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For me one part of "growing up" in sw engineering has been that I have started to want to pay reasonable amounts for things I use actively. I see it as an insu
by reitanqild 10y ago
For me one part of "growing up" in sw engineering has been that I have started to want to pay reasonable amounts for things I use actively.
I see it as an insurance for us users: as long as a significant amount of users are paying keeping the service as-is is a valid alternative for the owners.
When it becomes free I fear that someone suddenly starts looking at it as a cost center, I mean: all the benefits you mention seems to be possible without operating an end-user service.
Disclaimer: not a paying Instapaper customer, but I am a paying lastpass customer and a paying google docs customer etc etc.
- canes123456 10y agoBeing a service that charges money does not guarantee a longer life.
- ChefDenominator 10y agoGuarantee? No. Improve the odds? Yes.
- kbutler 10y agoI don't have a statistical survey, but I have anecdotal evidence of paid services going away, increasing in price dramatically, or remaining the same. Same with free services. I can't honestly say that the paid-for services I use are more likely to remain available than my non-paid services. The key factor appears to be a viable business model, but that's impossible to evaluate from the outside (and sometimes from the inside).