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Subscription Hell

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Re: Subscription Hell

#191

Post by jakobegger »

jjeaff wrote: post #115
hedora wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real innovation of the *aaS model is that you no longer need to compete with prior versions of your own software or hardware infrastructure. You can hike prices, cut engineering costs, cut some nines off your availability, defeature, or just plain embrace incompetence, and, in the short term, it will improve your balance sheet. Of course, in the long term, customers will revolt, and do so swiftly, and without mer…

I don't know. I think a lot of people have decided they like things like the Adobe products subscription. Instead of the several thousand dollars you would have had to pay for the various softwares in the lineup up front, you just pay $50 a month. Which is reasonable of you previously used more than just Photoshop and maybe upgraded every 3 to 4 years. If the end result is a similar cost, I would much rather keep my…

But 50€ a month is way too much for casual users.

I do some vector design work maybe once a month. I'd love to buy a license for Illustrator, if it cost whatever it used to cost before Creative Cloud. I would use it for a long time.

But 50€ per month is too much. So I bought a license for Affinity Designer instead. It covers most of my needs, and it's no subscription. I also bought a license for Sketch, since the subscription is optional.

I'd love to use the same tools as professional designers, but they've become too expensive.

Re: Subscription Hell

#192

Post by freehunter »

beberlei wrote: post #161
rgbrenner wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About Ulysses specifically... they say when they were charging a monthly fee their users still expected regular updates after they paid.. and that sales would spike after a release, then fall to an unsustainable level: https://medium.com/building-ulysses/why-were-switching-ulyss... "that price is vastly out of proportion from the cost of providing the software" That's just an unfounded assumption by the author. He sa…

well, that is economics 101. consumers price goods by value, not by costs. if your costs are higher than consumers are willing to pay, then you will at some point go bankrupt.

Exactly. No one cares what the product costs to make, they care what it costs from their own pocket. If the app isn't worth $40, then it doesn't have the features and/or the polish to have multiple full-time developers working on it. If the price people are willing to pay is lower than your cost of goods sold, lower your COGS or raise your value proposition. Those are the only options.

Re: Subscription Hell

#193

Post by johnchristopher »

techsupporter wrote: post #33

At the time of this writing, all of the comments here are focused on content, but I want to touch on the author's bit about software: > It’s not just Bloomberg and media — it’s software too. I used to write everything in Ulysses, a syncing Markdown editor for OS X and iOS. I paid $70 to buy the apps, but then the company switched to a $40 a year annual subscription, and as the dozens of angry reviews and comments ill…

> I have noticed this as well, that a not-small number of software programs have turned from "give us one money for this version" to "give us slightly smaller amount of one money per month, but do it in perpetuity if you want to keep going with the data you've entered."

Frankly, the writing has been on the wall for something like at least 10 years and surely came into life once Adobe announced the CS 5.5 subscription model in 2011.

Re: Subscription Hell

#194

Post by tonyedgecombe »

lajhsdfkl wrote: post #54

People need to understand that the alternative to ads is paying hundreds of dollars a month in subscription fees and then still not having access to all the services you would have had access to in an ad economy world. People in Europe will soon get this wakeup call. Services that were only marginally profitable are already shutting down because of GDPR. I'm confident that the EU government and its citizens have litt…

Honestly, I don't think it would be a great loss to forgo most of the advertising funded content.

Re: Subscription Hell

#195

Post by imh »

FPGAhacker wrote: post #172
imh wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems counter to what makes moviepass so successful. I pay a fixed monthly cost, and now the incremental cost of each movie is $0. Decoupling the consumption from the payment changes how I think about going to see a movie. It seems like consumers may prefer this model, at least with regards to movies in theaters (moviepass), movies and tv at home (netflix), and music (spotify).

