I'm here for this. Zapier is super overpriced and IFTTT is hampered by its attempted "ease of use". As an individual, I need something in between, which hopefully IFTTT Pro is/will become.
The 3-applet limit is weak, though.
IFTTT introduces IFTTT Pro, free accounts now limited to 3 applets
51–60 of 66 posts
Re: IFTTT introduces IFTTT Pro, free accounts now limited to 3 applets
#52I really, truly don’t mind paying for software, but all of these subscription services cost obscene amounts of money. $10 per month is $120 per year. $120! I might pay that much for boxed software, but it would need to do a heck of a lot more than IFTTT, and I’d expect to get much more than one year of life out of it. Affinity Photo, for instance, cost $60, and VMware Fusion cost $80, to name two products I purchased…
You should compare recurring cost with other recurring costs. Otherwise, it will always seem expensive, because you can multiply an arbitrary period of time to the price. After inspecting my own personal finance, I’ve found that my spent on software subscription is less than 1% of my yearly spent. So, I’ve stopped worrying about it quietly accumulate. Not yet worth optimizing.
Yes, I'm comparing it to the price of a vserver/cloud instance running cronjobs or webhooks.
That's what all technical people I know use ifttt for.
And usually a 3$ one can run hundreds of these sort of automations, unless you're relying on some of these ifttt-ingrained applets.
And before anyone draws the "this takes longer"/labor costs cards.. I only started posting my blog post blurbs to Twitter/Fediverse via cronjob because the ifttt-rss-to-twitter thing was broken at some point.
Re: IFTTT introduces IFTTT Pro, free accounts now limited to 3 applets
#53An aside... I've never really got why technical folks would use IFTTT vs self-hosted. For non-techies I get it... but there are so many great and free tools available e.g. python, tasker/automagic/B4A, node-red, etc, etc. I'm guessing this move to PRO will drive capable folks away.
Because I created applets/whatever’s on ifttt like 5 years ago and I haven’t touched them since, and they keep working. God forbid I have to maintain a server, upgrade for new libraries, handle moving a server, etc etc. Write the code in the first place, debug problems, update my API keys...
Anecdata, but the only thing I thought would be hard to get wrong was RSS-to-Twitter which broke multiple times for me.
Re: IFTTT introduces IFTTT Pro, free accounts now limited to 3 applets
#54I really, truly don’t mind paying for software, but all of these subscription services cost obscene amounts of money. $10 per month is $120 per year. $120! I might pay that much for boxed software, but it would need to do a heck of a lot more than IFTTT, and I’d expect to get much more than one year of life out of it. Affinity Photo, for instance, cost $60, and VMware Fusion cost $80, to name two products I purchased…
You should compare recurring cost with other recurring costs. Otherwise, it will always seem expensive, because you can multiply an arbitrary period of time to the price. After inspecting my own personal finance, I’ve found that my spent on software subscription is less than 1% of my yearly spent. So, I’ve stopped worrying about it quietly accumulate. Not yet worth optimizing.
> Otherwise, it will always seem expensive, because you can multiply an arbitrary period of time to the price.
I would frame that the other way—it seems expensive because it is expensive, if you look at the long-term cost. And if you don’t look at the long-term cost, you’re fooling yourself.
You’re right that choosing one year as the time unit is arbitrary, but I actually think it’s an overly-generous choice, because as I mentioned, when I buy non-subscription software I almost always expect to use it for longer than a single year.
I’m increasingly viewing subscriptions as a cheap ploy to trick consumers into paying more. “Oh, that iPhone doesn’t cost hundreds of dollars, it’s just $20 a month for two years. You can pay $20, right?” What bothers me most about the scheme is it appears to be shockingly effective. This is literally grade-school arithmetic!
Re: IFTTT introduces IFTTT Pro, free accounts now limited to 3 applets
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what do you suggest replaces it? Developers don’t offer subscriptions because they are greedy. They offer them because it’s the best way to have a sustainable software business.
Charge for new features like traditional software did. Subscription software is literally rent-seeking... pay forever or your stuff stops working. If the developer is actually continuing development, new releases that are worth paying for will happen.
If IFTTT was software that ran on your own hardware, I could see your argument. But they are not.
