37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time • Hacker News Board

Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time

#131

Post by badsectoracula » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 7:47 PM UTC

jawns wrote: post #72

> Add up your SaaS subscriptions last year. You should own that shit by now. I know a lot of companies are adopting a more irreverent marketing approach, using words that 20 years ago would have been bleeped out. The swear word itself does not offend me. But to me its use here suggests a lack of restraint, and that makes me form a negative opinion about how the business is managed, especially when the words are comin…

On the other hand, i liked that part. Hell, the fact that it was straight and on topic made me read it, otherwise i'd ignore it - after all it is an announcement for a bunch of products they'll make.

These "polished" announcements you mention tend to be generic borefests that use a bunch of words meaning nothing and feel like some basic AI could write them. Often accompanied with a bunch of generic humans smiling on the camera or doing "work" by pointing/touching their devices. On a site with a white background and a couple inoffensive colors. You know exactly what style i refer to, there have been 283923 of them and i'm sure there are as many site templates for them in pretty much every sort of technology to make sites out there.

Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time

#132

Post by codetrotter » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 7:47 PM UTC

znpy wrote: post #120

core-utility wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be more interesting is to compare over 10 years for someone who buys upgrades (CS2->CS3->CS4 etc.) as they come out. Additionally the individual Dreamweaver price is very high compared to "All Apps" plan at $660 per year.

> What would be more interesting is to compare over 10 years for someone who buys upgrades (CS2->CS3->CS4 etc.) as they come out. but nobody does that, really. most people i know skip entire versions of windows (eg: 7->10), let a lone individual software releases.

Heck, even pirates sometimes skip versions.

I remember installing and using pirated versions of Photoshop 6, and then Photoshop 7, and then Creative Suite 2.

I bought an academic license for Creative Suite 4 Master Collection.

Later I subscribed to Creative Cloud for a while. But I swore to not buy from Adobe again after that because that was actually a bad experience.

Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time

#133

Post by imoreno » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 7:47 PM UTC

Buying software doesn't just cost money, it also has an opportunity cost. The software could become obsolete before you get the value you paid for. These days software advances rapidly so the opportunity cost is severe. When the (perceived) pace of advancement slows down, we should see a return to one-time purchases.

It's not just a matter of $x/month * y months > $z one time payment. It's actually that y is impossible to estimate so people prefer $x/month.

That's the rational buyers. Then there's the irrational. Some people get memed into paying $70 for a budget tracker app (lol) because "but you'll never have to pay a subscription!". Other people get memed into paying $5/mo because "it's the price of a coffee!". So I guess the opportunity cost argument is not even relevant so long as there's a market of grifting uninformed consumers with inflated prices and astronomic profit margins.

Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time

#134

Post by Macha » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 7:48 PM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #11

[flagged]

Haven't Teams and Slack eaten their market in the intervening time? Even Discord and Matrix are moving into the space. If they're still profitable, it's because they're extracting more money from a shrinking pool of customers. I guess Oracle has shown that can last a while with many of their products, but I'm not sure that's the kind of influence they once had.

Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time

#135

Post by mtriassi » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 7:48 PM UTC

As the kind of person that loves running a home lab this really appeals to me. That said, there's a take away here that's easy to miss, imho, and that's that the pricing for a piece of software needs to make sense.

The real issue with SaaS is the blanket "$5/user/month" pricing scheme, if you ask me. If using your service means each call is some heavy GPU computation, fine, charge me that cost + profit margin / markup, ie: usage based billing.

If a consumer device can handily do all the processing for your software though, yeah just sell a perpetual licence of some kind, and charge for new major versions.

Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time

#136

Post by themagician » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 7:48 PM UTC

Software and hardware move too fast now. Even if you buy it, there is no guarantee it runs properly in 4-6 years for whatever reason.

If Apple had LTS versions of their hardware and software that guaranteed backwards compatibility for 15 years that be great. But now they will drop or replace an API or function within 6 years that breaks your application—almost guaranteed.

I have spent thousands on apps and games that require VMs or other hacks, or simply no longer work at all. At least with a sub you can cancel when it gets shitty or no longer works.

Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time

#137

Post by mrcwinn » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 7:48 PM UTC

Typical of 37Signals: self-importance presented as courage.

"IT departments are hungry to run their own IT again." Really, are they now? I can't imagine anything scarier: an organization that is ostensibly shy to spend on Big Tech's cloud bills, somehow also has the bandwidth and resources to support and maintain someone else's software.

This is just silly. Is there a way to personalize HN's algorithm to hide marketing ploys?

Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time

#138

Post by crazygringo » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 7:49 PM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #117

crazygringo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. If you used to need to use software for a weeklong project, you'd have to pirate it because there was no way to justify the cost. Now you just sign up for a month and then cancel. It's a huge improvement in flexibility and paying for what you use. Not to mention the software is always updated, so you don't need to worry about whether your image editor you purchased 7 years ago supports the RAW format of the…

> Now you just sign up for a month and then cancel. Or you sign up and then Adobe does everything in its power to stop you from cancelling, including lying to your face: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10930079 ( https://web.archive.org/web/20170324161306/http://www.geek.c... ). Just because subscriptions can work out well doesn't mean they don't get abused by companies.

I mean, that's one customer service rep who was being difficult (not necessarily representative of Adobe policy at all), and the user was trying to cancel a yearly subscription on the 365th day when it was already being charged for autorenewal that day.

That's not even remotely representative of someone who signs up for a monthly subscription and then cancels it before the month is up. But yes, obviously you have to put it in your calendar to remember to cancel it. It's not that hard.

Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time

#139

Post by badsectoracula » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 7:49 PM UTC

stanmancan wrote: post #2

My favourite licensing models for self-hosted software are perpetual fallback licenses. Jetbrains does this well and their description of it is: A perpetual fallback license is a license that allows you to use a specific version of software without an active subscription for it. The license also includes all bugfix updates, more specifically in X.Y.Z version all Z releases are included.

My problem with Jetbrains' software is that it comes with DRM so, sure, i can buy their thing once but i'm still reliant on them regardless. It isn't like i can pay them once and forget about their existence afterwards.

Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time

#140

Post by 1letterunixname » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 7:49 PM UTC

There's an implicit conflation between SaaS-only, desktop-only, and hybrid apps.

Although sometimes subscription-only or one-time costs appears to the user to be a Hobson's choice, the alternatives are not purchasing, pirating, and using alternatives.

Unfortunately, security updates, feature additions, and hosting servers and storage cost money. This is either baked into a perpetual license, an S&S contract, or into the subscription model.

The problem that needs to be solved cannot be solved by a regression in pricing models: the issue is the intent of publishers to act as rent-seeking, extreme profiteering by continually raising prices, pricing hobbyists and individuals out of the market because they only want to sell to large corporations who view high price as a signal of quality. Oracle, Microsoft, and Redhat are the best examples of these. OTOH, there are apps like Plex and Obsidian, and low-cost buffet app marketplace subscriptions like SetApp. For example, I refuse to subscribe to EA Play/Pro because it is heavily-marketed, expensive, lacks ownership, and selectively retains titles out-of-reach from outright purchase (perpetual licensing).