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"We, like many others, have developed “subscription fatigue” when it comes to buying software. A single Vexlio license is available to purchase for a one-time p

"We, like many others, have developed “subscription fatigue” when it comes to buying software. A single Vexlio license is available to purchase for a one-time payment of $25.99 USD. No subscription and no recurring payments are required." I almost want to give you money just to encourage this kind of behavior.

nathancahill 9y ago
...and then lament when you have to pay again for v2. Or when the software falls out of maintenance because there's no cash flow.
- mcphage 9y ago
  > ...and then lament when you have to pay again for v2. Or not pay for v2 because you still have v1 and it works. Or pay for v2 because it has some new features you'd like.
  - teleclimber 9y ago
    Or be forced to pay for v2 because you upgraded your OS and now v1 doesn't work anymore.
    - colecut 9y ago
      I estimate paying $25 each breaking OS update would be better than paying a subscription, that should be no more than every couple years? Unless the subscription is less than a dollar a month.
    - snoman 9y ago
      Or run it in a VM, or compatibility mode, if I don't want to pay for an update.
    - ghrifter 9y ago
      Just never leave the house, never build anything, never do anything ever.
    - ghrifter 9y ago
      Just never leave the house, never build anything, never do anything ever.
    - mistermann 9y ago
      Or have to abandon your cloud photo archive that you've been happily paying full price for despite not even uploading any new photos because "we don't support Windows Server 2003 any more" (even though everything continues to run perfectly fine). (Crashplan, if you're wondering.)
  - pmontra 9y ago
    Or a new file format for those new features and v1 won't read it. I've seen that years ago ;-) Ok, there isn't a perfect way to pay for software. Developers usually pick the one that suits them better and it can change along the years. The constant is that they need money to cover their expenses.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  It sucks either way. Selling software in subscription model encourages shitty business models - like turning what should be an off-line product into a cloud-based service. And that's just a tiny step from analytics and selling user data. Either way, users lose. One-time purchase means probably less software (and less innovation in the space). Subscriptions means more shitty software and user-hostile business models. Still, as it is, the expected lifetime of a piece of software is usually much longer than the expected lifetime of a SaaS business. So if something seems like a tool I might frequently use, I'd much prefer to buy it than to rent it - there's a better chance the company will abandon it or die than that the bit rot will set.
onion2k 9y ago
That is nice, but the following section that mentions a free "limited trial version" really should explain in what way it's limited. Total time, or number of uses, or crippled so I can't save ... there are many ways to do a limited trial. Some are better than others.
- ttd 9y ago
  This is a great point, I will definitely add a blurb in that section. The trial version is not time-limited, but it is limited in two ways: each drawing can have a maximum of 30 distinct objects, and exported images/PDFs have a small watermark along the bottom edge. Save/load/import/export are otherwise unrestricted.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    If you accepted Bitcoin, I'd buy a license. It's doable with Stripe.
felipellrocha 9y ago
I could write a SaaS that manages your subscriptions for you for a small fee of $5/mo! How about that?
- ReverseCold 9y ago
  You joke, but that's not a bad idea for a product.
  - paulddraper 9y ago
    Resellers are pretty common in enterprise land. They'll manage all your subscriptions and give you a consolidated bill each month.
- kennydude 9y ago
  SetApp is a subscription offering which works really well on Mac
- rajnathani 9y ago
  That's what Zuora does. They are pretty successful and are expected to IPO soon.
StavrosK 9y ago
I agree, when desktop software asks for a subscription, it annoys me greatly. Fuck Autodesk in particular, because Fusion needs me to log in, won't let me save my files anywhere but their annoying "cloud", and Meshmixer had the audacity to not let me use the software because there was an updated version available. Literally, the two options were "update" and "quit".
- doug1001 9y ago
  this is my view towards subscriptions, particularly now that i use an iphone app to manage them. in fact there are (at least) a couple of start-ups focused on subscription (recurring payment) management. The one i use is Trim. this app is useful and paid for itself by a factor of 10 just in the first month but here's the thing: a very large number of vendors have made their subscriptions resistant to cancellation by these "subscription managers"--even after Trim contacts them, the response usually something like "only cancel the following the tedious manual steps" which even after you do it, you have to check again next month to be sure your cancellation request was honored
- jweather 9y ago
  Meshmixer gets extra hate from me because the update no longer worked with my graphics drivers, and there is no mechanism to run the older version that was working perfectly before they broke it.

