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A world where people pay for software

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Re: A world where people pay for software

#321

Post by drbawb »

scarface_74 wrote: post #294
Frafabowa wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously that's bad for businesses - but it's great for consumers! I think the question that's being asked is if there's some business model out there that delivers what customers want (the ability to just buy a finished product once and have it work decades down the line, like "pass it down to your kids" long) while also delivering profits to shareholders. There's a reason farmers want the ability to repair their o…

How is it good for consumers to have abandoned software that is not compatible and never will be compatible with newer operating systems? Two decades ago, for instance Apple was still selling PPC based Macs.

You emulate the abandonware, old OS and all. She kicked the habit recently, but my sister preferred Word 5.1 for Mac for a long time. That was a 68k program, which she dutifully used _on a PC_ while Apple was busy shipping iOS on ARM and Mac OS on x86. The Centris 610 is very tired, but the software still works. (Well, not the original copy. Those install floppies are very dead.) Software can be uniquely persistent, in a way physical artifacts can't, so why are we so insistent on keeping everyone on the upgrade treadmill?

George R.R. Martin pretty famously uses WordStar on DOS. I can't imagine it'd be some win for consumers (either Martin personally, or downstream enjoyers of his books) if he had to be on the latest internet-connected, ad-infested, notification-riddled copy of Windows just so that his OS and Office Suite could repeatedly check to make sure he still has an active subscription and a valid "digital entitlement."

I still use Office 2010. (Though it gets increasingly difficult to activate it, and it last received security updates in 2020.) In 2010 I was using x86_64 (an Athlon 64 X2), and today I'm using x86_64. Why should I upgrade? It happens to still run on Windows 11, but I'd gladly stuff it in a VM to continue using it. (I do use Office for work, so I can pretty confidently say there is nothing worth paying for in there. The only feature even remotely interesting is PowerQuery for Excel, which is available as an add-in for Office 2010.)

Re: A world where people pay for software

#322

Post by robinsonb5 »

lawn wrote: post #64
nightski wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it's the opposite. The incentive is to lock you in and provide as little value as possible for as much money as possible. Get you hooked, take your data hostage, and then jack up the price as much as possible while delivering little to no additional functionality. Bugs? who cares. Broken functionality? No big deal. You are locked in baby!

What exactly is the difference from paying up front? There there's even less incentives to fix bugs, fix broken functionality and god forbid new functionality.

In the case of Sage, the difference was about 500% cost increase for each of my two small businesses.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#323

Post by arrosenberg »

ajkjk wrote: post #320

My question is: why isn't there yet a thing (or is there?) that works like AWS, but has the UX experience of a smartphone: you can install "apps" on it -- which you pay for hosting / bandwidth -- and it handles integration with all your devices, while leaving you in charge of how they're configured and what happens with the data? Sorta like expanding the mobile phone experience to encompass your whole internet experi…

> My question is: why isn't there yet a thing (or is there?) that works like AWS, but has the UX experience of a smartphone: you can install "apps" on it -- which you pay for hosting / bandwidth -- and it handles integration with all your devices, while leaving you in charge of how they're configured and what happens with the data?

Heroku?

Re: A world where people pay for software

#324

Post by robertlagrant »

steveBK123 wrote: post #185
vbezhenar wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cas…

Lifetime thing is a rather large statement, especially with software though isn't it? Most of the pre-subscription model compares were never lifetime purchases. Software that needed paid purchase update every 3-5 years to get OS support / features. No software I used in 1995 will run on my current computers. Even 2005 or 2010 is dubious in some cases. Content constantly changed delivery mechanisms and people had to b…

> No software I used in 1995 will run on my current computers.

Then I'm sorry you didn't play SimCity 2000 (-:

Re: A world where people pay for software

#325

Post by ajkjk »

arrosenberg wrote: post #323
ajkjk wrote: post #320

My question is: why isn't there yet a thing (or is there?) that works like AWS, but has the UX experience of a smartphone: you can install "apps" on it -- which you pay for hosting / bandwidth -- and it handles integration with all your devices, while leaving you in charge of how they're configured and what happens with the data? Sorta like expanding the mobile phone experience to encompass your whole internet experi…

> My question is: why isn't there yet a thing (or is there?) that works like AWS, but has the UX experience of a smartphone: you can install "apps" on it -- which you pay for hosting / bandwidth -- and it handles integration with all your devices, while leaving you in charge of how they're configured and what happens with the data? Heroku?

