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Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

pimosa.app

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Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#231

Post by [deleted] »

lagrange77 wrote: post #137
rq1 wrote: post #135

I’ll try to not be dismissive of the labour, though it’s kind of funny (or actually natural) that the heavy lifting libraries that only a few can actually write are open and free, while the shallow wrappers that everyone can write are paid and closed. Decades ago we were calling out these software and now it’s the norm. Another example along the line: I wanted to extract a frame from a video on iOS, it’s impossible w…

While i'm with you in principle, over the years i've learned that we should not talk down good UI/UX, if that's what the wrapper adds. It's a crucial component to the value of a piece of software for the end user.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#232

Post by thfuran »

MoreMoore wrote: post #122
midnightclubbed wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the product stops working if you don’t pay the maintenance fee then it’s a subscription model with an initial down-payment. Car maintenance doesn’t fall into the annual fee model, as much as manufacturers and dealers would like, you don’t have to use them for periodic repairs or servicing. Car features that require yearly renewals (navigation and the like) would be subscriptions with a one-time free trial. One tim…

I think you're misunderstanding the above comment. Buying a perpetual license for a particular version (or set of versions), then in the future optionally paying a fee for a new major version not covered by that license is extremely common and imo the most fair model for both creator and customer. If you never buy an upgrade or newer version, the version you own continues to work the same way it always has. You just…

It's common and fair, but it seemed it somehow didn't qualify as outright ownership.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#233

Post by akerl_ »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #146
lagrange77 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While i'm with you in principle, over the years i've learned that we should not talk down good UI/UX, if that's what the wrapper adds. It's a crucial component to the value of a piece of software for the end user.

This is true. I have seen absolutely miraculous backends, totally pooched, because the library developer thought that GUI was for "wusses."

I'm getting flashbacks to trying to manage my ebook library in Calibre

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#234

Post by mjmsmith »

bennythomsson wrote: post #139
Boldened15 wrote: post #27

Looks great, beautiful landing page and it looks like a labor of love! - Most of the page titles are the (same)[1] which doesn't seem good for SEO. Each of the pages like "Pricing" or "Compress Your Video Files" should be differently named. - The "video compressor" tool would be much more useful if you could enter a target file size. This is a frequent use case, if you want to send a video over email or social media…

> beautiful landing page I disagree. Any page that sports a big "buy now" button without even scrolling but has at that point not even shown me a single screenshot will have a hard time catching my attention. I didn't look further.

Conversely, any page that makes me hunt around for the price loses me. You really can't please everyone.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#235

Post by thfuran »

j1elo wrote: post #227
layer8 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a middle ground in that you buy the current major version and get updates to it, but you would have to pay again if you ever want to upgrade to the next major version. (If you don’t want to, you can still continue to use the version you bought indefinitely.)

But this model introduces an incentive to artificially bump the major version ASAP so as to be able to charge again for updates. One way this happens is with feature creep, to justify a new version every few months. A "done" application wouldn't reasonably get a new major version ever, so the software becomes ever-growing and then bloat ends up happening.

>A "done" application wouldn't reasonably get a new major version ever

Did that company not want to make money? Even if they want to pretend their software is done, there is incentive to just change the name, add a new feature or two, and maybe poke at the UI so it looks different enough to be a definitely new product that you should buy and not mostly the same as last time.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#236

Post by apgwoz »

bennythomsson wrote: post #228
apgwoz wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also just say what you are thinking: $25 of every $29 license should go back to ffmpeg. There. I made your point for you, directly.

That's not what I'm thinking. Where exactly should those $25 go? If there is such an easy place, fine, go ahead. I personally don't see one, since there are many giants on whose shoulders he is standing on. There are other options, many of them have been mentioned in this discussion. I suppose my main point is that the apparently new quite inexperienced guy, as appreciated as his enthusiasm is, should at some point u…

The fact of the matter is that there are many motivations for creating software. If someone profits off of my work, that I released into the world with licensing terms that allows them to do so, there’s no obligation that I be paid for it. I could have, myself, recognized the potential and done the work to make a marketable tool, but my motivation was different.

You can fault the FOSS community for promoting default libre licensing that created the “exploitable” nature of this, but the fact of the matter is that people creating software are able to make a choice. They can make a different choice if they wish.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#237

Post by gitaarik »

zac23or wrote: post #160

AWS can make billions from open source. On the other hand, solo developers who try the same path are basically seen as scammers. Ironic. And creating a good user interface is very, very hard. Otherwise Gimp wouldn't be the monstrosity it is.

Well I think Amazon and many other huge companies are having many unethical activities, and I think we should not think that if big companies do certain things, that it should be ok for us to do it too.

HN is a community of hackers, not business people that are only commercially interested. But Hackers need money too, so we also need to be a little bit commercial. But it would be ideal if we could be commercial without having to give up the hacker ethic.

But many people don't believe it's easy to be open source and commercial at the same time. Why would people pay if they don't have to?

I'm thinking of a new form of software licencing: what if we make a license that says that a particular piece of software must become open source after for example 5 years. Then the developer can sell the software they wrote for 5 years long, and after that it will become open source.

This would give FOSS developers more motivation to create software, and the community will benefit eventually, so people won't feel too hesitative paying for the software, because it will eventually benefit everyone.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#238

Post by h00dinberry »

OccamsMirror wrote: post #36
h00dinberry wrote: post #5

What does this do that other similar tools don't? There are millions of video editing apps out there. What's your moat?

Did the OP pitch you for VC? Why do they need a moat?

Why should one pay for an app containing features one could get for free somewhere else? A google search for "free video editing software" gets 650M hits...

Just to be clear, this isn't a criticism of the software on technical grounds. I don't doubt that the OP knows what he's doing. It's the commercial aspect of it that I don't understand.

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#239

Post by lazyeye »

rubymamis wrote: post #217
huhtenberg wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> signing your app, which requires obtaining a certificate (which also requires forming a company that is not an LLC) and waiting more than a month while navigating multiple rounds of bureaucracy. This is not true, not as phrased. A. You can get a cert issued in your personal name. Not an EV one, but still. B. You are likely to already have a company if you are selling online. C. It doesn't take "a month" even for an…

A. Indeed, that requirement only apply to EV cert (at least for the cert authority I used). B. That's not always the case with indie developers. C. Well, it took me. My cert authority was GlobalSign. > but contrary to the urban legend they are not getting instantly shit-canned by the Defender. That was not my experience. Try to download an unsigned binary using Edge and see what happens. From what I remember (I'm on…

There is a new approach to doing code-signing called "trusted signing". Havent used it myself so can't comment on the benefits

https://www.advancedinstaller.com/trusted-signing-integratio...

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/trusted-signing/over...

Re: Show HN: I completed shipping my desktop app

#240

Post by layer8 »

j1elo wrote: post #227
layer8 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a middle ground in that you buy the current major version and get updates to it, but you would have to pay again if you ever want to upgrade to the next major version. (If you don’t want to, you can still continue to use the version you bought indefinitely.)

But this model introduces an incentive to artificially bump the major version ASAP so as to be able to charge again for updates. One way this happens is with feature creep, to justify a new version every few months. A "done" application wouldn't reasonably get a new major version ever, so the software becomes ever-growing and then bloat ends up happening.

There is the counter-incentive that people won’t upgrade if they don’t think it’s worth it. What you describe doesn’t usually happen, in my experience.
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