It seems they are launching their own products with once-off pricing. On seeing the title I had an image of a company that allowed you to purchase any service for a once-off payment. I am thinking something like, you pay an amount up front, that amount is used to purchase an annuity, the income from the annuity funds the ongoing subscription amount. Kind of like how pensions work. Once-off-pricing-as-a-service.
37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time
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Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time
#82Man, talk about a ship that has sailed. I was 100% anti-subscription pricing for a very long time. Eventually I realized, it's better for the software vendor and the customer. Final Cut Pro used to cost $999 upfront, now a teenager can use Final Cut on their iPad for $7/month, and subscribe only when they need it.
Meanwhile, my mother uses photoshop and illustrator, she can't afford the ever increasing price of subscription services. She's in her 70's. It a distraught for her to think of losing access to her creatively outlet if she was to unable to afford the current subscription model. Subscriptions should be followed up with a perpetual license. She's just glad she forked out on CS2 when it was DVD based.
Have you ever looked at Affinity (https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/)? I bought their universal license a year or so ago and would definitely recommend it over Adobe for anybody who doesn't necessarily need to use Adobe, it's a lifetime license and the product is pretty comparable to Photoshop/Illustrator for whatever a hobbyist could need. I would strongly recommend giving them a look if you haven't already.
Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with the majority of what you wrote, but I'm utterly confused by this statement > For some situations, subscriptions work well - music is one. I've only ever purchased albums. Why in the world would I pay a monthly fee for something I presumably want to listen for for the rest of my life? 10-15$ for a one time purchase is far preferable to a monthly fee of nearly the same. I'm also weary of the idea of the se…
Spotify is, let’s say, $120 a year. After 10 years, let’s say $1200. If an album has 5 songs, and an album costs $12.00 (dunno, middle of your range plus easy math), you can buy 100 albums in that time. 500 songs. After 500 songs for 10 years, your model costs more and offers no value (in fact, it’s less convenient for a dozen reasons) I don’t know about you, but I listen to way more than 500 songs… a year. Let alone…
Except with Spotify the songs can go away, so it's not necessarily equivalent - you don't get access to the same music as long as you're subscribed, you get access to whatever Spotify is currently serving up.
I was an early Spotify user and that annoyed me enough to stop and go back to buying music instead.
BTW, albums usually have more than 5 songs.
Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time
#84Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time
#85Man, talk about a ship that has sailed. I was 100% anti-subscription pricing for a very long time. Eventually I realized, it's better for the software vendor and the customer. Final Cut Pro used to cost $999 upfront, now a teenager can use Final Cut on their iPad for $7/month, and subscribe only when they need it.
I, for one, am very grateful for Adobe's shitty subscription model, as it has allowed companies like Serif to launch fantastic products with perpetual licenses.
Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time
#86A model I would like to see is a variation of "buy once, and you own that software". Any and all fixes would be included. Extensions and features added on subsequent releases are also a "buy once" deal, and the price is calculated based on "distance" to what you own.
This incentivizes development of features a user might want, but also avoids the "lock in" and other predatory practices so many companies deliberately abuse.
Still possible to include other options such as SaaS models. Anyways, one can dream. Oh, wait, if I'm dreaming, societies by and large acknowledge the value of FOSS and fund this on a large scale. The cost of a small road bridge in a small country is enough to fund high level development of software used by the whole world for its whole lifetime.
Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time
#87While I love the idea for simple software services, it doesn't work to support the actual lifetime of the software, though it can work to an extent. Adobe would be a good example of offering a one-time payment. You get a lifetime for that version of the software. However, you'd have to upgrade/pay another fee to upgrade to the next version, perhaps for a reduced price, and this is likely to be many versions. The issue with this type of offering, is that Adobe would have to support those older versions -- for how long?
I had done some research on this topic... writing saas and thinking, "Wow, wouldn't it be a great cash grab to get that $1,000 for a lifetime for my product upfront? It saves money in my users' pockets and it gives me a large immediate sum." I mean, getting 100 people to sign up for a lifetime is $100,000 minus taxes upfront and sounds amazing. In fact, it would probably support the server hosting costs for quite some time. Until it runs out.
I even thought about offering a limited amount. It's especially a bonus for those who you consider investors of your platform. In other words, you are giving me so much money upfront to support this service. In exchange, I am giving you the rights to own whatever I do in the future, free of charge. However, most people "seeing" actual money hit their account every month is more motivation than that one-time payment.
