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Subscription Hell

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Re: Subscription Hell

#391

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

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…

One perfect example of a shitty conversion to subscription is the adobe suite.

Re: Subscription Hell

#392

Post by opencl »

tokyodude wrote: post #385
jjeaff wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What? Am I doing my math wrong? Photoshop upgrades were always $199. Photoshop subscriptions are $239 a year. So upgrading every 3 year is $199 vs paying a subscription for 3 year is $747. How is paying nearly 3x keeping money in your business?

The $199 upgrades were only after the initial PS purchase price of $699. The PS-only subscription is $9.99 a month. The $239 a year one "Includes 100GB of cloud storage, your own portfolio website, premium fonts, and social media tools". It is way cheaper now unless you go 5+ years without upgrades.

Re: Subscription Hell

#393

Post by mehrdadn »

thechao wrote: post #201
bastawhiz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between charging for updates and charging for continued use. What if Sublime Text started charging a monthly fee just to use it? There's no excuse. > But as far as most software pricing goes, if it's so bad, then people wouldn't pay. And yet people keep paying ransomware for access to their important files.

If the sublime folk offered a “bug fix only” monthly subscription, I’d buy that. My grandfather went through a half day’s paycheck of tooling a month on his own dime. I figure bug fixes are the software equivalent of sharpening chisels, buying new bits, surfacing a mill, etc.

> If the sublime folk offered a “bug fix only” monthly subscription, I’d buy that. My grandfather went through a half day’s paycheck of tooling a month on his own dime. I figure bug fixes are the software equivalent of sharpening chisels, buying new bits, surfacing a mill, etc.

Except bits don't rot?

Re: Subscription Hell

#394

Post by philwelch »

gkya wrote: post #154

> Today’s consumers though have significantly higher standards than the original users of the web. Consumers want immersive experiences, well-designed pages with fonts, graphics, photos, and videos coming together into a compelling format. Citation needed. This comes up quite often, and people like to assume they know what users want all the time. But is there actual, scientific evidence that, given the same content,…

There are hundreds (thousands?) of commercial content-heavy websites that continually track engagement metrics and A/B test design differences all the time, and virtually every single one of them has chosen to bet their collective livelihoods on richer and more interactive media.

Re: Subscription Hell

#395

Post by nvr219 »

hk__2 wrote: post #305
zerowellies wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many products need constant feature updates? Aside from security/compatibility there are plenty of products that already meet everything required of them (to near everyone). How many new features does a file manager need? An PDF reader? For Facebook - I don't think forced subscription would work. People would be forced to think about how much they value the service (a less ubiquitous one at that).

> How many products need constant feature updates? Aside from security/compatibility there are plenty of products that already meet everything required of them (to near everyone). How many new features does a file manager need? An PDF reader? Do you have any example of file managers or PDF readers with a subscription-based model?

No

Re: Subscription Hell

#396

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

JauntTrooper wrote: post #119
ChuckMcM wrote: post #18

I am not sure why it is so fundamentally difficult for publications to understand what people want. The issue many people, myself included, have with subscriptions are that you pay $x / month whether or not you read that month's product. And whether or not you read every article or just one. So for me, as a consumer, my "price per article" goes from small to literally infinity (pay but read zero articles). Now the pa…

I don't think that model will work, honestly. There's friction anytime you ask someone to spend anything, even if the price is de minimis. Look what happens whenever a city adopts a $0.05 plastic bag tax. When Washington DC did it, plastic bag use dropped by 50% - 70%. I'd see people that just spent $30 bucks at the store with their arms overflowing with stuff rather than pay that extra nickel. I'd expect prompting u…

It would work if the model used preloaded crypto payments where all you had to do is see how many tokens something costs and have them deducted automatically by clicking the article read button.

Re: Subscription Hell

#397

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

Ulysses is an egregious example as they cost more than MS Office in many cases, which is particularly noxious when you consider how little a markdown editor does in comparison.

I’m always annoyed about whiny iOS developers complaint about how they cannot make money without obnoxious schemes like this or gambling mechanisms. Software ISVs in olden times had a tiny market, huge expenses around retail channels and distributors, etc. They made money.

Re: Subscription Hell

#398

Post by philwelch »

lajhsdfkl wrote: post #218
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>Honestly, I don't think it would be a great loss to forgo most of the advertising funded content. Since you clearly haven't put much thought into this comment let's just start listing things that are funded by ads - News - content creators on youtube - music - twitch - search - blogs - websites with tutorials - a thousand different things which I have missed and then facebook, snapchat, instagram, and twitter which…

Most of those are covered by either subscription models or Patreon. Some of them (news, blogs, tutorials) can, like Wikipedia, be funded with non-profit models.

Re: Subscription Hell

#399

Post by bobwaycott »

Sileni wrote: post #160
3pt14159 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The middle ground doesn't work. See MS Windows update hell. The way things should work is like this: Subscription for when you want to use the software and open format data files that you're always easily able to export and download. If a company goes out of business or does something stupid then another one will pop up to handle your needs. This aligns incentives correctly while still allows a healthy dose of compet…

An alternative is intentionally packaging releases into tiers (performance, stability, feature, etc) and sell them as such. Something closer to Windows XP service packs than individual updates. I'd expect small, necessary updates to continue to exist as they do. A user can buy the base version, then a few months later when you create a release that allows processing widgets through the program twice as fast, they can…

So, basically, DLC.

Re: Subscription Hell

#400

Post by philwelch »

nickjj wrote: post #143

For a lot of digital businesses a subscription makes sense. Imagine if back in the day Rails Casts was $3 an episode instead of $20 per month for unlimited monthly access. Suddenly if you wanted to learn Rails, you'd end up watching many dozens or hundreds of 5-10 minute videos for $3 a pop. You would constantly feel like you're being nickel and dimed. It's hard enough to get someone to buy from you once, but expecti…

Or you could pay $40 once for a book: https://smile.amazon.com/Rails-Way-Addison-Wesley-Profession...

I think the greatest loss of the modern web has been this explicit move away from literacy. It's like the dark days of television are back again.

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