5 ms·

True. A subscription to Office 365 comes down to 99 Euros per years. Of course you’d pay maybe 150 every three years or so for a new version back in the days, b

by baxtr 9y ago

True. A subscription to Office 365 comes down to 99 Euros per years. Of course you’d pay maybe 150 every three years or so for a new version back in the days, but still that’s double. Also, I wonder whether this will lead to a slower development of the software. Before you’d have to create a leap forward to impress people to buy the new version, if the old version was still good enough.

techsupporter 9y ago
I like that you mentioned Office 365 because I see that as "subscription done right." You can still buy perpetual licenses for the components of Office, you can easily store the data you created with those components locally, and if you stop paying for Office-as-a-subscription the same programs still let you view (but not edit) your data. Carrot Weather App is another good one. Pay $5 once to get a really polished weather app with some basic "cloud" functions thrown in, like notifications to a phone device, some fun "achievements," and a pretty good weather data feed. If you want the super-accurate feed or if you want more advanced notifications and mobile device access (e.g. repeatedly on your Apple Watch), pay up for the subscription because it costs the dev more. And, if you stop paying, that $5 you initially paid is still valuable because the underlying app still works.
- wernercd 9y ago
  Jetbrains also has it done "right" I think... yearly license fee... and the version at the time of payment is "perpetual" while you get to continue getting updates as long as your license is "current". Stop paying? When you aren't "current" you can either pay up... or downgrade to your perpetual version "owned".
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- gergles 9y ago
  Conversely, I find Carrot Weather ridiculous when Dark Sky is $4 one time and uses the exact same data source. They (DS) don't try to gouge you for Apple Watch features, which I interpret as "they're probably rich so why not?" $4 a year (or $10, if you don't dismiss the 'ultrapremium club' popup and buy that by mistake) plus the $5 one time is not remotely what I would consider worth paying for a weather app unless Carrot was out in the wild building weather stations. You'll also note that Carrot's website nor App Store description even mention the existence of this buy-up (except on the support page - but why would I look at the support page for an app I was thinking about buying?) or the pricing. They also deceptively show a photo of the Apple Watch showing weather, which is technically correct (the best kind of correct) - but the Apple Watch doesn't update in the background (or give you weather notifications) unless you pay for a subscription. Because weather apps that don't update are really useful. Also, it doesn't "cost the dev more" to send updates to a watch instead of the phone (they're going through the phone anyway,) so I don't buy your justification for paying more for it. It's just a way to market segment and try to scam more money from people who have already paid above market for a weather app. You get Weather Underground data with the 'cheap' sub... but only on the phone. If you want it on the watch, you have to get the expensive sub. This also makes no sense. There's no way in hell wxug is charging extra based on the target device.
danieldk 9y ago
It is also surprising how much other subscriptions cost compared with Office 365. Office 365 contains the most complete office suite in existence, probably larger than many operating systems. It also includes 1TB of OneDrive, and free monthly Skype minutes. And the 99 Euros that you quote are for five persons. Most subscription software is a terrible deal in comparison. I have tried to avoid subscription software as much as possible. But we have a family subscription for 1Password because $REASONS. We pay $60 per year for (in comparison to Office) a small software product, with small cloud storage, of which we only need a couple of megabytes for storing encrypted passwords. Also, I wonder whether this will lead to a slower development of the software. Most likely. Once you are locked into some proprietary data format, it is often more expensive to move to an alternative, and it is easier to subscribe. Once a substantial part of the user base has a subscription, there is no more need to entice users with a new version. Subscription software does not benefit the user.
- wernercd 9y ago
  > Subscription software does not benefit the user. Depends on software, subscription and benefits... I think Office and Jetbrains are softwares done "right". They continually release updates - quarterly?... continually add new features... I think more companies get it "wrong" than get it "right"... but done right, the company has reasons to keep developing - no new stuff? no continued monies. no new monies.
- AJ007 9y ago
  There was some low hanging fruit for companies to create subscription plans who shouldn’t have been adding them. The more subscriptions your target customer has, the harder it is to convert them on the new one. For the business side the ceiling is a lot higher, but for consumers there is a very low limit. Each market is different, but when I look at an area like Photoshop or Illustrator, the competition keeps getting better. In some areas they aren’t even competing. The workflow of a game artist will have them going through a bunch of different products to get to an end result. A lot of those steps can have alternatives. If a vendor has some proprietary format that doesn’t work with anything else they never even get a user base. If a subscription is funding continuous development, and th company is doing a good job, and I use the software daily it doesn’t bother me. If I use it twice a year, I’m going to be looking hard at alternatives.
krylon 9y ago
> Also, I wonder whether this will lead to a slower development of the software. Before you’d have to create a leap forward to impress people to buy the new version, if the old version was still good enough. I am not sure if that would be bad, though. Often enough, I feel that software vendors either just change the UI so they can show non-technical people how "improved" their new version is (MS Office), or they introduce arbitrary incompatibilities, so you need the most recent version to edit files that have been created/modified with that new version (I'm looking at you, Autodesk!). With a subscription model, at least these vendors could focus on changes that actually provide value to their customers rather than making arbitrary changes just to make people buy a new version they might not really need.
laythea 9y ago
That is a good point, regarding the stunting of the software industry.

