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A world where people pay for software

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Re: A world where people pay for software

#121

Post by crickey »

yread wrote: post #86
MichaelZuo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what to say to this... you can just buy an old copy of Office 2003 on eBay, an old Windows XP computer, and boot it up and try it out? You don't have to believe me, I imagine practically every reader on HN has the means to verify this for themselves.

Sure you can do that. But look at the list of 60 vulnerabilities with score 9+ that you're exposing yourself to: https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=... So you can try it out but don't open any documents, or run it while connected to the net. You'd better also not insert any images. Have fun! We could also have a post "World where bad people don't try to break your software"

You answered your own issues. Dont open untrusted documents from the net. not running while connected to the net seems mute as the software doesnt directly access the internet. Seems like issues even the most up to date software suffers from.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#122

Post by Pxtl »

This sounds like Patreon.

Imho, the "just buy it" or "patreon to access the development discord/forum/whatever for OSS" seem like the best approaches. Like, I'm in Mastodon's patreon, and I'm happy to buy software. And while it may sting, I'm okay with "major release = new version buy it again". Not fond fond of installed local non-cloud software in the SAAS business model.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#123

Post by jwells89 »

grishka wrote: post #102
j1elo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software engineering is like if a car was built and thus "finished", but the systems it depends on (like roads, and gas stations) changed every N years (with N Imagine the gas stations (operating system) changed the kind of fuel they dispense every few years. No, by no means a car (software) that is fully finished today would be able to continue doing its thing tomorrow , without ongoing updates. This also happens in…

Is there any reason — other than "we're paying our graphic designers full-time salaries so we better get our money's worth" — why OSes have to change so drastically and can't be finished as well, only ever updated to add new APIs for apps and drivers to support new hardware features?

Security is probably the biggest reason. With attacks growing continually more sophisticated, it’s not enough to just patch holes as they’re found — you have to engineer entirely new systems to not be drowned in holes. This unfortunately has compatibility implications.

Look at macOS for example, which over the years has gained app sandboxing and mobile-like access permissions. Software pre-dating these additions that assumes that it has access to everything all the time will have its functionality impaired. Devs had to update their software to not make such huge assumptions and to handle no access cases gracefully.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#124

Post by icepat »

gizmo wrote: post #21

Software has no marginal cost. You can make something that's used by untold millions of people. Even if many people pirate enough people won't for you to recoup your development cost and then some. Software is easier to produce, sell, and distribute than any physical product. You don't have to worry about warehouses filled with unsold inventory. You don't have to worry about quality control and returns. It still blow…

> You don't have to worry about quality control

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, as a large part of software development is QA testing, and validation. Which is a form of quality control.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#125

Post by ryandrake »

vishnugupta wrote: post #112
gizmo wrote: post #21

Software has no marginal cost. You can make something that's used by untold millions of people. Even if many people pirate enough people won't for you to recoup your development cost and then some. Software is easier to produce, sell, and distribute than any physical product. You don't have to worry about warehouses filled with unsold inventory. You don't have to worry about quality control and returns. It still blow…

I mean, sure, this is what all the business books, MBAs have been saying since 60s. However, since then we have come to learn a lot about software. The most important of which is that software, just like physical products, needs maintenance. The world is constantly changing and evolving, and software has to keep up otherwise it'll become obsolete within couple of years. At the very least it must be patched up with ne…

> At the very least it must be patched up with newly discovered security threats.

I'd say at the very most it needs security updates. Too much software changes just to change. UI redesigns for the sake of redesign, cramming features that nobody wants so a product owner can get promoted, adding telemetry and analytics to chase metrics that no user cares about, adding annoying notifications and popups to juice "engagement". I pine for the days of desktop software, where I can wake up in the morning and not be worried that some developer 1,000 miles away from me changed my product out from under me because developers gotta develop.

Another benefit of software that doesn't change every week is you can charge one time for it rather than these awful subscription pricing that most software are switching to. They justify subscriptions because "we have to keep paying developers to develop." Not a problem that the user has, so why should the user have to pay for it?