So I had seen how StackCommerce handles this for their creators: you pay once for a limited supply of something. For example, an SEO platform that does scans of your website and suggests recommendations, you might pay $30 once and get 10 of those per month for a lifetime. Then what these companies would do is offer an upgrade or a trial period to try a subscription plan.
And this model can work. Again, the purpose of the one-time is really designed to at least get a user in and trying the service, feeling that they can "own" it. It makes the user feel good because they have something for a lifetime. It makes the creator feel good that someone actually paid for a "lifetime". However, this may be short-lived for several reasons.
You are taking a huge gamble.. for example, I might only need less than those 10 queries per month on my website, so they made their $30 and that's it. I use it but despite their "upgrade me" attempt, I don't care to upgrade. The other major issue is that if you get an interested buyer for your software, like someone who actually wants to own it, and sell it to others, then you now have to disclose that you have one-time paying lifetime users, which is now cutting into their costs and may depreciate your software for the buyer because they still have to support those customers. Of course, they can always say, "new ownership, we'll grandfather you in at this price... pay another... " or whatever, but that may not always work, and piss your customers off, so it has its complications.
The issue with the "pay once" model is that over time, it prevents the creator from having any real means to continue supporting the software and may even kill the motivation. We all have to work. Software is a part of life. Pay me to continue supporting my product, so I can keep providing it to you. So rather than offering a lifetime of the product, I offer a lifetime of reduced early bird subscriptions. I came to the conclusion that I'd rather give $200 off my service yearly than give it away for a lifetime. If I ever sold my software, there is still an attractive recurring. Once that person unsubscribes from the service and resubscribes, they lose their early bird, so the enticement to keep it at that price is to remain subscribed.
It's basically like letting someone live in your house because they paid you a bit more for rent upfront. It might seem great the first few months, but after a few months, maybe a year, maybe more, you'll likely come to regret this mistake.
Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time
#88I’m 40 years old and generally hate subscriptions for desktop software. Local tools that work offline should be “ownable” in the licensed sense.
When I built my indie app “Label LIVE” it was designed to work offline and be paid for ONCE. After a few years there was enough user demand for a less expensive subscription-based license. Today, about 20% of customers purchase the subscription and the rest buy one-time licenses.
Why would someone buy the subscription? Here are some good reasons: 1) seasonal need, 2) monthly price is small enough for company credit card without manager approval, 3) extend the 14 day trial without larger commitment, 4) can’t afford one time license due to cash flow.
Another unintended benefit to me (as a solo developer) is the inexpensive monthly license lowers the demand for pirating and cracking. That’s a nice plus, because it makes the app accessible to all.
Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time
#89> Add up your SaaS subscriptions last year. You should own that shit by now. I know a lot of companies are adopting a more irreverent marketing approach, using words that 20 years ago would have been bleeped out. The swear word itself does not offend me. But to me its use here suggests a lack of restraint, and that makes me form a negative opinion about how the business is managed, especially when the words are comin…
I mean, they lost a good percentage of their top engineers a couple years back because leadership had a pretty serious communications issue with their employees. So not exactly surprised.
Re: 37signals Introduces "Once" - Buy software one time
#90Consumers often talk about one-time payments but balk at the prices that are required to have them while also being able to have the devs pay for their expenses. For example, look at this recent r/apple thread [0], the dev made the perpetual license 2.5x the annual license, which makes sense from a ARPU perspective, but people don't want to pay 70 dollars, even though tools like YouNeedABudget are more expensive. The…
I will also add this excellent breakdown of why pricing SaaS is the way it is, by the OrbStack FAQ page and their section on their business model [0]:
Look, we get it: subscriptions suck. We don't like them either. But we think that subscriptions are the best way to align our incentives with yours, and we want to be transparent about it. If we're not living up to your expectations, then you can cancel.
We also plan to introduce online services to simplify developer workflows, which would not be sustainable to run without subscriptions.
Lifetime licenses are unsustainable. OrbStack's components need continuous updates: compatibility with new macOS versions, Linux kernel, and other assorted pieces, as well as new features to stay competitive.
Major version upgrades incentive us to withhold features for months when they would otherwise be released much faster; we'd rather deliver gradual improvements so you get continuous value. Also, major upgrades have a high risk of introducing breaking changes, bugs, and other issues due to a lack of gradual testing.
1-year updates + fallback perpetual: More or less a yearly subscription in disguise? Just cancel if you don’t want to keep paying. JetBrains does a hybrid of this + subscription — not entirely opposed to it, but it shares a lot of these issues (e.g. incentivizes slower feature development). Realistically, would anyone revert to a year-old version and stay on it forever?
It's a hard problem.