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37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time

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

#141

Post by nirvdrum »

crazygringo wrote: post #80
turnsout wrote: post #28

Man, talk about a ship that has sailed. I was 100% anti-subscription pricing for a very long time. Eventually I realized, it's better for the software vendor and the customer. Final Cut Pro used to cost $999 upfront, now a teenager can use Final Cut on their iPad for $7/month, and subscribe only when they need it.

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…

> 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 camera that came out 2 years ago.

I see this the other way. I don't want to be forced to upgrade. If you add valuable features, I'll pay for them. Otherwise, I'm happy to stick with what I have. Oftentimes the upgrades come with a new UX to learn, are slower, and remove functionality I relied on all to add new stuff I have no need for.

I think JetBrains hits an interesting middle ground. I can run whatever version of the IDE I want (as far as I can tell) but pay to have access to the full suite.

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

#142

Post by mrtksn »

turnsout wrote: post #28

Man, talk about a ship that has sailed. I was 100% anti-subscription pricing for a very long time. Eventually I realized, it's better for the software vendor and the customer. Final Cut Pro used to cost $999 upfront, now a teenager can use Final Cut on their iPad for $7/month, and subscribe only when they need it.

It’s a no brainer, the vendor gets paid for the continued work they do and the user pays over time as long as they get value out of the product.

However, For some apps it makes sense to have it as a one time payment - things like offline games or utilities the solve a problem and don’t need continuous updates.

Other than that, subscriptions are the way to go because software is a service more than a final product.

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

#143

Post by imoreno »

drew-y wrote: post #74

Will this software come with perpetual maintenance updates? For how long? Do I get any new features for free? If not, is it really pay "once"? Software is never "done". Developers need to be actively involved throughout the lifecycle of a software product. Which, to me, makes this sort of model unsustainable. I'd rather know that software I rely on won't be abandoned once the base of new customers drys up. And I don'…

When buying software like this your perspective should really be "WYSIWYG". You should assume support ends completely tomorrow, and any patches you do get are a windfall.

That means key considerations for every purchase are:

* How easy would it be to migrate from it to something else? * How easy would it be for someone else to develop compatible extensions and drop in replacements? * How easy would it be to troubleshoot and patch it yourself?

Perfectly bug free software is of course difficult. But reasonable level of polish is very doable. It used to be the norm for decades, and they didn't even pay devs as much as now. Modern subscription software does not have fewer bugs than traditional waterfall software.

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

#144

Post by [deleted] »

satvikpendem wrote: post #58

Consumers often talk about one-time payments but balk at the prices that are required to have them while also being able to have the devs pay for their expenses. For example, look at this recent r/apple thread [0], the dev made the perpetual license 2.5x the annual license, which makes sense from a ARPU perspective, but people don't want to pay 70 dollars, even though tools like YouNeedABudget are more expensive. The…

[deleted]

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

#145

Post by swores »

znpy wrote: post #112
turnsout wrote: post #28

Man, talk about a ship that has sailed. I was 100% anti-subscription pricing for a very long time. Eventually I realized, it's better for the software vendor and the customer. Final Cut Pro used to cost $999 upfront, now a teenager can use Final Cut on their iPad for $7/month, and subscribe only when they need it.

15 years ago most teenagers i knew had the full office suite, photoshop and most other softwares for free. I'm not gonna tell you how, but it's easy to imagine. Guess what, those people wouldn't have paid for a license anyway, so no real license money is lost. More importantly, it needs to be said that if you got an older computer you could just use an older version of the software, no problem. Now you can't do that…

> paid 150 euros out of my personal pocket last year for a SecureCRT license and i love it

I'm curious what makes SecureCRT better than PuTTY or even Windows Terminal enough to be worth paying for - am I missing out on some amazing experience, or does it have certain amazing features others lack, or...?

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

#146

Post by macintux »

turnsout wrote: post #28

Man, talk about a ship that has sailed. I was 100% anti-subscription pricing for a very long time. Eventually I realized, it's better for the software vendor and the customer. Final Cut Pro used to cost $999 upfront, now a teenager can use Final Cut on their iPad for $7/month, and subscribe only when they need it.

I have an iOS app that I love and rely upon, but it’s effectively abandonware because the developer didn’t charge enough. I too am pro-subscription: take my money, please.

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

#147

Post by vlod »

mym1990 wrote: post #91

The amount of money I have spent on subscriptions I have forgotten to cancel, or subscriptions I have misunderstood the agreement to(Adobe ahem) has to be in the few thousands or more... This is of course my fault and I have learned to be very wary about what I sign up for, but it doesn't keep me from having an icky feeling of dark patterns that take advantage of psychological behavior.

TIP: Every subscription goes to google calendar with a notification with T-2 weeks.

This also works for paying bills on time to avoid fees like credit cards. Yes I could auto pay, but this helps me validate if I want X each month.

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

#148

Post by rapind »

> Installation and administration used to be hopelessly complicated, but self–hosting tech is simpler now and vastly improved. Plus, IT departments are hungry to run their own IT again, tired of being subservient to Big Tech’s reign clouds.

I must he living on another planet, because in my experience none of this is true. In fact the only “simple” sort of self hosting would be with a PaaS provider, which is of course back to paying a subscription.

To be honest I really dislike the live service model, but at least I’m not selling alternative facts.

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

#149

Post by cableshaft »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #109
Calavar wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That pricing sounds fair. Unfortunately, I feel that's the exception. Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 was $400 [1]. Now Dreamweawer Creative Cloud is $250 per year [2]. So after 1.75 years, you've already taken a loss. [1] https://prodesigntools.com/products/adobe-cs6-pricing-list.h... [2] https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html

I think Adobe's pricing is ridiculous, but this is uncharitable: 1. CS6 came out in 2012. According to the BLS calculator, $400 in 2012 is $532 today: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=400.00&year1=2... 2. You're cherry picking the worst one, do the math for CS6 After Effects at $999 (~$1.3k today) vs $21/month and you only break even after >5 years.

Still possible to use CS6 today, it still works on Windows. So you would have definitely saved money by now if you still used it.

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

#150

Post by voz_ »

sanitycheck wrote: post #83
voz_ wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify is, let’s say, $120 a year. After 10 years, let’s say $1200. If an album has 5 songs, and an album costs $12.00 (dunno, middle of your range plus easy math), you can buy 100 albums in that time. 500 songs. After 500 songs for 10 years, your model costs more and offers no value (in fact, it’s less convenient for a dozen reasons) I don’t know about you, but I listen to way more than 500 songs… a year. Let alone…

Except with Spotify the songs can go away, so it's not necessarily equivalent - you don't get access to the same music as long as you're subscribed, you get access to whatever Spotify is currently serving up. I was an early Spotify user and that annoyed me enough to stop and go back to buying music instead. BTW, albums usually have more than 5 songs.

I've never had a song I like go away, is this a real issue?
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