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The problem with free (2019)

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Re: The problem with free (2019)

#21

Post by Gordonjcp »

brutusborn wrote: post #17
zombiephysicist wrote: post #14

I have no problem paying for software. The problem is most software is total crap these days. And I refuse to pay subscriptions. There are great examples of stuff I'm HAPPY to pay for. iStat menus, KeyboardMaestro (and I used to love 1password before they went subscription).

Why do you refuse subscriptions? I always thought they made more sense, especially for software that needs a lot of maintenance.

Counterpoint - DaVinci Resolve is a professional high-end video editing, compositing, and colour grading package. The free-as-in-beer version omits some specialised tools (like 3D camera tracking and support for timelines larger than 4k resolution), which are present in the full-fat paid-for Studio version.

It costs about 200 quid, or you get a licence for it free with basically any of their cameras or edit controllers.

Once you've paid for it, you own that copy, and so far in any of their releases your key will work with all the updates. Version 18 is about to drop, and still even a key for 14 or 15 will work just fine.

I get that they make their money from selling hardware and Adobe don't, but less than a year of licence fees for Premiere would pay for a copy of Resolve. If you waited 18 months you'd be able to afford the Speed Editor package and then you'd get a cute wee edit controller with a proper jog/shuttle wheel and proper clicky buttons with your licence.

The 27 quid a month for a Premiere licence would be one of my larger monthly outgoings.

Re: The problem with free (2019)

#22

Post by open-source-ux »

wmf wrote: post #4

"Consumer software barely existed just 20 years ago. At that time, it was mostly large enterprise software or companies focused on developing software for professionals." I kinda hate to be that guy but there was a whole store at the mall called Babbage's that sold consumer software. Sure, half was games but there was still plenty of other stuff.

There was a thriving market of consumer desktop applications stretches back to the mid-1990s. Windows 95 spurred further growth of consumer software (also far more variety).

Perhaps the author is referring to the rise consumer-facing SaaS (Software as a Service).

Re: The problem with free (2019)

#23

Post by blinzy »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #21
brutusborn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you refuse subscriptions? I always thought they made more sense, especially for software that needs a lot of maintenance.

Counterpoint - DaVinci Resolve is a professional high-end video editing, compositing, and colour grading package. The free-as-in-beer version omits some specialised tools (like 3D camera tracking and support for timelines larger than 4k resolution), which are present in the full-fat paid-for Studio version. It costs about 200 quid, or you get a licence for it free with basically any of their cameras or edit controlle…

If that company, the one that develops DaVinci Resolve, only produced software, would that model of £200 fixed one-time payment be sufficient to be financially viable?

Let's say the company's headcount to develop/maintain such software, plus a bunch of other required roles such as marketing, sales, hr, etc., is around 25 people averaging £80,000/year each (not that far off considering employees cost more than just their salary) to make it an even £2 million/year.

That means in order to not go bankrupt, i.e. break even, they need to sell 10,000 copies to new buyers every single year. Is that realistic? I don't think so, a company that tries that model will soon go in the red because we aren't even considering other costs that a company has, which aren't negligible. Even if you cut the estimate above in half, e.g., let's say they cost £40,000 each instead, that's still 5,000 new buyers of the software each year.

In contrast, a subscription model of £100/year requires them to have 20,000 ongoing subscriptions, which is substantially easier to achieve. I believe there's a reason that a lot of companies have shifted/are shifting to a subscription model, an alternative being monetisation models such as advertisement-supported programs.

Re: The problem with free (2019)

#24

Post by Gordonjcp »

blinzy wrote: post #23
Gordonjcp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint - DaVinci Resolve is a professional high-end video editing, compositing, and colour grading package. The free-as-in-beer version omits some specialised tools (like 3D camera tracking and support for timelines larger than 4k resolution), which are present in the full-fat paid-for Studio version. It costs about 200 quid, or you get a licence for it free with basically any of their cameras or edit controlle…

If that company, the one that develops DaVinci Resolve, only produced software, would that model of £200 fixed one-time payment be sufficient to be financially viable? Let's say the company's headcount to develop/maintain such software, plus a bunch of other required roles such as marketing, sales, hr, etc., is around 25 people averaging £80,000/year each (not that far off considering employees cost more than just th…

As I said most of their money comes from cameras. £2M per year would be a couple of thousand cameras, which feels like a fairly easy number to hit.

