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Your app subscription is now my weekend project

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Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#181

Post by joecool1029 »

throwup238 wrote: post #42
Shank wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not irrational on the part of the developer -- I've definitely felt this too. The problem comes from the fact that practically everyone has subscription fatigue these days, and each of us probably has only a few pieces of software we truly care about enough to want to support them out of the goodness of our hearts. But everyone wants us to pay $10/mo. It just isn't sustainable from a consumer perspective.

> But everyone wants us to pay $10/mo. It just isn't sustainable from a consumer perspective. And so few actually deliver $10/mo worth of value. If 1password and Fastmail - the two most important services that control my digital life - are each $60/year, that's the standard of value other SaaS companies have to beat and very few do. The ones that do are like NextDNS where they cost $20-30 per year because the people…

> And so few actually deliver $10/mo worth of value. If 1password and Fastmail

Funny you mention Fastmail. I was happy most of the past decade until this week. I just had my email blown up by their new Paddle billing system with a ton of billing invoices since they decided it was no longer ok that I pay them a lump sump every 2 years, and that I must go onto monthly now. Initially I thought they were hacked but nope, just terrible communication.

I emailed them a few days ago and they only confirmed that Paddle is their merchant of record and they have been migrating accounts over slowly.

Tonight the CEO sent out a blast saying resellers need to be on monthly billing with their new system at new pricing.

Sorry Fastmail, I paid for 2 years back in October (I think this is my 3rd cycle with them). If you want me on monthly billing then you will wait until October 2027. That is a ‘you’ problem not a ‘me’ problem if you undersold the subscription this cycle.

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#182

Post by guluarte »

Shank wrote: post #5

First of all, I’m skeptical about these being free. Time isn’t free, and the tokens to make these projects certainly weren’t free. Second of all, all of these SaaS apps that don’t actually have a need for recurring charge probably should be paid one time. I don’t use Loom — I use CleanShot X and it was a one-time $30 payment and has a lot of great features I benefit from. I can’t reimplement it in $30 of tokens or $3…

hopefully this at least bring us to pay to own software instead of subscriptions

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#183

Post by bryanhogan »

bryanhogan wrote: post #179

If you were using Loom for just recording, please use OBS instead! Creating tools for your own workflows has become amazing, especially as a creator of anything it feels overwhelming with how many options there are now.

A few of the tool choices in the article seemed uninformed though, e.g. for markdown editing you have perfectly functional (and open!) tools that are free and powerful with good UX.

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#184

Post by karl_gluck »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #104
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you completely disregarding the data integrity and privacy aspects of rolling your own tools? I vibecode an app that only I use and store data locally. That means my data never leaves my device, I never have to share my email with anyone, never have to enter my credit card info anywhere You buy SaaS and you have to then login, share credit card info, and have your data stored in the cloud somewhere with godkn…

Data privacy is a real concern, but any SaaS provider worth their salt is using Stripe or similar for payments, not rolling their own. That's not as good as not providing the info in the first place but that makes it much less likely that your CC info is going to turn up in an S3 bucket with bad permissions or something.

Yes, but at this point I'd almost rather have my CC info exposed than my personal info. There is law and consequence for fraudulent charges that protects me from loss (if not inconvenience) but there is basically no protection for playing fast and loose with my PII--in fact, it's the opposite! They sell it!

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#186

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

Shank wrote: post #5

First of all, I’m skeptical about these being free. Time isn’t free, and the tokens to make these projects certainly weren’t free. Second of all, all of these SaaS apps that don’t actually have a need for recurring charge probably should be paid one time. I don’t use Loom — I use CleanShot X and it was a one-time $30 payment and has a lot of great features I benefit from. I can’t reimplement it in $30 of tokens or $3…

The problem with one time purchases is that they don’t allow for rent seeking behavior - the cornerstone of any sufficiently sustainable greed model

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#187

Post by abdulhak »

it's really cool now using your technical skills and with the help of AI to build these project, i do it all the time but for a reason, it can be a good project to add to a resume or you need it to work the way you want it to be, or to cut costs in certain situations, i mainly do that to cut costs. but it's really not free, nothing is free, It may not have cost you anything in terms of money, but it definitely cost you ur time, which in my opinion is way more valuable than a $10 subscription.

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#188

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

karl_gluck wrote: post #184
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data privacy is a real concern, but any SaaS provider worth their salt is using Stripe or similar for payments, not rolling their own. That's not as good as not providing the info in the first place but that makes it much less likely that your CC info is going to turn up in an S3 bucket with bad permissions or something.

Yes, but at this point I'd almost rather have my CC info exposed than my personal info. There is law and consequence for fraudulent charges that protects me from loss (if not inconvenience) but there is basically no protection for playing fast and loose with my PII--in fact, it's the opposite! They sell it!

I haven’t thought about it this way but yeah I totally agree. Most of the major consequences from my CC info getting leaked can be dealt with without major long term impact to my life. The same cannot be said about PII currently

Re: Your app subscription is now my weekend project

#190

Post by 0hw0t »

dimator wrote: post #94
0hw0t wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your entire post is self selection bias and survivorship bias. SWE field is one of the most cognitive dissonant social groups; cries foul at the slightest whiff their free speech and agency is being put upon; seeks to reduce blockers to their productivity, fewer PMs! Less management! Now complains about users using their machines without having to block on an SWE. Insert that quote about how someone will not see the…

you couldn't have missed GP's point any more if you tried. ignoring the ad-hominems about SWE greed: these tools have been trained on decades of people "obsessing over every last detail". what GP is arguing is that we're detaching from that: you prompt, you get something that works, it doesn't matter how it got there. we're now entering the world where the majority of code will be vibed. So whatever our foredeveloper…

Oh I got it just fine. I was knocking their point artisanal software will make a comeback.

Am an EE and have argued against all the developer gibberish and self aggrandizement for years. It's just electromagnetic geometry of the machine to me.

Most software out there is all the gibberish devs need to do their job. Burns a lot of resources clinging to it. Completely useless to using a computer how most users will.

Vectors as a uniform layer of abstraction, rather than arbitrary namespaces a programmer finds cheeky, will obsolete a bunch of gibberish.

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