Old, unchanged software is not obsolete. It's mature. Bugfixes only, please.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#126

Post by zzzzzzzza »

jehb wrote: post #81
chadash wrote: post #28

The link doesn’t talk about the SAAS model, which is probably the most profitable (and ubiquitous) one these days. I know people like to rail against it, but I actually like the SAAS model. It keeps incentives aligned. It used to be that I might shell out $200 for a piece of productivity software. Now, I might pay $10 a month instead. The thing is that under the old model, a company was incentivized by make a sale bu…

This has not been my experience at all with SaaS. I find SaaS products, including ones I have paid for, disappear at a much greater rate than the rate at which the desktop tools they replaced stop working. There's also next to nothing I can do as an end user when they do disappear. If I'm very lucky, I get a limited window to be able to export a portion of my data. But we've eroded data formats to the point where eve…

supabase model of open source + saas might be better?

Re: A world where people pay for software

#127

Post by dboreham »

icepat wrote: post #124
gizmo wrote: post #21

Software has no marginal cost. You can make something that's used by untold millions of people. Even if many people pirate enough people won't for you to recoup your development cost and then some. Software is easier to produce, sell, and distribute than any physical product. You don't have to worry about warehouses filled with unsold inventory. You don't have to worry about quality control and returns. It still blow…

> You don't have to worry about quality control I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, as a large part of software development is QA testing, and validation. Which is a form of quality control.

Parent means quality control in the context of the supply chain. Still wrong imho, since you need to at least maintain a zip file in someone's CDN, and those folks have to maintain their CDN QoS.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#128

Post by xtreme »

picadores wrote: post #113

I wonder, if the "tax-funded" model could work for software. The state raises money from the public, but the public determinates directly via usage (minutes spend with), usefullness (money gained) how much of that tax goes to what developer. Cut out the monopoly buisness middle man, but also remove any political moral meddlers in various "round tables" as they are omni present in public media systems. The idea has pr…

Minutes spent is a horrible metric. It creates a perverse incentive to intentionally slow down the software.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#129

Post by ativzzz »

ozim wrote: post #90

I have a different take on the topic. People should not pay for software - average Joe should have all kinds of software basically free. Now you ask "who should pay for development", corporations, companies or foundations where people still could donate but would not have to. Where corporations and companies pay salaries and provide end users with services. Solo devs should not write and maintain anything without get…

This is like the musician problem. There are so many people willing to play for pretty much nothing or for free that it's very hard for the average musician to make money. On the consumer side, why should you always pay for music when so many people are doing it for free? There's an oversupply of eager musicians making music

Same with OSS development. Why should you pay for something if people just do it for free? Doesn't matter who the consumer is.

> Solo devs should not write and maintain anything without getting paid.

But they do, and they will regardless. And until they stop, nothing will change. There's an oversupply of eager coders coding for free

Companies will pay (their own developers) once the OSS solution doesn't work or needs extra extensions that doesn't exist.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#130

Post by vbezhenar »

steveBK123 wrote: post #94
jehb wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has not been my experience at all with SaaS. I find SaaS products, including ones I have paid for, disappear at a much greater rate than the rate at which the desktop tools they replaced stop working. There's also next to nothing I can do as an end user when they do disappear. If I'm very lucky, I get a limited window to be able to export a portion of my data. But we've eroded data formats to the point where eve…

SaaS from established firms seems to be more durable & maintained. The problem is all the flash in the pan ZIRP VC funded never-profit SaaS startups out there. Hopefully these get shaken out over the next couple years finally. For example, I've used Adobe products for a very long time, and they get a lot of flack. I was an extensive user of Photoshop (PS) and Lightroom (LR) for a long time. However, the old model was…

If I'm buying a lifetime thing, it's an investition. I spent money and got thing that will never get old. As time goes on, I'm getting more things and I need to spend less.

If I'm buying a subscription, it's an obligation. I'll have to spend money from now until I die or I'll get reduced QoL.

Even if today I have spare $200/month, that might not be the case tomorrow. Maybe I'll get fired. Maybe government turn my cash into paper. Maybe I'll have to pay everything I have to doctors to save my live or health. I'll still have bought songs, but I'll no longer have access to the streaming service.

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