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A world where people pay for software

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Re: A world where people pay for software

#151

Post by robalni »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #47
robalni wrote: post #2

This is my project, so if you have questions, I can answer them in this thread.

So someone can subscribe to a 0.99/month product and use several 19.99/month products?

> So someone can subscribe to a 0.99/month product and use several 19.99/month products?

Yes, a developer can sell the subscriptions for very cheap but then they will probably quickly run out of subscriptions (there is a limited number) and then wish they had sold them for more.

Also, the subscription is not really tied to any product; think of it more as a subscription to free software in general, that can be sold by different resellers (the developers).

Re: A world where people pay for software

#152

Post by cscheid »

chromoblob wrote: post #141
cscheid wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software has no marginal cost. Maybe you've never experienced the difference between writing software for 1000 people and writing software for 1M people, or (I imagine) 1B. The marginal per-person cost of software is not on shipping. It's on "what kind of weird shit will I now have to do because 1M is a lot of chances for my software to break weirdly, and people have paid for it" > You don't have to worry about qua…

As N of people → ∞, chances for software to break → finite maximum. And for good enough software you should consider that maximum already regardless of the number of users.

> And for good enough software you should consider that maximum already for any number of users.

I don't believe such software exists. (And, to be clear, I'm writing from direct, day-job experience.)

EDIT: I take it back. SQLite, cURL. Maybe.

EDIT2: I can't reply to the SEL4 response, so here goes. I'm a huge fan of verification tools, but consider the Spectre class of bugs. Verification is always done wrt a mathematical model that you've defined after inspecting the world and writing down the properties you want to track. But the world changes, and the chance that the world changes increases with the number of users of your software. That's the nature of the beast.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#153

Post by Otek »

mrweasel wrote: post #43
Otek wrote: post #19

I know people hate Subscriptions but honestly I quite like them. I can pay for one month usually not very high price to use software when I need it. Problem is to be solved by developers, they should give more often option to buy lifetime license, or allow you to use software for lifetime after you payed for 1 year of subscription (without updates). It’s just not profitable enough I believe. Maybe we will have approp…

Subscriptions just becomes unmanageable when you have to many. I do like your example of some software where you just need it for a month, but I don't think that should be a subscriptions then. That should just be paying for one or two months upfront. The issue that I have with subscriptions is, as I said, they become unmanageable and they are frequently dishonest, betting on you to forget to cancel them. You do a on…

I just use single-use card whenever I don’t use AppStore for subscription. That way they won’t charge me again and if I end up using and liking the software I will remember to change card or provide another single use card

Re: A world where people pay for software

#156

Post by CharlesW »

Pxtl wrote: post #122

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.

> This sounds like Patreon.

It's exactly Patreon or one of its many competitors. The "subscribe to a creator and get special perks" problem is common and solved, but as you note the "CaaS" (creator as a service) model isn't for everyone.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#157

Post by LegitShady »

ipaddr wrote: post #138
buggy6257 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I get your argument. Basically everything you're talking about applies to physical manufacturing too. You have high fixed costs (equipment, location, assembly line workers, what have you), and you also have marginal cost (software basically has zero marginal cost). Good physical goods also take effort, and great people to design them. > Physical manufacturing is hard, but it at least brings in dollars Yo…

A physical product has limitations. Creating 1,000 car mirrors requires capital, storage, self space to sell. Once the mirrors are created no changes can occur. Any changes requires a new batch. Software has expectations that it can and should be changed after purchase through updates/patches/upgrades/saas products. That creates an ongoing cost a physical product doesn't have. There are tradeoffs and different expect…

>Software has expectations that it can and should be changed after purchase through updates/patches/upgrades/saas products. That creates an ongoing cost a physical product doesn't have.

Nowadays businesses use this to create a constant revenue stream from what used to be a single purchase. It's not to service the product, its to continue to soak money from the people who do end up spending on it.

Aside from security updates most software I have, I just want them to stop. No changes, no design upgrades, no "we changed this tier of our pricing" etc. Most of that stuff is working against the customer not for them. Your SaaS model is so you can make money, I have no incentive to pay more than I have to.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#159

Post by ysavir »

cscheid wrote: post #132
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…

> Software has no marginal cost. Maybe you've never experienced the difference between writing software for 1000 people and writing software for 1M people, or (I imagine) 1B. The marginal per-person cost of software is not on shipping. It's on "what kind of weird shit will I now have to do because 1M is a lot of chances for my software to break weirdly, and people have paid for it" > You don't have to worry about qua…

That's applicable to websites, where you have to handle requests from all your users, and more users means more requests to handle.

But if we're talking about plain old regular software, something that needs no server to operate, and functions perfectly fine offline, something like, say, Photoshop, how different is the impact on the manufacturer when the software is used by 1k users, 1M users, and 1B users?

Yes, having 1M or 1B users means more opportunities for the bugs to surface and for people do be upset with the product. But do those scenarios impact the quality of the product for other users? Does they introduce unseen costs to the manufacturer? Do they make the product unprofitable or unsuccessful in anyway? Or does it mean that the manufacturer will have to refund 0.1% of their sales, and only benefit from the 99.9% of sales where the product worked as expected?

Re: A world where people pay for software

#160

Post by causi »

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…

otherwise it'll become obsolete within couple of years. At the very least it must be patched up with newly discovered security threats.

Only if it talks to the internet. I have plenty of software I downloaded over a decade ago that has no internet access and runs perfectly fine on Windows 11. Much of it is even older than that. Just stop trying to cram social media integration into your label-making program and it gets a lot easier.

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