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Subscription fatigue and related musings

morrick.me

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Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings

#81

Post by swatcoder »

brookst wrote: post #15

Subscriptions 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…

> whether the product improves over time has no bearing on revenue

Only very rarely do I want my software to “improve over time”. That’s code for feature accumulation, which is essentially a negative for existing users but helps publishers expand their market.

Generally, there’s something I want to do. I find software that does it in a way I like. I want to have that software, exactly as I encountered it, so that I can do the thing that I want to do in the way that I want to do it.

Changing the interface every 18 months to accommodate the 217 new and irrelevant-to-me things it does is not usually what I was looking for.

Occasionally, there is a specific new thing I want to do and I go looking for software that does it. If it’s from a publisher whose work I liked previously, I’ll likely turn to them first and will decide if I like what they’re now selling.

But again, that’s me and my goal looking for software when I need it. Adding new noise to the thing I paid for (or am paying for) is almost always a nuisance and inconvenience that removes value from my prior choice.

Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings

#82

Post by candiddevmike »

thenipper wrote: post #31
candiddevmike wrote: post #3

I build apps with subscriptions (like https://homechart.app ) and this is why I offer a lifetime subscription/one time payment. To me, the monthly/yearly option gives users more of an "extended trial" option, and they'll hopefully see that it makes sense to just go lifetime. One problem I have (perhaps self inflicted) is that I do not offer my lifetime subscription on app stores. 30% is a huge cut of what is effectiv…

Looking at this your pricing strategy is totally reasonable. Like I’ll try something like that out and if it’s worth it pay just the lifetime cost. Question: I couldn’t find this with a quick skim of the site on my phone. Do you have an API?

Thank you, that's quite reassuring actually. There is an API, here are our docs: https://web.homechart.app/api/docs. There's also a python library: https://github.com/candiddev/homechart-python.

Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings

#83

Post by nunez »

Agree with the author regarding subscription abuse.

I am still furious about Readdle's decision to make removing their built-in "Sent with Spark" call-to-action signature in Spark locked behind a subscription. Sure, I could afford the subscription, but no, I won't support subscription abuse like this.

Apple's gotta rein it in at some point. Will they? Probably not unless the EU forces them. But it'd be cool if they did.

Generally, I am okay with subscriptions, as they are clearly more economically viable for developers than shrink-wrapped software was.

Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings

#84

Post by nunez »

nirav72 wrote: post #16

Few years ago I bought a drive partition manager tool for windows. I only used it a few times over the years. Recently I installed a new primary drive on my gaming machine. Downloaded the latest binary from the vendors site and tried to put in the license key. Nope, wouldn’t activate. So i contacted their support and their response was that I had to pay the new yearly subscription to use the latest version. So I aske…

This is a perfect example of subscription abuse! It costs that company nothing (except storage, which is cheap) to host old binaries for those that have licenses, even privately (for people who can prove their purchase). They don't even have to support the outdated software. They're just being greedy.

Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings

#85

Post by barbazoo »

hgsgm wrote: post #73
wafriedemann wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bean counter is not enforcing strategies that make him less money overall, that's certain.

No business CEO is trying to make less money.

Maybe, in the short term, to make more money in the long term.

Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings

#86

Post by goosedragons »

hgsgm wrote: post #74
lapcat wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

Software was incredibly expensive before the subscription era.

Was it? It's not really cheaper now. If you're lucky the subscription price is similar to the price of the standalone price after X years, usually how often they'd release an update. Except with the subscription you can't NOT update if the current version meets your needs.

I think of a few apps I've bought that moved to the subscription model where the subscription is several times the price of the app in a year.

Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings

#87

Post by blibble »

cglong wrote: post #17

This 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.

I just buy nothing at all from the app store

yeah I'd like a night sky app, happy to pay a one off fee (even $20) and for upgrades

but not a monthly subscription

Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings

#88

Post by scantron4 »

swatcoder wrote: post #81
brookst wrote: post #15

Subscriptions 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…

> whether the product improves over time has no bearing on revenue Only very rarely do I want my software to “improve over time”. That’s code for feature accumulation, which is essentially a negative for existing users but helps publishers expand their market. Generally, there’s something I want to do. I find software that does it in a way I like. I want to have that software, exactly as I encountered it, so that I c…

Meditation timer this post is about you!

Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings

#89

Post by windex »

Large corps love subscriptions. The platforms they create impose this upon developers too. I get very exhausted with the never ending stream of payments and T&C updates. Moving to the desktop has been a way out, the other has been clubbing subscriptions and outright cancelling even those that seem useful but have lower functionality alternatives in favor of having better control over my finances.

Re: Subscription fatigue and related musings

#90

Post by moritz »

s1mplicissimus wrote: post #65
swatcoder wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You seem to imply that "the ever-growing total cost of ownership" of subscriptions is not ever-growing for the single-purchase model. Over the years I've noticed that many a software I once 1-off purchased is not supported anymore on my latest (security patched) OS. While technically possible, it's not practical to run that old software on the old OS (corporate security foo, old OS only running on unavailable hardwar…

It‘s fascinating to me, the lenghts SaaS devs go to make themselves believe rentsomeware is sth people “want” or that is “beneficial” to customers.
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