Not at all. I can't "install a cloud storage app on my Heroku and then access it on my phone" without significant technical skills. As an engineer I could figure it out, but I won't, because I don't want to deal with that. Instead I will fantasize about how it ought to work.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#326

Post by arrosenberg »

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…

If you pay every month and never own it, that's rent. The landlord will try and lock you in and extract value while providing as little as possible. Sometimes you get a good one that takes care of all the issues, but the majority just want their money.

JetBrains figured this out already. Sell me a perpetual software license that I own and charge me separately to get the updates.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#327

Post by robertlagrant »

stronglikedan wrote: post #263
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…

I avoid saas precisely because of the subscription model. Occasionally, I need to make a flowchart, but I don't need to make flowcharts every month. I used to be able to pay for a flowchart software once, and then use it occasionally. Now it seems that, to get quality flowchart software, I have to pay monthly for something I don't use monthly. So instead, I find some free flowchart software which may or may not be li…

It's constrained as to how it renders, but check out d2lang[0].

[0] https://d2lang.com

Re: A world where people pay for software

#328

Post by rootusrootus »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #306

Computers have an unprecedented ability to reproduce value for free. Programmers need a relatively fixed amount of resources to thrive. (The value of resources varies by location but we all need things like food, shelter, transportation, clothing, tools, etc etc) If we can find a way to make sure every person has what they need to thrive regardless of their income, programmers can open source all of their software an…

From each according to his ability. So far we haven't worked out how to square that with human nature, and it keeps failing utterly.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#329

Post by paulmd »

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…

> I'm also intrigued by how many very wealthy people are unwilling to pay $10/mo to stream music/video and/or share passwords, when I recall paying $20/CD at the record store in 1998 dollars.

I think when it was $10 or $15 a month for Netflix, and you got everything, that people did pay. The problem now is that it’s $20 a month for Netflix, and $20 for Hulu, and $25 for Disney plus, and $20 for HBO (ahem, “Max!”), and $15 for Amazon, etc. Fragmentation has meant we’re back to a cable bill worth of cost on top of the actual internet (and possibly actual cable), and half the time you still can’t watch the thing you want to watch (some seasons not currently in rotation etc).

(Also, the cable model was driven by bundling, you may not watch a bunch of discovery channel or scifi channel personally but you're paying for them regardless. Most people didn't buy that many optional extras, maybe an extra movie channel or sports or something, but, most people were never racking up $100 of ala carte services either. A lot of people would have spent a lot less on cable tv if they were allowed to unbundle.)

Anyway the “piracy is an availability problem” line isn’t always true. A lot of times it’s a price problem too. Even if Super Netflix came out with actually everything on it for $99 a month I don’t think you’d get a lot of takers. There is a number where it’s worth my time to pirate even if it’s available, it’s not like Best Buy didn’t carry music or movies pre-iTunes/Netflix, and you could always buy esoteric bands on the web etc. Netflix solved availability for $10/month and that last part can’t be severed while retaining the truth of the insight.

You might say it’s not just steam that ended piracy, but steam sales, and as they’ve slowed down so has my proclivity to spend. I’ll buy any old crap at $5 or $10 if it looks fun, and throw it on the backlog, but for $30 or $40 it has to be something I’m specifically interested in playing in the near future.

This summer sale was the first time prices have been decent in a long while, for the last 5 years the discounts have been meager and the base prices remained pretty high. 75% off a game you're still trying to get $60 for 3-5 years after launch isn't exactly the deep discount it's presented as. Konami and Capcom are awful about this.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#330

Post by conradfr »

karaterobot wrote: post #250
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is connected with reality. Most companies don't have such strong lock-in, and those that do often have extremely valuable products.

I dunno, this describes my reality pretty accurately. Apple, Figma, and Adobe all try to lock you in with cloud storage and proprietary storage formats: the more you invest in their products, the more you'd lose by not paying them. I used to run some websites off Squarespace, and there's no way to export them and move somewhere else, so you end up paying ~$200 a year to host a static web page, else recreate it from s…

You can connect an IMAP client to Gmail and retrieve all your emails.
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