Moviepass is cratering. Why would you say they are successful? The are net negative on a per customer basis. They lost $150M last quarter. Their only positive income is investment rounds. Negative return on investment. It’s like subsidizing your company with credit cards. And having a business model of “apply for new credit cards”

Fair enough. The comment I was replying to was trying to make a point that consumers don't like a la cart models, so I think the consumer side of moviepass was the pertinent feature (they're wildly successful in terms of people loving it). It may suck for moviepass's finances, but as a consumer it's great and the $0 incremental cost has changed how I think about going to the movies. You could argue that the bulk of that happiness is that I'm just happy I'm paying less, which is hard to introspect. In that regard, maybe a profitable biz like netflix is a better example.

But then I realize that artists are complaining about getting screwed by spotify, studios are jacking up prices on netflix, and even services like classpass are changing. I wonder how many (if any?) of these subscription a la cart businesses have actually reached equilibrium.

Re: Subscription Hell

#196

Post by gsich »

Just charge the same amount a normal ad clicking (or viewing) user would make you in revenue. I doubt it's more then 1€ per month.

On Youtube, depending on your source, you get from 1-4$ per 1000 views. It's not the users problem that payment for micro transactions doesn't scale.

Re: Subscription Hell

#197

Post by lsc »

PrunJuice wrote: post #179
lsc wrote: post #171

I actually think the root of our 'fake news' problem is that credible sources charge for content, while crank sources don't. And credible news has always spent more on content creation than niche news. The cost of content creation has not fallen, while the cost of distribution has fallen dramatically. So, it's completely natural that the price difference at the consumer side between high and low quality news would ha…

Check out Blendle https://blendle.com/ They aren't Apple but they do the pay per article thing.

I will check it out, initially, that looks like what I want.

Re: Subscription Hell

#198

Post by siidooloo »

ada1981 wrote: post #97
techsupporter wrote: post #33

At the time of this writing, all of the comments here are focused on content, but I want to touch on the author's bit about software: > It’s not just Bloomberg and media — it’s software too. I used to write everything in Ulysses, a syncing Markdown editor for OS X and iOS. I paid $70 to buy the apps, but then the company switched to a $40 a year annual subscription, and as the dozens of angry reviews and comments ill…

I’ve been really stoked with Adobes offering around this, full access to all their products for $30 a month or so.

Except, if the only app you need is photoshop you can own Affiniy Photo for $30. Or, you can own Affinity Design for $30. And this one is the real kicker, Blackmagic is giving away most of what you need for free, and if you need more you can get a permanent license for a few hundred bucks. How long do you think it will be before Adobe starts really bleeding.

Re: Subscription Hell

#199

Post by always_good »

jakobegger wrote: post #173
always_good wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One-time payments for software amount to a pyramid scheme where you benefit from the money of future users. That's not without its downsides either, where your userbase grows indefinitely yet doesn't pay for its own support-email rent. There's obviously a middle ground, like being able to at least use the version you paid for indefinitely but having to pay a smaller price to upgrade. But which direction a pricing str…

There's a flaw in your logic: You assume that everyone keeps using every app they bought forever. If that was the case, pay-once would be unsustainable. However, that is not the case. Everyone stops using your app at some point. So you don't need to support users forever, you just need to support them for some finite amount of time. Some users might use your app for a few years, some use your app just for a few weeks…

It's not a flaw. That's just uncertainty and a gamble. Whether that's sustainable for a given piece of software varies per product. And that's kind of the point I'm making.

The extent at which some users subsidize the app for others is just one of the decisions you need to make when deciding on a pricing structure, not a rebuttal.

Re: Subscription Hell

#200

Post by makecheck »

lifeformed wrote: post #89

I wish I could just pay $x/mo for unlimited access to all media. It would get distributed to content creators proportionally based on my time using websites, music, videos, and games. No ads or subscriptions. I can't imagine how such a system would be implemented though. And I'm sure there would be new unintended consequences with such an incentive structure. But something like that would be nice!

This model would require some way to indicate the cost of producing content (e.g. sending journalist overseas with risk to life and limb, versus 30 seconds making up a meme).

And unfortunately, it has the huge problem that a lot of technologies that could track what you do could be misused. An anonymizing scheme similar to Apple Pay might work.

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