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What bothers me about subscription pricing is how expensive it invariably turns out to be considering the amount of use I get out of a program. I would much rat

by todd8 9y ago

What bothers me about subscription pricing is how expensive it invariably turns out to be considering the amount of use I get out of a program. I would much rather purchase a program outright. Furthermore, some subscriptions seem to be intentionally hard to turn off (WSJ news and Adobe products). Professionally, I use Linux, MacOS, Windows, Emacs, programming languages, and TeX a great deal and they are all extremely powerful and end up being either free or just part of the expense of having a computer. I don't mind paying for IntelliJ, its a great product, and I get regular use out of it and JetBrain's other tools. I also don't mind paying for on-line services: Arq backup, Dropbox, etc. These seem to be worth it. My problem is that I'm a nerd and I like using software. I'm unhappy using low end software and so I end up buying crazy expensive software that gets very infrequent use: Mathematica, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Acrobat Scanner/OCR/X Pro, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, QuickBooks, SPSS, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Microsoft Word, Excel, the list goes on and on. It even includes games like World of Warcraft. It would make more sense if this high end software was priced per days of use not for the number of months that I've owned it. I've owned many of these products since they were installed via 3 1/4 inch floppys. Not all of these are sold as subscriptions but they might as well be because of the way the expensive upgrades work (e.g. Mathematica and Adobe products).

chasing 9y ago
> What bothers me about subscription pricing is how expensive it invariably turns out to be considering the amount of use I get out of a program. I wonder if the problem is you're undervaluing your software. You're expecting a certain price point but often that's too low for a business to be sustainable.
- nv-vn 9y ago
  If the Adobe product prices aren't ridiculously overvalued, there's something wrong with the way they develop their software.
  - magnetic 9y ago
    I don't understand what you mean. You can get the Adobe Creative Suite with Photoshop, Lightroom, some other stuff I don't remember (don't use), for $10/month. Is that too much?
    - wlesieutre 9y ago
      That's the single exception, any other single Creative Suite app costs $30/month. Even at $120/year, I have serious reservations about putting my photography library in piece of subscription software. I've heard that LR6 is the last standalone licensed version, so I'll be looking into Darktable as an alternative.
      - magnetic 9y ago
        The photos themselves aren't locked in: they end up somewhere on your filesystem (that mimics the structure you see in LR). It's only the metadata and other photo edits that you would lose if you were to stop subscribing. And of course you could export those edits out of LR before you stop your subscription. It's not much different from another piece of software that you buy outright, but that is not going to be supported after X years. You'll have the same problem: "hey photo_something 2.0 doesn't work on MacOS High Sierra anymore, but our v3.0 does, for a small upgrade fee". Are you going to hold back on upgrading your OS? For how long? At some point all the delay tactics stop working, and by then there isn't enough of an ecosystem for the "old world" anymore to help you transition out smoothly. $120/year is really not that much if you are a professional photographer (or digital artist) who needs the bells and whistles that PS/LR provide. If $10/month makes or breaks your business, I have bad news for you. I personally think that $10/mo for LR/PS is a great deal.
        wlesieutre 9y ago
        The difference is the "X years" part. I'd rather own software that works until something actually breaks and I can choose if I keep paying for upgrades, rather than software deliberately exploding if I stop writing Adobe a metaphorical check every month. I bought Lightroom 6 for $79 (upgrade price from LR3) about 26 months ago. It still works fine. Whatever features I'd have gotten with the CC package ($260 and continuing upward forever) are certainly not worth more than tripling the price. Obviously if it's your profession or a more serious hobby the value proposition changes. But the "everyone pays the same price, even the occasional hobbyist" model is pretty shitty for the occasional hobbyist.

by todd8 9y ago

chasing 9y ago

> What bothers me about subscription pricing is how expensive it invariably turns out to be considering the amount of use I get out of a program. I wonder if the problem is you're undervaluing your software. You're expecting a certain price point but often that's too low for a business to be sustainable.

nv-vn 9y ago
If the Adobe product prices aren't ridiculously overvalued, there's something wrong with the way they develop their software.
- magnetic 9y ago
  I don't understand what you mean. You can get the Adobe Creative Suite with Photoshop, Lightroom, some other stuff I don't remember (don't use), for $10/month. Is that too much?
  - wlesieutre 9y ago
    That's the single exception, any other single Creative Suite app costs $30/month. Even at $120/year, I have serious reservations about putting my photography library in piece of subscription software. I've heard that LR6 is the last standalone licensed version, so I'll be looking into Darktable as an alternative.
    - magnetic 9y ago
      The photos themselves aren't locked in: they end up somewhere on your filesystem (that mimics the structure you see in LR). It's only the metadata and other photo edits that you would lose if you were to stop subscribing. And of course you could export those edits out of LR before you stop your subscription. It's not much different from another piece of software that you buy outright, but that is not going to be supported after X years. You'll have the same problem: "hey photo_something 2.0 doesn't work on MacOS High Sierra anymore, but our v3.0 does, for a small upgrade fee". Are you going to hold back on upgrading your OS? For how long? At some point all the delay tactics stop working, and by then there isn't enough of an ecosystem for the "old world" anymore to help you transition out smoothly. $120/year is really not that much if you are a professional photographer (or digital artist) who needs the bells and whistles that PS/LR provide. If $10/month makes or breaks your business, I have bad news for you. I personally think that $10/mo for LR/PS is a great deal.
      - wlesieutre 9y ago
        The difference is the "X years" part. I'd rather own software that works until something actually breaks and I can choose if I keep paying for upgrades, rather than software deliberately exploding if I stop writing Adobe a metaphorical check every month. I bought Lightroom 6 for $79 (upgrade price from LR3) about 26 months ago. It still works fine. Whatever features I'd have gotten with the CC package ($260 and continuing upward forever) are certainly not worth more than tripling the price. Obviously if it's your profession or a more serious hobby the value proposition changes. But the "everyone pays the same price, even the occasional hobbyist" model is pretty shitty for the occasional hobbyist.