nathancahill 9y ago

...and then lament when you have to pay again for v2. Or when the software falls out of maintenance because there's no cash flow.

mcphage 9y ago
> ...and then lament when you have to pay again for v2. Or not pay for v2 because you still have v1 and it works. Or pay for v2 because it has some new features you'd like.
- teleclimber 9y ago
  Or be forced to pay for v2 because you upgraded your OS and now v1 doesn't work anymore.
  - colecut 9y ago
    I estimate paying $25 each breaking OS update would be better than paying a subscription, that should be no more than every couple years? Unless the subscription is less than a dollar a month.
  - snoman 9y ago
    Or run it in a VM, or compatibility mode, if I don't want to pay for an update.
  - ghrifter 9y ago
    Just never leave the house, never build anything, never do anything ever.
  - ghrifter 9y ago
    Just never leave the house, never build anything, never do anything ever.
  - mistermann 9y ago
    Or have to abandon your cloud photo archive that you've been happily paying full price for despite not even uploading any new photos because "we don't support Windows Server 2003 any more" (even though everything continues to run perfectly fine). (Crashplan, if you're wondering.)
- pmontra 9y ago
  Or a new file format for those new features and v1 won't read it. I've seen that years ago ;-) Ok, there isn't a perfect way to pay for software. Developers usually pick the one that suits them better and it can change along the years. The constant is that they need money to cover their expenses.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
TeMPOraL 9y ago
It sucks either way. Selling software in subscription model encourages shitty business models - like turning what should be an off-line product into a cloud-based service. And that's just a tiny step from analytics and selling user data. Either way, users lose. One-time purchase means probably less software (and less innovation in the space). Subscriptions means more shitty software and user-hostile business models. Still, as it is, the expected lifetime of a piece of software is usually much longer than the expected lifetime of a SaaS business. So if something seems like a tool I might frequently use, I'd much prefer to buy it than to rent it - there's a better chance the company will abandon it or die than that the bit rot will set.

onion2k 9y ago

That is nice, but the following section that mentions a free "limited trial version" really should explain in what way it's limited. Total time, or number of uses, or crippled so I can't save ... there are many ways to do a limited trial. Some are better than others.

ttd 9y ago
This is a great point, I will definitely add a blurb in that section. The trial version is not time-limited, but it is limited in two ways: each drawing can have a maximum of 30 distinct objects, and exported images/PDFs have a small watermark along the bottom edge. Save/load/import/export are otherwise unrestricted.
- mirimir 9y ago
  If you accepted Bitcoin, I'd buy a license. It's doable with Stripe.

felipellrocha 9y ago

I could write a SaaS that manages your subscriptions for you for a small fee of $5/mo! How about that?

ReverseCold 9y ago
You joke, but that's not a bad idea for a product.
- paulddraper 9y ago
  Resellers are pretty common in enterprise land. They'll manage all your subscriptions and give you a consolidated bill each month.
kennydude 9y ago
SetApp is a subscription offering which works really well on Mac
rajnathani 9y ago
That's what Zuora does. They are pretty successful and are expected to IPO soon.

StavrosK 9y ago

I agree, when desktop software asks for a subscription, it annoys me greatly. Fuck Autodesk in particular, because Fusion needs me to log in, won't let me save my files anywhere but their annoying "cloud", and Meshmixer had the audacity to not let me use the software because there was an updated version available. Literally, the two options were "update" and "quit".

doug1001 9y ago
this is my view towards subscriptions, particularly now that i use an iphone app to manage them. in fact there are (at least) a couple of start-ups focused on subscription (recurring payment) management. The one i use is Trim. this app is useful and paid for itself by a factor of 10 just in the first month but here's the thing: a very large number of vendors have made their subscriptions resistant to cancellation by these "subscription managers"--even after Trim contacts them, the response usually something like "only cancel the following the tedious manual steps" which even after you do it, you have to check again next month to be sure your cancellation request was honored
jweather 9y ago
Meshmixer gets extra hate from me because the update no longer worked with my graphics drivers, and there is no mechanism to run the older version that was working perfectly before they broke it.