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

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161–170 of 174 posts

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

#161
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sheets lags at 1000 rows. Excel allows 1 million. Excel has incredible optimization capabilities, it's numerics are vastly faster (and more accurate, thanks to Javascript being terrible for accurate math). While Javascript (sheets) is decently performant, it's no match for C++ and hand tuned assembly making Excel work. I tried but cannot find a single performance benchmark where Sheets outperforms Excel. And the firs…

Sure I am not a power user. I doubt most people are :) I never found a CSV and instantly thought "oh wow let's put that in excel" I usually would just write a random script to get the data I want the way I want it. Edit:// I am not sure if increased sales means anything when they switched their license model so often and aggressive

Most people aren't power users of Photoshop either, but no other program comes close to being able to do what it does, which is why it's the tool of choice for the vast majority of professionals that edit photos. The same thing goes for Excel. Your anecdata of being an amateur doesn't provide evidence that Excel is not a superior product, any more than a claim MSPaint is better than Photoshop because all you do is draw circles.

If all you do is CSV things then you're not even a basic user of either. The power isn't a viewer for a table of data.

As to increased sales, I find it amusing where there's good evidence for a thing being true, and people not wanting it to be true make up the most fringe excuses. The fact is sales are up by a lot. If you're going to make handwave claims, demonstrate a fact that your excuse is an actual fact, not a wishful claim to save face. If anything, as the world does more and more data analysis, Excel is one of the most used tools, because it's good for that, so it also makes sense there is more, not less, demand for Excel. And if the license model pissed enough off there a completely free "alternative". Why don't they all jump ship if it's usable?

Occam's razor :)

I just did a search on indeed.com to see job listings with "microsoft excel", 500,000 hits. I did the same search with "google sheets", zero hits. Ouch.

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

#162
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Downloadable software", sure. "Traditional", I don't think so.

Every game released on the Nintendo Switch in a physical cartridge format would disagree with you.

Not every game, there are Switch games in cartridges in which downloading a patch is mandatory to be played (GTA, Mortal Kombat, XCOM, ...).

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

#163
post #155
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I needed the software for myself so I ended up developing it. Turns out a lot of other people wanted it too :) I have been very clear with the community from the beginning that this is software that I develop first and foremost for myself - new features and bug fixes get prioritized largely according to this. Additionally, support is not offered as part of the commercial use license and is largely community-driven. N…

what language and stack did you develop the software in?

His GitHub says Rust for the tiling window manager he’s talking about.

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

#164
post #155
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I needed the software for myself so I ended up developing it. Turns out a lot of other people wanted it too :) I have been very clear with the community from the beginning that this is software that I develop first and foremost for myself - new features and bug fixes get prioritized largely according to this. Additionally, support is not offered as part of the commercial use license and is largely community-driven. N…

what language and stack did you develop the software in?

Missed this comment - Rust + windows-rs, it is indeed a tiling window manager as the sibling comment says!

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

#165

I have been doing this for the past 5 years with https://folge.me . A one-time payment alternative to Scribehow, Tango.us and myriads of similar apps. I can't say that this is a very profitable business, especially given that I don't charge any fees for the updates, but I quite enjoy talking to users, finding out their needs, and improving Folge over time. I think Folge has become my hobby.

I am a customer and think the software is great. Keep it up!

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

#166

I have been doing this for the past 5 years with https://folge.me . A one-time payment alternative to Scribehow, Tango.us and myriads of similar apps. I can't say that this is a very profitable business, especially given that I don't charge any fees for the updates, but I quite enjoy talking to users, finding out their needs, and improving Folge over time. I think Folge has become my hobby.

I am a customer and think the software is great. Keep it up!

Thank you!

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

#167

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…

If I may ask where did he buy the app from? Some online marketplace ? I’d love to browse these kind of deals.

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

#168
You might want to look at once.com by 37signals. Although they do a lot of Saas products they must believe there is a market for buy once. They are also leading the way by ditching the cloud (https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/37signals-expects...)

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

#169

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…

If I may ask where did he buy the app from? Some online marketplace ? I’d love to browse these kind of deals.

Sorry for the late reply: he’s been in the maratime industry his whole career. Met the founder years ago, stay in touched, then made the ask.

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

#170

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…

How did he price out the SaaS model vs the USB perpetual license?

Same price, only difference is you pay it annually instead of perpetually. I think it’s like 10-15k per license per year.
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