$49 is a very interesting price point. It is easily worth more than $49 to use this software. But $49 is the kind of price where a professional may just buy it from themselves without bothering to hassle their boss to buy it through the company. This means less of a hard sell and more copies will be sold to people like you or me who discover it through HN or a tweet or something. I do think they should increase the c…
AppCode is like that - there's Xcode and it's free, but AppCode is just way better, and since it's only $50, I bought it.
Turns out a license is only for a major release, so if I buy 1.0 and they come out with 2.0, I have to pay to upgrade. But all upgrades in 1.x are free. So it's a fair deal. They seem to come out with new big releases every year so I end up paying them $50 every year.
I think it's a great model for selling software, and for continuing to make money off of it. It works for them, and for me as a customer, too. I get added value, and I don't mind spending extra on it.
Whereas, I avoid anything subscription like the plague. I want to buy, and own, not rent. Even though I now know that AppCode will always have a new major release every year, I don't mind paying the upgrade. First of all, I don't have to, I could just keep using the old version. And secondly each version packs tons of new features so I feel like I am getting something for my money.