Re: The problem with free (2019)

#25

Post by pronlover723 »

wmf wrote: post #4

"Consumer software barely existed just 20 years ago. At that time, it was mostly large enterprise software or companies focused on developing software for professionals." I kinda hate to be that guy but there was a whole store at the mall called Babbage's that sold consumer software. Sure, half was games but there was still plenty of other stuff.

There was plenty of commercial software in the 80s as well. Go find some C64, Amiga, Apple 2, TRS-80, Atari 800 emulator online. All of that software used to be in stores on shelves

Re: The problem with free (2019)

#26

Post by ZephyrBlu »

zombiephysicist wrote: post #14

I have no problem paying for software. The problem is most software is total crap these days. And I refuse to pay subscriptions. There are great examples of stuff I'm HAPPY to pay for. iStat menus, KeyboardMaestro (and I used to love 1password before they went subscription).

Don't understand the hate for subscriptions. Some companies moved to subscriptions purely for a money grab, but for a lot of companies a subscription model makes more sense and a lot of them are really good value.

1password for example is only $3 USD a month. I don't understand why you would stop loving 1password because of a $3 subscription.

Re: The problem with free (2019)

#27

Post by yakubin »

blinzy wrote: post #23
Gordonjcp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint - DaVinci Resolve is a professional high-end video editing, compositing, and colour grading package. The free-as-in-beer version omits some specialised tools (like 3D camera tracking and support for timelines larger than 4k resolution), which are present in the full-fat paid-for Studio version. It costs about 200 quid, or you get a licence for it free with basically any of their cameras or edit controlle…

If that company, the one that develops DaVinci Resolve, only produced software, would that model of £200 fixed one-time payment be sufficient to be financially viable? Let's say the company's headcount to develop/maintain such software, plus a bunch of other required roles such as marketing, sales, hr, etc., is around 25 people averaging £80,000/year each (not that far off considering employees cost more than just th…

Other companies which sell (only) software based on one-time payment model:

- ACD Systems (ACDSee)

- Serif (Affinity)

- Freron Software (MailMate)

- Sublime HQ (Sublime Text)

I use them all. Wouldn't pay for a subscription. I don't want a service. I want a product.

I also pay for services, but for other purposes: mail (Fastmail), online bookmarking (Pinboard), music streaming (Spotify, mostly for discovery; after I discover something I like, I usually go and buy it to have it myself), VPN, VPS. If there existed a decent video streaming service, I'd probably pay for that as well, but there isn't any.

Re: The problem with free (2019)

#29

Post by Rerarom »

wmf wrote: post #4

"Consumer software barely existed just 20 years ago. At that time, it was mostly large enterprise software or companies focused on developing software for professionals." I kinda hate to be that guy but there was a whole store at the mall called Babbage's that sold consumer software. Sure, half was games but there was still plenty of other stuff.

Yeah 22 years ago as a young kid I was obsessed with reading the SOFTWARE catalog of my local computer store (the hardware stuff was all video cards that all looked like each other, the software was exciting stuff like space simulators! 3D graphics! video editing!).

And this was after the days of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Home

were quite over.

Re: The problem with free (2019)

#30

Post by jobigoud »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #26
zombiephysicist wrote: post #14

I have no problem paying for software. The problem is most software is total crap these days. And I refuse to pay subscriptions. There are great examples of stuff I'm HAPPY to pay for. iStat menus, KeyboardMaestro (and I used to love 1password before they went subscription).

Don't understand the hate for subscriptions. Some companies moved to subscriptions purely for a money grab, but for a lot of companies a subscription model makes more sense and a lot of them are really good value. 1password for example is only $3 USD a month. I don't understand why you would stop loving 1password because of a $3 subscription.

You want to build a stable system. Set it up so that the lower level pieces work and will continue working if untouched so you don't have to think about them and instead focus on the higher level stuff.

A software that is subscription based means your computer system seen as a whole will stop working at some point in the future if you don't remember to take a specific action (like updating the payment method or some such). It means uncertainty, it basically means you can only guarantee your system will work as-is for the next month. The more software of this kind you have, the more complex your system becomes to maintain in a given state and it burdens your mind.

I think it's fine for software you only intend to use for a few weeks/months at a time, or for software where you always want to be on the bleeding edge of tech, but for things as low level as a password manager? You want something really stable. It should also not update itself. So if we are not interested in updates what's the point of paying monthly?

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