On the business of e-mail clients / Sparrow
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Re: On the business of e-mail clients / Sparrow
#2As a user of the software, I don't much care about the successes of the developers if they come at the cost of the tools I've invested time into switching to.
Sure, this may be a great deal for the developers, and that's fine and good. But that doesn't change the fact that it still harms everyone they convinced to switch to their product. They could have done like Sofa and transferred ownership of the existing products to another developer, or open sourced it to allow others to pick up where they left off. If they had done that, I would've still had a bit of respect for them. Killing development entirely on a product used and loved by many is stupid and, while within their moral rights, a bit of a dick move.
Re: On the business of e-mail clients / Sparrow
#3As a user of the software, I don't much care about the successes of the developers if they come at the cost of the tools I've invested time into switching to. Sure, this may be a great deal for the developers, and that's fine and good. But that doesn't change the fact that it still harms everyone they convinced to switch to their product. They could have done like Sofa and transferred ownership of the existing produc…
The thing is, you're not losing your email client. You paid for Sparrow, the email client, as it was at a given point. If you were happy with your purchase a week ago, you should still be happy with your purchase. You still have the same email client you paid for, you weren't paying for future features.
This acquisition does not mean they're pulling your license to use the application, it does not mean they're disabling or hobbling the application, it simply means they aren't developing more features for it--only bug fixes and maintenance.
Re: On the business of e-mail clients / Sparrow
#4As a user of the software, I don't much care about the successes of the developers if they come at the cost of the tools I've invested time into switching to. Sure, this may be a great deal for the developers, and that's fine and good. But that doesn't change the fact that it still harms everyone they convinced to switch to their product. They could have done like Sofa and transferred ownership of the existing produc…
"I don't much care about the successes of the developers if they come at the cost of the tools I've invested time switching into"
It's a bit silly to say that you don't care about their interests, if they come at the expense of your interests, but you think that them having what is arguably a milder version of that same attitude (i.e. that they value their own financial interests over your time invested in their product) is a "dick move".
Re: On the business of e-mail clients / Sparrow
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Re: On the business of e-mail clients / Sparrow
#6As a user of the software, I don't much care about the successes of the developers if they come at the cost of the tools I've invested time into switching to. Sure, this may be a great deal for the developers, and that's fine and good. But that doesn't change the fact that it still harms everyone they convinced to switch to their product. They could have done like Sofa and transferred ownership of the existing produc…
"I don't much care about the successes of the developers if they come at the cost of the tools I've invested time switching into" It's a bit silly to say that you don't care about their interests, if they come at the expense of your interests, but you think that them having what is arguably a milder version of that same attitude (i.e. that they value their own financial interests over your time invested in their prod…
How is that silly? It goes both ways. As a developer you might not care about the happiness of users if they are using your software without a license. In this case they valued their own interests in spite of the users' commitment. A dick move in my book.
Re: On the business of e-mail clients / Sparrow
#7As a user of the software, I don't much care about the successes of the developers if they come at the cost of the tools I've invested time into switching to. Sure, this may be a great deal for the developers, and that's fine and good. But that doesn't change the fact that it still harms everyone they convinced to switch to their product. They could have done like Sofa and transferred ownership of the existing produc…
The thing is, you're not losing your email client. You paid for Sparrow, the email client, as it was at a given point. If you were happy with your purchase a week ago, you should still be happy with your purchase. You still have the same email client you paid for, you weren't paying for future features. This acquisition does not mean they're pulling your license to use the application, it does not mean they're disabl…
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Re: On the business of e-mail clients / Sparrow
#8As a user of the software, I don't much care about the successes of the developers if they come at the cost of the tools I've invested time into switching to. Sure, this may be a great deal for the developers, and that's fine and good. But that doesn't change the fact that it still harms everyone they convinced to switch to their product. They could have done like Sofa and transferred ownership of the existing produc…
The thing is, you're not losing your email client. You paid for Sparrow, the email client, as it was at a given point. If you were happy with your purchase a week ago, you should still be happy with your purchase. You still have the same email client you paid for, you weren't paying for future features. This acquisition does not mean they're pulling your license to use the application, it does not mean they're disabl…
> You still have the same email client you paid for, you weren't paying for future features.
Although I agree, if you look through the other Sparrow threads there's a strong theme of "I paid with the expectation of future improvements". And that doesn't seem entirely unreasonable, given how quickly they'd shipped improvements before.
It feels like there's some larger argument here around what exactly you're buying when you pay for software. After all, many small vendors say things like "pay us so we can continue our work", which certainly suggests you'll be getting more in future.
Re: On the business of e-mail clients / Sparrow
#9The "it is working right now, you didn't lose anything" line keeps popping up.
What if I'm not completely happy, it doesn't work as expected, there are bugs to be fixed, performance to improve? And what happens when there is a major change in the OS that requires significant updates to continue working?
Is bringing the SaaS model to the desktop a solution? It's only going to make things worse for users, now you don't even own a copy of what you bought; if it's gone, it's really gone and you're never going to see that software again. Companies have thrived on "one-off" sales for decades. Want more money? Develop something new, the work is already paid off.
Re: On the business of e-mail clients / Sparrow
#10Offtopic: made me proud to see gist.io on a submission domain.