#250

Post by bombcar »

tiffanyh wrote: post #242
wpm wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I wouldn't mind subscriptions so much if it was a simple "one and done, keep it going if you want" deal. Ask me for $10 per month, not $10 a month, with auto-renewal enabled, impossible to turn off or difficult to find the button due to a million toxic UI patterns trying to trick me into giving up, and 2 or 3 pathetic "pwease don't go!" prompts once I do. If I buy a month, and never renew, it means I'm done usin…

Usage based pricing? It sounds like you want usage based pricing where for example, you pay $X for each day you use the tool and then get billed at the end of the month accordingly. Similar in concept to how AWS bills for most of it's services.

I took it as “let me pay for this month, and if I need it next month I’ll pay then”.
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