"we initially made a higher priced plan to get more from our customers for the same, since we'd have supported all our customers anyway since broken or dated software would have put us out of business. But now that we're commercially stable, it's time to moralize about how unfair a burden our voluntarily offerings on the market are to ourselves!"
> The manufacturer keeps working to improve the quality, and people keep paying them for this. "Buy a software license once for all time" is not analogous to this.
I agree, why I feel ye olde numbered software releases worked fine. I even think subscription based software is fine if the yearly subscription price is at or below what the old numbered version costs.
What happens these days is software converts to a subscription model and the developer decides to jack up the yearly subscription price to 2-3x the old yearly price.
> My current favorite business model is the "You're buying the current version and [years] of updates." Then typically you'll get some discount to renew your "[years] more of updates."
Fully agree, I think this fair for the customer as well as the supplier.
I know enterprise customers demand guarantees for [years] of updates, but I think in the B2C world "You're buying the current version and updates as long as we provide them." is also a fair alternative. A good example for this kind of offering is the Reaper DAW.
This model is not as good for the customer as your version but as an indy developer I'd rather not promise [years] of support even if it is highly likely that I will provide it.
>As soon as you pay for software nowadays you are a loser, in general.
That is so true! I buy'd a Lifetime License for Insync and Jaikoz, Insync's lifetime was 4 Years (then they changed the license for updates) and Jaikoz "Lifetime" was 6 Years, change the name of the Software and split it in two different product and the 'old' one was not maintained anymore.
Yes, but that doesn't require I give up freedom or control. The number of years a vendor provides upgrades adds value to the product (i.e. long term commitment or not). The cost of a car is so ridiculous any more that expecting a lifetime of software updates is probably a rational demand from a consumer.
> but a lot if for safety reasons
Yes, so? I wrote software for vascular ultrasound devices in the 80s. Those could do really bad things to humans. Upgrades were provided for free and accounted for in the price of the product because... SAFETY IS NOT OPTIONAL and should never be relegated to a subscription where if you stop paying YOU ARE UNSAFE.
> This attitude is inspired by the desire to sell more, and often times, it means to sell more unwanted crap, where customers are trapped by the "package deal", where they are either forced to update to gain useless features and the headache resulted from various inconsistencies and defects coming from the last update, or they are unable to get the product at all (because the provider cancels support or wouldn't sell older versions etc.)
Selling more is how service providers are able to sell their generic service at a lower price than the cost you would incur by building it in-house. In other words, being forced to upgrade to accommodate features that other users want is the price you pay for sharing the development cost with those other users. That's not shady.
That seems like "hey, we develop our software the worst way so that it's always full of bugs, but if you want less bugs, buy our subscription". Complete conflict of interest vs making quality and well-tested software in the first place.
> I wouldn't expect them to keep updating it because it obviously makes them no money.
What do you mean by this exactly? There are always new customers to sell to, so of course you can make money by updating your product.
Will the buyer continue to receive free software updates forever? No, probably not. Eventually they may have to pay an upgrade fee. But the great part about upgrade fees compared to subscription is that the choice and timing of whether or not to upgrade is in the buyer's hands. Whereas with a subscription, it's a forced update, with the timing determined by the software developer, not the buyer. You pay yearly, or the software stops working now.
> I'll never in my life pay $30 / year for something like this, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy a perpetual license for $150 upfront if it were useful to me.
I felt the same way for a long time, but then I realized that I was paying so much to upgrade my “perpetual license” software to the new version every year or 2 that it might as well have been subscription software
I do prefer subscription software that lets me use old versions that were available when my subscription was still active, though. JetBrains is a good example of this.
On the other hand, I now have several old 32-bit x86 Mac programs that I can’t run because the OS moved on. The Windows situation is much better and I have some extremely old engineering tools that still work just fine.
Because before they had to make the product a lot better to sell you on an upgrade.
> The alternative is a dead company.
Were software companies dead before 2013?
Of course, it is legal and fair for them to run this particular business model. The other poster is just expressing that as a consumer they like it less.
>It is especially ridiculous in the context of industry where not upgrading is seen as irresponsible.
Upgrading without due diligence, and without reason is as irresponsible an not upgrading when the need to becomes manifest.
Running "unsafe" versions of software in conditions where their unsafe nature is not open to exploitation is a completely legitmate action. If you upgrade just because there's a later version available, you're rolling the dice as needlessly as the fellow that'll get around to it once he has time to read the code.
Note: I'm aware of, and also cherish the no warranties explicit or implied clause. However, In real life, where social relationships do matter, I don't see this escape clause standing the test of time as society catches up the technology.
Because I shouldn't have to retroactively pay for a period I didn't use a product and the natural thing for me to assume was my status as a previous customer/license holder was what enabled me to an upgrade with the advertised "year's" worth of upgrades? Because that's how upgrade licenses work for other software products? (Windows/Office, other stuff I've used.)
They can define a license however they want, it's just up to me whether I find it worthwhile, and I didn't.
But at least in those days I had the option of continuing to use the older version after it expired.
> Call me cynical, but from a dollars point of view this seems to be what customers want.
I'm right there with you, except I don't give "customers" that much credit.
Most people left to their own devices (ie, not brainwashed by marketing) will just stick with "good enough." But it's less fun (and less profitable) to fix and maintain old code, so companies induce "demand" by marketing. And if you're a company who decides to do the adult thing and not play that game, you'll be creamed by the ones that do.
>There's no thought put into long-term stability or serviceability of software.
Why should there be? How does this improve short-term profits? Customers are happy to pay for buggy software that gets replaced with something even worse in a few years, so why worry about making quality code?
>but if the software isn't performing its basic needs, what are you even shipping?
Something that makes lots of profit, despite being of terrible quality.
Care to elaborate? Do you mean that newer software comes with mandatory maintenance costs that users are unable to unwilling to bear? In that case, paying for security patches and maintenance should be palatable to customers in this context, shouldn't it? Or did you mean something else?
"we initially made a higher priced plan to get more from our customers for the same, since we'd have supported all our customers anyway since broken or dated software would have put us out of business. But now that we're commercially stable, it's time to moralize about how unfair a burden our voluntarily offerings on the market are to ourselves!"
reply