Re: IFTTT introduces IFTTT Pro, free accounts now limited to 3 applets
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should compare recurring cost with other recurring costs. Otherwise, it will always seem expensive, because you can multiply an arbitrary period of time to the price. After inspecting my own personal finance, I’ve found that my spent on software subscription is less than 1% of my yearly spent. So, I’ve stopped worrying about it quietly accumulate. Not yet worth optimizing.
> Otherwise, it will always seem expensive, because you can multiply an arbitrary period of time to the price. I would frame that the other way—it seems expensive because it is expensive, if you look at the long-term cost. And if you don’t look at the long-term cost, you’re fooling yourself. You’re right that choosing one year as the time unit is arbitrary, but I actually think it’s an overly-generous choice, because…
I’m not suggesting to look at the unit price, either. It’s not about whether it’s one year or one month.
I’m suggesting to put it in the context of other recurring expenses, to get a real sense of how much it affect your finance. A recurring expense has a different impact on your finance than a one-time expense, so it should be evaluated as such.
In fact, $100000 dollar upfront is less affordable than $5000 for 20 months, due to the nature of income and expenses.
Re: IFTTT introduces IFTTT Pro, free accounts now limited to 3 applets
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should compare recurring cost with other recurring costs. Otherwise, it will always seem expensive, because you can multiply an arbitrary period of time to the price. After inspecting my own personal finance, I’ve found that my spent on software subscription is less than 1% of my yearly spent. So, I’ve stopped worrying about it quietly accumulate. Not yet worth optimizing.
Yes, I'm comparing it to the price of a vserver/cloud instance running cronjobs or webhooks. That's what all technical people I know use ifttt for. And usually a 3$ one can run hundreds of these sort of automations, unless you're relying on some of these ifttt-ingrained applets. And before anyone draws the "this takes longer"/labor costs cards.. I only started posting my blog post blurbs to Twitter/Fediverse via cron…
I agree that in the case of IFTTT, the price doesn’t seem to worth it.
Re: IFTTT introduces IFTTT Pro, free accounts now limited to 3 applets
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
They... really don't. Any service with any level of client integration will a) version their APIs, and b) keep things sufficiently stable so that clients aren't constantly breaking.
My experience has been different. I currently maintain about 280 different API integrations. I have a team that does constant maintenance. Usually 1-2 API breaking changes per day is what we see after you get past the stable big ones. Even versioned APIs kick you off the old version pretty regularly. In the upcoming months we have 3 scheduled version bumps that are mandatory as they will discontinue the old version c…
> I currently maintain about 280 different API integrations.
And if I was trying to self-host software that integrated with 280 different APIs, I'd probably have that problem, too.
Most people don't need 280 different APIs. Then need a half dozen? Maybe a dozen? Most of which are likely to be the "stable big ones" that you refer to.
So the rate of breakage in your experience just isn't applicable for anyone doing anything at the hobbyist level.
That's not to say it's maintenance free! But I've been running my own automation with Huginn for a year now, and for what I need, I could not justify $120 per year.
Re: IFTTT introduces IFTTT Pro, free accounts now limited to 3 applets
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
They... really don't. Any service with any level of client integration will a) version their APIs, and b) keep things sufficiently stable so that clients aren't constantly breaking.
My experience has been different. I currently maintain about 280 different API integrations. I have a team that does constant maintenance. Usually 1-2 API breaking changes per day is what we see after you get past the stable big ones. Even versioned APIs kick you off the old version pretty regularly. In the upcoming months we have 3 scheduled version bumps that are mandatory as they will discontinue the old version c…
Seen a lot of ppl complaining at the price on Twitter and offering other smaller, unknown services. People rarely think that these aggregators store your access tokens to all services and they pretty much work as passwords. I would look up these services first and look at their investors - are they well known for their security standards and all. I think their price is fair if running these connections is your thing and you care about your information.
Re: IFTTT introduces IFTTT Pro, free accounts now limited to 3 applets
#60Maybe we're getting a good deal with Spotify, Netflix etc with a 10$/month all-you-can-eat entertainment and it's worth more than that, but IFTTT Pro certainly doesn't feel like a 10$/month service. I registered for the 2$/month service for now, but I just did to give me some time to look for a selfhosted alternative.