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Curious, as someone in a similar position as Textexpander: Don't you think TE will be able to provide with more, stable updates thanks to the stable income a su

Curious, as someone in a similar position as Textexpander: Don't you think TE will be able to provide with more, stable updates thanks to the stable income a subscription provides? Selling software is a lot like living under the gun constantly . The sentiment seems to be that people use TE a lot, daily. Why not support the developer(s) behind this service?

jaredklewis 11y ago
Sure. But I think the issue is more that the total cost of ownership for TE has just greatly increased and the payment model changed. People aren't upset because smile is trying to make good software and a profit. They're mad because they feel there's been a bait and switch.
Kalium 11y ago
It may provide the income stream, but it doesn't provide the same incentive to deliver. And strong-arming your customers is basically never a good move.
lox 11y ago
I think the point is that people don't particularly care whether TE will be able to provide more stable updates, because they are fine with the current functionality at the current price. Perhaps in this case TE should have done a better job of positioning the value that would come from their ability to deliver more stable updates, etc. I'm not familiar with TE, but do you think it's users would view that it was unreliable and needing regular updates or new features?
coldtea 11y ago
>Curious, as someone in a similar position as Textexpander: Don't you think TE will be able to provide with more, stable updates thanks to the stable income a subscription provides? What updates? Most updates are fluff even in something as complex and demanding as Photoshop and Word. TextExpander is a glorified text-replacement tool. They'll just start cramming more crap in to call it "updated".
kstrauser 11y ago
> Don't you think TE will be able to provide with more, stable updates thanks to the stable income a subscription provides? Sure, but there's a return on investment calculation. If TE bumped that to $50 a month, they'd be able to make lots of stable updates. They might even be able to justify it with "but look at how much time/money we're saving you!" But psychologically, it's a small tool that does very little compared to other things that cost less. The direct competition is priced in the $5-$25 forever range, and other apps in its price range are vastly more complex. Even if it made financial sense for me to pay 10x its current price, I'm not going to shell out that much for what I perceive as a convenient-but-replaceable little utility.
WaltPurvis 11y ago
TextExpander has been around for a long time. I'm using version 5, i.e., the fourth major version upgrade. There's little or nothing else that needs to be added to the product at this point. They charged an upgrade fee for new major versions. IIRC, it was $19.95 to upgrade from v4 to v5. I didn't mind paying that, even if the new features were minor (I can't even remember what they were -- and I think I actually upgraded only because v4 wouldn't work anymore on a newer version of OS X, though my recollection could be wrong). That's the life-cycle of software products sold on the traditional model. At some point you need to realize you've wrung all the money you can out of upgrades, and if the revenue from new sales and (increasingly rare) major upgrades isn't enough to live on, well, you better develop some new and different products. Of course it's better for you as a developer if you can convince people to pay you $60 per year in perpetuity for your small utility app, rather than just collecting a one-time $30 sale and occasional upgrade fees, but just because that's your super-dream-fantasy business model doesn't mean it makes any sense for customers.

jaredklewis 11y ago

Sure. But I think the issue is more that the total cost of ownership for TE has just greatly increased and the payment model changed. People aren't upset because smile is trying to make good software and a profit. They're mad because they feel there's been a bait and switch.

Kalium 11y ago

It may provide the income stream, but it doesn't provide the same incentive to deliver. And strong-arming your customers is basically never a good move.

lox 11y ago

I think the point is that people don't particularly care whether TE will be able to provide more stable updates, because they are fine with the current functionality at the current price. Perhaps in this case TE should have done a better job of positioning the value that would come from their ability to deliver more stable updates, etc. I'm not familiar with TE, but do you think it's users would view that it was unreliable and needing regular updates or new features?

coldtea 11y ago

>Curious, as someone in a similar position as Textexpander: Don't you think TE will be able to provide with more, stable updates thanks to the stable income a subscription provides? What updates? Most updates are fluff even in something as complex and demanding as Photoshop and Word. TextExpander is a glorified text-replacement tool. They'll just start cramming more crap in to call it "updated".

kstrauser 11y ago

> Don't you think TE will be able to provide with more, stable updates thanks to the stable income a subscription provides? Sure, but there's a return on investment calculation. If TE bumped that to $50 a month, they'd be able to make lots of stable updates. They might even be able to justify it with "but look at how much time/money we're saving you!" But psychologically, it's a small tool that does very little compared to other things that cost less. The direct competition is priced in the $5-$25 forever range, and other apps in its price range are vastly more complex. Even if it made financial sense for me to pay 10x its current price, I'm not going to shell out that much for what I perceive as a convenient-but-replaceable little utility.

WaltPurvis 11y ago

TextExpander has been around for a long time. I'm using version 5, i.e., the fourth major version upgrade. There's little or nothing else that needs to be added to the product at this point. They charged an upgrade fee for new major versions. IIRC, it was $19.95 to upgrade from v4 to v5. I didn't mind paying that, even if the new features were minor (I can't even remember what they were -- and I think I actually upgraded only because v4 wouldn't work anymore on a newer version of OS X, though my recollection could be wrong). That's the life-cycle of software products sold on the traditional model. At some point you need to realize you've wrung all the money you can out of upgrades, and if the revenue from new sales and (increasingly rare) major upgrades isn't enough to live on, well, you better develop some new and different products. Of course it's better for you as a developer if you can convince people to pay you $60 per year in perpetuity for your small utility app, rather than just collecting a one-time $30 sale and occasional upgrade fees, but just because that's your super-dream-fantasy business model doesn't mean it makes any sense for customers.