When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months” • Hacker News Board

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#211

Post by zdragnar » Sat, May 06, 2023, 12:59 PM UTC

blagie wrote: post #40

zdragnar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty skeptical of this approach. There are generally two reasons to offer free tiers: 1- hope users will upgrade to paid plans 2- hope free users will spread name recognition through word of mouth to people who will pay Generally speaking, "free tier" users are the worst- they demand more from support and expect to give nothing in return. Very few transition to paid users. What happens if you give your free tie…

No, I don't think that's right. I can name other scenarios: 1) I am at a megacorp. I want to rapidly prototype without going through purchasing / finance / bureaucracy. 2) I have a personal and a work account. I learn something on weekends on the free tier and use it at work. Both of those have happened (with me, as the user), and led to millions of dollar of business to cloud vendors. In the case of #2, the cloud ve…

#2 basically counts as a word of mouth reputation. #1 is essentially an upsell. Your other examples are the same, just the other way around.

In any case, if the free tier sucked, all of them would be unlikely to convert. People will remember that your product sucks, not that they had to pay to get decent performance.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#212

Post by zdragnar » Sat, May 06, 2023, 1:00 PM UTC

squeaky-clean wrote: post #121

zdragnar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty skeptical of this approach. There are generally two reasons to offer free tiers: 1- hope users will upgrade to paid plans 2- hope free users will spread name recognition through word of mouth to people who will pay Generally speaking, "free tier" users are the worst- they demand more from support and expect to give nothing in return. Very few transition to paid users. What happens if you give your free tie…

It reminds me of the game "Game Dev Tycoon", where they released a version on torrent sites where after about a year of ingame time your company would go bankrupt because of loss of profits due to piracy. The retail version of the game didn't even include piracy as a mechanic, it was just added as a joke in the torrent version. Still, Twitter and Reddit discussions about the game were filled with "don't buy that game…

This is really what I was trying to get at. Having a shit free tier off a great way to get a terrible word of mouth reputation.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#213

Post by mrtksn » Sat, May 06, 2023, 1:07 PM UTC

ohgodplsno wrote: post #210

mrtksn wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One time payment and forever free updates means the product dies when the growth stalls OR they create other services around it and sell those. It can work for some products and often those turn into freeware once they find a subscription or consumables for which the users are eager to pay for.

And when the product dies, you know what you still have? Your fully up to date product with the latest updates, until the very last day. My wallet isn't here to pay for your company's inability to find a market.

Buying a dollar for pennies always feels good, sure. However, using products of unsustainable businesses means you can't depend on it. For some products that's not a problem, for others it can become huge problem when you find yourself locked in maintaining old version of an OS or a companion software. The effect of not getting updates is very pronounced in professional or industrial software where to this day some people are forced to secure floppy disc supplies and deal with Windows XP.

In college we had a lab of really old PCs which run a very old version of AutoCAD because the school purchased that version and it wouldn't run on modern machines, I was told. There was another lab in similar situation with Adobe products.

After the subscription model raised to prominence, people get the latest version of the software and pay only as long as its useful for them. It's a win-win because the developer has the incentive to provide the best possible service in order to retain customers.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#214

Post by karaterobot » Sat, May 06, 2023, 1:10 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #43

Maybe it works to have a free tier and yank the rug out from everyone, and maybe the solution is that we should just pay for what things cost? The whole internet is like this, people often don't want to pay, they want it free, then the advertisers pay, we get pissy about advertising, and we become the product, and we flock to the next free thing after the free thing stops being free ... I wish things weren't all free…

> maybe the solution is that we should just pay for what things cost?

I understand your frustration, but in the end things cost what people are willing to pay. It would be hard to determine an intrinsic price for a cloud-hosted chat server.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#215

Post by ghaff » Sat, May 06, 2023, 1:33 PM UTC

ohgodplsno wrote: post #210

mrtksn wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One time payment and forever free updates means the product dies when the growth stalls OR they create other services around it and sell those. It can work for some products and often those turn into freeware once they find a subscription or consumables for which the users are eager to pay for.

And when the product dies, you know what you still have? Your fully up to date product with the latest updates, until the very last day. My wallet isn't here to pay for your company's inability to find a market.

You have a "fully up to date" product until an operating system upgrade breaks it or there's a security vulnerability that really does need to be patched.

Although I sold a small-time file manager shareware product for a number of years, I tend to agree that forever upgrades isn't a great model in general. Especially if sales are trailing off over time, I have zero incentive to provide updates/patches especially if some major change is needed. In my case, I decided that a significant upgrade would require major changes and it wasn't worth the effort. Not sure it would have been even with an upgrade fee but certainly wasn't absent one.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#216

Post by sobkas » Sat, May 06, 2023, 1:33 PM UTC

swyx wrote: post #89

pikdum wrote: post #73

If a company gets rid of my free forever plan with them, there is a 0% chance that they're getting any money or positive word of mouth from me in the future. It's incredibly scummy behavior. If you're not willing to actually offer it forever, just call it a free plan instead of lying about it.

you’ve never made a mistake in your future predictions? youve never committed to something you couldnt deliver? i understand the outrage but remember the people on the other side of that screen are just humans too. many things dont turn out the way the initial intention was (im not excusing this specific instance, im just hoping for less vitriol when i someday make some over promising mistake in future). let he who i…

> you’ve never made a mistake in your future predictions? youve never committed to something you couldnt deliver?

