That's a really "proprietary software " point of view. You pay the developers, the price they decided, and you expect bug fixes and new features. As pointed, this model has many limits. I really prefer the free software one, where I am free to try, use, contribute, so then I can estimate myself how worth is a software, and give an appropriate one time or regular donation. This model is so much better.
Subscription fatigue and related musings
51–60 of 123 posts
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> I would much rather have 20 apps that I pay $10/mo/ea for than to buy one new $600 Right, and that's a fair preference, as long as we understand that some people have different preferences. I'm in completely opposite camp - I'm paying ridiculous amount of money a month for apps that I use once or twice a year. I am also paying money for apps I use all the time but that I'll lose the moment I stop paying. I have fr…
It is almost game theory: The SaaS wants to extract as much value as possible. They don't know YOUR individual use case or threshold, but they need to price in a general way so that based on the model of reality, the most revenue will come in (+ whatever other goals). You want to get as much value as possible. If they know that you use it twice a year, they could offer you a special price. But doing that for just you…
I'm sure differential pricing would be more efficient but there aren't any easy ways to do it. Maybe developers can advertise discount codes on sites where cheapskates hang out. Can you imagine the backlash on HN if it turned out apple track how much you use apps and increased the price if they thought you were likely to find the app useful?
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#53Subscriptions align developer and user interests and produce better products and less wasted money in the long run. One-time up front purchases only reward developers for expanding the target market of their product; whether the product improves over time has no bearing on revenue. From a developer’s perspective, the one-time price should be the CLV of what they’d get with a subscription. For users, that means much h…
SaaS and thus subscriptions makes sense when the software itself is offering a service. The example I always use is office365, or Gsuite. They offer storage, email, and online access to the office suites and email. It's "value add" over just paying a tax for the privilege of running code, and is imo a better proposition than having to pay outright for a static version of the tools.
The same is true for like Salesforce or other big name SaaS.
What rubs me the wrong way is when what are effectively utilities try and market themselves through a subscription. There were a couple image processing tools posted here recently that effectively just did some image transforms, and they wanted a subscription fee. I don't think that's a reasonable model, there is no reason why I'd want to pay a recurring fee for what amounts to a neat script. I think there's currently much of trying to cram utility software that doesn't provide a service into a service model
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#54Some apps that I purchased before in full, later turned into subscription based apps(giving me a year of free subscription). This made me feel bad and I lost my warm and fizzy feelings towards these apps. That said, I understand why they are doing it. It doesn't make sense whatsoever to receive one time payment and provide updates forever. Also, despite that people claim that they want "one time payment apps" that do…
It's interesting that in your thoughtful survey of alternatives, you don't consider simply challenging the assumption "and provide updates forever". Subscriptions do indeed fund perpetual development in a way that one time purchases don't, but the implication that comes along with that is that features are to be added along the way. If you only released maintenance patches, you subscriber satisfaction would dry up re…
That makes a lot of sense for something like a lot of games. Develop it, provide maintenance/patches for a while, and when it pretty much breaks on an OS upgrade after a few years? Most people who cared got their enjoyment out of it. No reason to support ad infinitum.
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#55[deleted]
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#56My biggest issue with App Store subscriptions is that I'm effectively only renting the software, as opposed to buying into future updates. If I cancel my subscription to a JetBrains IDE or the database client I use, I get to use the most recent version I paid for forever. Those are more like auto-opting into paid upgrades, which I'm totally fine with. For an iOS app, if I cancel my subscription I'm left with nothing.…
>I get to continue to use the most recent version I paid money for forever Or until it stops working with an OS upgrade/update.
I'm still using an ancient copy of Navionics on a 1st or 2nd gen iPad (that was gifted to me from my mother in law, because it wouldn't run any of her Instagram stuff) on my boat to get around San Francisco Bay. The depth near the shore changes by a foot or two from year to year but otherwise it's fine for charting a course from the marina to the float-up bar.
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#57There are several pieces of software I would gladly buy if only I could, but I've gotten to the point where when it gets to the subscription fee page I go find something else. Especially in the case of rarely used and nice to have software I am not interested in paying in perpetuity for something I may only use a few times a year.
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#58This article misses the elephant in the room: Apple. For years after the App Store launched, developers asked for an integrated way to provide upgrade pricing to help support major upgrades. Instead, they usually had to resort to creating an entirely new entry in the App Store. How many customers were lost because they didn't know they had to go back to the Store to download a separate app named Thing 2? And how many…
> Unlike paid upgrades, a subscription guarantees recurring revenue not only for the developer, but for Apple themselves. Actually, Apple would get more revenue the other way. They only take 15% on subscription revenue after the first year.
What Apple earns from fees from $x per month per user in recurring revenue is greater than the fees for $y per user per upgrade for certain values of x and y depending on the number of users in each category. How do you know what you is true?
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#59Subscriptions align developer and user interests and produce better products and less wasted money in the long run. One-time up front purchases only reward developers for expanding the target market of their product; whether the product improves over time has no bearing on revenue. From a developer’s perspective, the one-time price should be the CLV of what they’d get with a subscription. For users, that means much h…
> Subscriptions align developer and user interests and produce better products and less wasted money in the long run.
This is incorrect, as evidenced by the entire history of software development before the App Store, as well as software now that is sold outside the App Store.
When developers can choose their own business model, outside the constraints out the App Store, they overwhelming do not choose subscriptions. Indie devs outside the Mac App Store still largely follow the traditional upfront paid with paid upgrade model.
The subscription model was started mostly by BigCos such as a Adobe and Microsoft, who had a monopolistic market share for their software suites and thus could bleed a captive audience for almost unlimited amounts of money.
The ahistoricalness of the claim "subscriptions were always the only viable business model" really bothers me. It feels like a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. Cupertino Complex?
Let's call it what it is: software rental. Long-term rental is almost never a good deal for consumers over ownership.
> One-time up front purchases only reward developers for expanding the target market of their product; whether the product improves over time has no bearing on revenue.
This seems ridiculous to me, as a developer. Improving your product over time is one of the most important ways you can expand the target market of your product. I mean, why do you think Apple keeps making a new iPhone ever year? Were they going to keep expanding their market by still selling the 2007 model of iPhone in 2023?
Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I get to continue to use the most recent version I paid money for forever Or until it stops working with an OS upgrade/update.
I'm still using an ancient copy of Navionics on a 1st or 2nd gen iPad (that was gifted to me from my mother in law, because it wouldn't run any of her Instagram stuff) on my boat to get around San Francisco Bay. The depth near the shore changes by a foot or two from year to year but otherwise it's fine for charting a course from the marina to the float-up bar.
Cases vary of course but a lot of apps will break at some point if they've been orphaned and there's an OS upgrade (or, as other comments note, an online service has been sunsetted).
I expect the majority of apps I downloaded on my 1G iPad would not work today on a current iPad if not upgraded but if there's no server component, they'll presumably continue to work on the original platform.