Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?

#71

Post by longnguyen » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:41 AM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #65

longnguyen wrote: post #59

I’ve been running BoltAI[1] and it generates enough revenue for me to work on it full time. I follow the “perpetual license with one year of support/updates” model. So far it’s working great. My customers love it as they’re in control of the software. Some users can run BoltAI entirely offline. But I’m adding the subscription soon as this model is not sustainable when I’m adding other cloud features such as cloud syn…

Great app, I actually mentioned you in my other comments as a good example of a one-time payment model and why it works for you, at least until you add the more service oriented features as you mentioned.

Thank you

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?

#72

Post by stakhanov » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:41 AM UTC

Legal changes are making it increasingly very difficult to sell perpetual licenses. For example, in Germany, a new law recently took effect that clarifies that if you sell a software license for a given period of time, you're liable to provide whatever updates/support the customer may need over the course of the software's licensing period to enable the customer to keep running it, at no additional cost, regardless of what it costs you. I'm not a lawyer and may be getting this wrong, but if you're contemplating getting into the business of selling perpetual licenses in software, definitely check with a lawyer. It's not like it was in the 90s.

In the 90s, a large driver of recurring revenue for software was that when the OS and hardware landscape changed, you made a new version of the software adapted to that change, and then, if customers wanted to upgrade their OS or hardware (frequently for reasons unrelated to your product), that made them come back to you to pay for the new version of your product. Under the new legal regime, you would be forced to give them the update for free, so if you sell an actual perpetual software license, you have a fixed amount of revenue on one hand, and a potentially unlimited liability to incur additional costs on the other.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?

#73

Post by longnguyen » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:43 AM UTC

dcreater wrote: post #69

longnguyen wrote: post #59

I’ve been running BoltAI[1] and it generates enough revenue for me to work on it full time. I follow the “perpetual license with one year of support/updates” model. So far it’s working great. My customers love it as they’re in control of the software. Some users can run BoltAI entirely offline. But I’m adding the subscription soon as this model is not sustainable when I’m adding other cloud features such as cloud syn…

That's surprising. The free version of Msty is better

I’m sure Msty is a good app. And it might be better for some users while it might be worse for others. For example, it’s not a native app and doesn’t support “inline usage”, which some users may find not appealing.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?

#74

Post by 6510 » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:46 AM UTC

sirjaz wrote: post #25

fullstackchris wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpick here: both models are still SaaS, the only difference is the first way was deployed via (desktop?) app and the second via web. But indeed, web is typically the most flexible option unless you are leveraging something on the OS that would otherwise be cumbersom or impossible via web (not often the case)

Unfortunately, a vast majority of WebApps are hot garbage and even the good ones can never be as functional or as performative as a native app. We have such powerful machines, but we relegate them to such a horrible method of using them.

Very few components are needed to make a bare bones web browser that is more of a vm. It would need one or more advantages over normal www browsers. Applications could be memory, and computationally heavy, it could store its data locally with some guarantees, it could run conventional web application on very crappy hardware. A new platform also offers countless opportunities to do new things or do things differently. That list is endless.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?

#75

Post by satvikpendem » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:51 AM UTC

trimethylpurine wrote: post #62

satvikpendem wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for stating this. Some customers (who are often the vocal minority) don't like SaaS likely due to subscription fatigue but most don't realize the amount of manpower it requires to continuously update software that will atrophy without them, not to mention adding more features. The business reality is often not understood by the users and that's why every company is moving towards SaaS, it allows the company de…

likely due to subscription fatigue It's due to a-hole fatigue. These are too often just VMs running an installed solution in a 3rd party cloud, run like garbage and cost way too much. There are just too many vendors in the middle to get any expectation of a good experience. And to top it off, every time I buy SaaS the vendor is bought by some private equity giant before the first payment and the product turns to shit…

> These are too often just VMs running an installed solution in a 3rd party cloud, run like garbage and cost way too much

I mean, you try making such software and let me know how that goes for you. This type of vague criticism sounds a lot like the typical engineer retort of "I can build it myself in a weekend," discounting the real complexity involved.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?

#76

Post by seba_dos1 » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:03 AM UTC

kelseydh wrote: post #24

seba_dos1 wrote: post #12

Yes, game developers.

Even when you buy a game by disc nowadays, you are forced into waiting an hour to install cloud updates.

I just buy a game from itch.io, download a zip file with it, unpack and play.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?

#77

Post by lefstathiou » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:18 AM UTC

ensemblehq wrote: post #26

lefstathiou wrote: post #6

My brother acquired an aging app (from an aging founder) built on Delphi used by many dozens (or low hundred) of the world’s leading shipping, energy and commodities companies, used as a standard to calculate “laytime” and “demurge” (myriad of fees associated when a ship docks into a port). It used to cost $5k for a perpetual license tied to usb based key that had to be plugged in to activate. If you wanted to use on…

That's an awesome story. How did your brother find the opportunity to acquire the aging app?

My brother was a consultant and is an extraordinary networker (and salesman) in the shipping space. He knew of this tool, was looking for a challenge, cultivated a relationship with the owner and then made an offer.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?

#78

Post by thayne » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:24 AM UTC

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #60

irrational wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Photoshop 6 does everything I ever want Photoshop to do. I wish Adobe would continue to sell a one time purchase copy of PS6 instead of forcing everyone to SaaS. Fortunately I own a physical copy of the PS6 disks that I purchased years ago, so I don’t have a problem acquiring PS6 on any new machines by various means.

A little off topic, but, if you'll indulge me: Why do you think nobody has been able to make a successful alternative to Photoshop? Everybody I know complains about it constantly, and yet it's still the industry standard.

Because Adobe photoshop is what people are tought how to use. It is the same thing with excel. It isn't enough to have a superior product, you also have to overcome the momentum of the prevailing software. That's not to say it is impossible, but Photoshop has a significant advantage.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?

#79

Post by elemcontrib » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:24 AM UTC

Slightly tangential but perhaps somebody could answer this question:

So having decided that rather than trade as a fictitious company and go the "personal brand" route, I'm interested to know who has successfully sold their own desktop apps from a website with their personal domain eg. JoeBloggs.com. Do buyers really care so long as the software meets their requirements, or does the psychology of a trading entity really affect peoples' appetites to purchase?

Reasons include authenticity, the ability to self brand for freelance dev work, and being able to list ad-hoc products as I develop them without having to market each one separately.

Comments welcome, as well as success stories, or otherwise.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?

#80

Post by hulitu » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:34 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #52

massysett wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some users do not want updates. I understand that updating software takes manpower. Same for running servers for sync or online information or similar. But I might rather pay once for something that works on my machine as it is now. I need no servers or sync. If I need an upgrade later, I’ll buy it. I do buy some software as a service but for other software if there’s a subscription I just don’t buy.

You need updates these days or stuff stops working fast. Everyone at every stage is quite happy to make breaking changes without long term backwards compatibility other than a transition period because it’s understood that everything can be quickly updated. Every time I updated macOS I find that some program stopped working and I just have to update it and it works again. As well as the fact that most software these…

> You need updates these days or stuff stops working fast.

Maybe some engineering course will help. If you make a product that breaks in 6 months, i won't buy it from you. This really means that the amount of testing is minimal and, instead of fixing bugs, you just rewrite the "app" keeping the bugs.