> i understand the outrage but remember the people on the other side of that screen are just humans too. many things dont turn out the way the initial intention was (im not excusing this specific instance, im just hoping for less vitriol when i someday make some over promising mistake in future). let he who is without sin…

If you can't deliver what you promised then giving all the money back or portion depending on percentage completed is only ethical solution. You are not entitled to other people money because they fell for your lies. Otherwise I have "electric" car rolling down the hill I'm willing to sell to you.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#217

Post by eduction » Sat, May 06, 2023, 1:37 PM UTC

dmn322 wrote: post #132

swyx wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you’ve never made a mistake in your future predictions? youve never committed to something you couldnt deliver? i understand the outrage but remember the people on the other side of that screen are just humans too. many things dont turn out the way the initial intention was (im not excusing this specific instance, im just hoping for less vitriol when i someday make some over promising mistake in future). let he who i…

1) it's not people, it's a company. They're 2 different things. People have consciences and families. Companies are beholden to shareholders. People can find a different job if their company fails. I don't think we need to be forgiving to companies. They're not forgiving to people. They act on policy. 2) While I admit that I'm guilty of it too, overpromising is pretty destructive. It causes you to have to work harder…

That’s fine, you don’t have to love a corp like they’re a human, or empathize, but they’re definitely going to screw up in a human way because they’re made of humans, so customers are going to be disappointed if they expect too much.

The earlier comment called ending free lifetime updates/service “incredibly scummy behavior.” That seems way off to me. In the pantheon of bad corporate behavior that’s not even a 1 out of 10 in severity. It’s “disappointing behavior” but not surprising or IMO particularly bad. None of us is entitled to free service from others. That’s just not how the world works long term. Nice if you can get it but don’t be surprised when it ends.

By the way I think you’re right that it’s destructive behavior - one company does this, competitors face pressure to do the same. But I am not sure acting like it’s a shameful moral outrage to overpromise is a good solution. The problem isn’t morality, it’s bad incentives, with “10X or bust” VC thinking at the root. I don’t hate the players I hate the game.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#218

Post by ghaff » Sat, May 06, 2023, 1:40 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #134

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forever is such a word that it should never be expected to hold except in some limited scientific and mathematical contexts.

If a company states something is 'forever' or 'unlimited' they should be held to exactly that offer. Companies should not be able to use very appealing language and then just say "but obviously we didn't really mean forever !". Using language with a specific meaning with no intention to actually honor what you're offering is fraud.

Of course it's not forever. The company isn't going to be around forever (or even 100 years in all probability). The software isn't going to make any sense probably in 10 years. So no a company shouldn't make those sorts of statements and, if they have lawyers on staff, probably won't. But any claim that a product will be supported "forever" is just as clearly untrue as the claim that some non-trivial software product has no bugs.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#219

Post by hermitcrab » Sat, May 06, 2023, 1:42 PM UTC

swyx wrote: post #89

pikdum wrote: post #73

If a company gets rid of my free forever plan with them, there is a 0% chance that they're getting any money or positive word of mouth from me in the future. It's incredibly scummy behavior. If you're not willing to actually offer it forever, just call it a free plan instead of lying about it.

you’ve never made a mistake in your future predictions? youve never committed to something you couldnt deliver? i understand the outrage but remember the people on the other side of that screen are just humans too. many things dont turn out the way the initial intention was (im not excusing this specific instance, im just hoping for less vitriol when i someday make some over promising mistake in future). let he who i…

"free forever" isn't a prediction, it's a promise. Breaking promises is shitty behaviour. Never make a promise unless you are sure you can keep it.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#220

Post by sobkas » Sat, May 06, 2023, 1:43 PM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #205

_Algernon_ wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be able to trust a contract to mean what is written. It is not my responsibility to ensure that the company is able to hold their end of the bargain. If they at a later point find themselves unable to hold their end of the bargain, they should face consequences for breach of contract / false advertising and those consequences should be greater than the expected gain from walking back on the contract. Other…

IANAL, but for a contract to be legal, at least in the US, it requires consideration from both sides, which means both sides have to give up something. What consideration is given from the free user?

> IANAL, but for a contract to be legal, at least in the US, it requires consideration from both sides, which means both sides have to give up something. What consideration is given from the free user?

What "free" user? Didn't they paid a fee to get app with forever updates? So they given cash? When it comes to contracts what matters is how much money they can spend on lawyers/experts and how much political clout they have.