Brilliant. Bravo. Well said. Look at the companies in any recent YC batch and it’s mostly just a long list of ridiculously simple SaaS ideas that anyone who knows how to use a spreadsheet doesn’t need. It’s amazing that so much money and talent in the West is dedicated to expanding rent-seeking and financing, instead of actual innovation or economic productivity. No wonder we have a housing crisis and a stock market decoupled from reality.
Spreadsheet Assassins – A short history of "software as a service"
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Re: Spreadsheet Assassins – A short history of "software as a service"
#42Although I have questions about certain points, I appreciate the perspective. I wanted to give 5 bucks. There were options for 10, 20 and “any” which goes to a select box that starts at 25. Now I can’t give anything.
Re: Spreadsheet Assassins – A short history of "software as a service"
#43I subscribed to the Baffler because they write well, and to break out of my own echo chambers a bit. Glad to see them on HN, but a bit disappointed in the response. They article is mostly correct in it’s lampooning. Even if you disagree with points or find it ironic that they offer a subscription (btw equating producing a publication with SaaS is quite erroneous) — I think its useful to take this as a datapoint on ho…
I think a lot of folks in software would agree with most of the article as well. It has a hyperbolic edge but that's a stylistic concern rather than a material one IMO.
Re: Spreadsheet Assassins – A short history of "software as a service"
#44Done at "...another CEO-turned-MAGA ghoul". Snark-as-a-Service seems oxymoronic.
He's not wrong though. David Sacks isn't exactly shy about being pro-Trump for all the worst/selfish reasons.
Re: Spreadsheet Assassins – A short history of "software as a service"
#45Lovely; a monthly sub to an article talking about monthly subs. You have to realise I will never, ever, going to pay ‘thebaffler’ and especially an article explaining that everyone wants subscriptions in a site that gives me one article and the rest is a subscription.
So ... software and content are the same thing? SaaS is the same as an article?
- Does reading The Baffler trap you in its ecosystem? If you cancel The Baffler do you lose functionality?
- If The Baffler closes up shop because it was bought by a larger newsletter does it brick any of your devices?
- I turned uBlock off for this page (it was blocking 6 things) and there are no ads. Can you say the same thing for Netflix or fricking Windows?
- Does The Baffler take what you give it and resell it because its 5,000 word privacy policy which you didn't read but had to agree to says it can?
- Will The Baffler's third rate security practices release your identity and those of your customers to private auctions on the dark web?
This is how the article supports itself. Looks like it's about $5 per article.
Still though it's interesting how you put it. In a period where everybody expects web content for free, we're paying literally trillions to subscribe to software products. As somebody who works for a content organization I'm now asking myself what aspects of the SaSS model can we take up to get people to pay our writers and editors to continue producing local news? I guess we just need to figure out what content people are keeping in spreadsheets.
Re: Spreadsheet Assassins – A short history of "software as a service"
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
A subscription fee required for receiving updates for an application that you own seems fine. A subscription fee required to avoid that the application you are using will be disabled remotely seems unacceptable. The latter certainly does not create any incentive for the software vendor to improve the quality of their product and to fix its bugs. On the contrary, the latter business model provides a stream of revenue…
The second point just strands parts of customers on outdated versions - remember that time when loads of companies were running Excel 1997 or 2003 to their deaths to save costs? Then anyone on Excel 2013 couldn't use any new features because they weren't backwards-compatible 10 years to some public sector organizations that refused to update. Office 365 is so much better, I can actually send someone a file that uses…
You can’t expect that. A significant number of people are still using Office 2016/2019/2021 (and there is a 2024 upcoming). Personally I don’t plan to switch to Microsoft 365.
People in general don’t want their software to change continuously.
Re: Spreadsheet Assassins – A short history of "software as a service"
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Networked drives have been a thing for ages.
As someone actively pushing a company away from that model to the ubiquitous M365/SharePoint/OneDrive approach, there are so many hidden costs to 'a network share'. How are you managing VPN access to file servers? How about backups/versioning? Any searching? Access control that can be easily managed by end users? Data governance, RBAC, compliance audits? BYOD/mobile device access?
> How are you managing VPN access to file servers? How about backups/versioning? Any searching? Access control that can be easily managed by end users? Data governance, RBAC, compliance audits? BYOD/mobile device access?
This seems like a great idea for a SaaS product.
Re: Spreadsheet Assassins – A short history of "software as a service"
#48There's some irony to an article about wedging into our monthly bank statements hosted by a site that asks the same...
Yeah because content and services are the same thing.
Re: Spreadsheet Assassins – A short history of "software as a service"
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
A subscription fee required for receiving updates for an application that you own seems fine. A subscription fee required to avoid that the application you are using will be disabled remotely seems unacceptable. The latter certainly does not create any incentive for the software vendor to improve the quality of their product and to fix its bugs. On the contrary, the latter business model provides a stream of revenue…
The second point just strands parts of customers on outdated versions - remember that time when loads of companies were running Excel 1997 or 2003 to their deaths to save costs? Then anyone on Excel 2013 couldn't use any new features because they weren't backwards-compatible 10 years to some public sector organizations that refused to update. Office 365 is so much better, I can actually send someone a file that uses…
> The second point just strands parts of customers on outdated versions - remember that time when loads of companies were running Excel 1997 or 2003 to their deaths to save costs?
I do fondly remember keeping a floppy (!) of Word 5.1 in a safe place over the summer in college because Word 6.0 was such a steaming pile of crap.
Re: Spreadsheet Assassins – A short history of "software as a service"
#50Brilliant. Bravo. Well said. Look at the companies in any recent YC batch and it’s mostly just a long list of ridiculously simple SaaS ideas that anyone who knows how to use a spreadsheet doesn’t need. It’s amazing that so much money and talent in the West is dedicated to expanding rent-seeking and financing, instead of actual innovation or economic productivity. No wonder we have a housing crisis and a stock market…
And yet many of them succeed? So unless you think all their subscribers are stupid, they must see a reasonable value exchange.
In the large enterprise where I work, I've often argued against building our own in-house XYZ with the position "do we want to be in the business of building and maintaining XYZ or do we want to focus on our core business?"
In some cases it definitely makes sense to build something yourself, but in plenty of cases, paying an external company a recurring fee (that is probably less than the ongoing capital you'd spend doing it yourself) is absolutely the right business decision.
Plus, I've rarely seen one-off non-core internal "products" at a company actually be better than the product that a specialized company can offer.
User experience matters, the tools and software your employees use should be held to the same quality bar as what you offer your customers.
And let me tell you, internally built software rarely comes close to that bar.