One great genre of HN comment is where people insist subscriptions are the only way a software business can work, as if commercial software sprung into existence fully formed in 2012.
Just Pay the Subscription
11–20 of 121 posts
Re: Just Pay the Subscription
#12Right, the issue is that we are owning our stuff less and less. You used to be able to even buy a copy of an OS on a CD. Thus, I don't think a subscription justifies the cost of maintenance, and a lot of app models don't do subscriptions for app updates. Of course, if there is a cloud component, that's a different story because there are recurring costs to hosting a server. Or maybe a user uses the service enough to…
I addressed this in the post. I don't quite understand what people mean when they say they want to own their software. I mean okay you can put the CD on the shelf. Now what? I understand why they don't like paying money. But ownership just doesn't make a lot of sense when talking about a mobile app.
I want to be able to put that CD in my drive 20 years later and have working software. You used to get this. I still have some CDs that I could plug into my computer and (perhaps through Wine) get working software.
Re: Just Pay the Subscription
#13> I’m honestly not sure what that means. You can’t take Cal.ai and Flighty out of your phone and put them on your shelf. These things are only going to work as long as they’re maintained and updated. It’s not 1995 anymore.
Yeah, that's a big problem I have with modern technology. It's true that there are classes of applications which need constant updates and backend infrastructure. However, there is a huge category of applications which don't need those constant updates and are perfectly functional without constant updates.
For example, a large number of games from the 90s and 00s are still fun to play, you can still play them with friends over the internet by directly connecting. The developers don't need to invest into those games, they are done. They might have bugs, but that doesn't really matter. In fact, constant updates is something that I don't even really desire.
The problem with the subscription model is that it's quite expensive and the entire reason it exists is to try and get users who forget about that subscription (and it encourages businesses to make canceling the subscriptions as hard as possible). It's the gym membership model.
The other problem with the subscription model is that it needlessly kills off software when either the developer loses interest or goes bankrupt.
Re: Just Pay the Subscription
#14"Ownership" is something only the HN set cares about. The reason your average person hates app subscriptions the author relegated to a footnote: they mostly exist to trick you into paying for the app more than once.
Folks pay for all sorts of subscriptions, nobody cares about ownership, but when my mom finds out she's been paying $0.99/mo for a "countdown timer" app she used a few times over a year ago she swears off paying for apps for good.
Re: Just Pay the Subscription
#15Speaking about paying for apps in general, I'm all for it. The moment a new app shows an ad, if this app seems useful to me, I'll go make a purchase if it's a single "remove ads" IAP with a reasonable price, where "reasonable" is a price that is less or equal to a price of a cup of flat white where I live.
But I really don't see a reason to pay for a subscription for the app I probably don't use that often. If it's impossible to use the app without signing up for a trial, I'll normally set a reminder to cancel it a day before its expiration.
Re: Just Pay the Subscription
#16> I like subscriptions because, in the worst kind of corporate management speak, subscriptions align our interests. You pay for the app for the duration that you see fit. We see the same pattern over and over again: (1) subscription service starts and operates at a loss, (2) people recognise this and sign-up, (3) the service gradually enshittifies to the point where there is no real value propisition, (4) company ban…
I think you're overgeneralizing.
I subscribe to a couple of apps (OnX, Strong) and some news sites (Tangle, local sports site); as far as I know none of them started on 1, and 3 hasn't happened yet for any of them. They all provide services that I think are valuable, at a fair price - a price that, as far as I can recall, hasn't changed for any of them in the 4-6 years I've been a subscriber.
Re: Just Pay the Subscription
#17This is such a garbage take. Yes, if you're running a cloud-backed service, a subscription makes sense. But the overwhelming number of complaints have been when previous download-only apps (e.g. Photoshop) become part of a subscription service (Creative Cloud). And people complain when the option of a thing that didn't need the cloud (like a garage door opener) now is only available in a subscription model (see "Unauthorized Bread" by Cory Doctorow). It's called "enshitification".
Re: Just Pay the Subscription
#18I agree 100%. The key thing is that the monthly subscription should be cheap. That way it really does work for everyone - the user does not end up paying very much over a lifetime and they are getting value for it. And I think in most cases the subscriptions are cheap enough because those that aren't get no business. Of course there are rip-offs out there, and there's nothing wrong with them existing, but just don't subscribe to them.
Re: Just Pay the Subscription
#19One great genre of HN comment is where people insist subscriptions are the only way a software business can work, as if commercial software sprung into existence fully formed in 2012.
In my experience the only genre of HN comments is that subscriptions are evil, so I'm glad to see there are other perspectives. While it's true that software has been around a long time, it's also true that the world changes and building software in 2026 is much different than even in 2012 let alone 1995.
Re: Just Pay the Subscription
#20Right, the issue is that we are owning our stuff less and less. You used to be able to even buy a copy of an OS on a CD. Thus, I don't think a subscription justifies the cost of maintenance, and a lot of app models don't do subscriptions for app updates. Of course, if there is a cloud component, that's a different story because there are recurring costs to hosting a server. Or maybe a user uses the service enough to…
I addressed this in the post. I don't quite understand what people mean when they say they want to own their software. I mean okay you can put the CD on the shelf. Now what? I understand why they don't like paying money. But ownership just doesn't make a lot of sense when talking about a mobile app.
> But ownership just doesn't make a lot of sense when talking about a mobile app.
Why shouldn't it?
Why does my calculator app need a subscription? Why does it need constant updates?
There's no reason the ownership model shouldn't exist for apps. There's also no reason why all apps should need constant development.