by baxtr 9y ago

techsupporter 9y ago

I like that you mentioned Office 365 because I see that as "subscription done right." You can still buy perpetual licenses for the components of Office, you can easily store the data you created with those components locally, and if you stop paying for Office-as-a-subscription the same programs still let you view (but not edit) your data. Carrot Weather App is another good one. Pay $5 once to get a really polished weather app with some basic "cloud" functions thrown in, like notifications to a phone device, some fun "achievements," and a pretty good weather data feed. If you want the super-accurate feed or if you want more advanced notifications and mobile device access (e.g. repeatedly on your Apple Watch), pay up for the subscription because it costs the dev more. And, if you stop paying, that $5 you initially paid is still valuable because the underlying app still works.

wernercd 9y ago
Jetbrains also has it done "right" I think... yearly license fee... and the version at the time of payment is "perpetual" while you get to continue getting updates as long as your license is "current". Stop paying? When you aren't "current" you can either pay up... or downgrade to your perpetual version "owned".
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
gergles 9y ago
Conversely, I find Carrot Weather ridiculous when Dark Sky is $4 one time and uses the exact same data source. They (DS) don't try to gouge you for Apple Watch features, which I interpret as "they're probably rich so why not?" $4 a year (or $10, if you don't dismiss the 'ultrapremium club' popup and buy that by mistake) plus the $5 one time is not remotely what I would consider worth paying for a weather app unless Carrot was out in the wild building weather stations. You'll also note that Carrot's website nor App Store description even mention the existence of this buy-up (except on the support page - but why would I look at the support page for an app I was thinking about buying?) or the pricing. They also deceptively show a photo of the Apple Watch showing weather, which is technically correct (the best kind of correct) - but the Apple Watch doesn't update in the background (or give you weather notifications) unless you pay for a subscription. Because weather apps that don't update are really useful. Also, it doesn't "cost the dev more" to send updates to a watch instead of the phone (they're going through the phone anyway,) so I don't buy your justification for paying more for it. It's just a way to market segment and try to scam more money from people who have already paid above market for a weather app. You get Weather Underground data with the 'cheap' sub... but only on the phone. If you want it on the watch, you have to get the expensive sub. This also makes no sense. There's no way in hell wxug is charging extra based on the target device.

danieldk 9y ago

It is also surprising how much other subscriptions cost compared with Office 365. Office 365 contains the most complete office suite in existence, probably larger than many operating systems. It also includes 1TB of OneDrive, and free monthly Skype minutes. And the 99 Euros that you quote are for five persons. Most subscription software is a terrible deal in comparison. I have tried to avoid subscription software as much as possible. But we have a family subscription for 1Password because $REASONS. We pay $60 per year for (in comparison to Office) a small software product, with small cloud storage, of which we only need a couple of megabytes for storing encrypted passwords. Also, I wonder whether this will lead to a slower development of the software. Most likely. Once you are locked into some proprietary data format, it is often more expensive to move to an alternative, and it is easier to subscribe. Once a substantial part of the user base has a subscription, there is no more need to entice users with a new version. Subscription software does not benefit the user.

wernercd 9y ago
> Subscription software does not benefit the user. Depends on software, subscription and benefits... I think Office and Jetbrains are softwares done "right". They continually release updates - quarterly?... continually add new features... I think more companies get it "wrong" than get it "right"... but done right, the company has reasons to keep developing - no new stuff? no continued monies. no new monies.
AJ007 9y ago
There was some low hanging fruit for companies to create subscription plans who shouldn’t have been adding them. The more subscriptions your target customer has, the harder it is to convert them on the new one. For the business side the ceiling is a lot higher, but for consumers there is a very low limit. Each market is different, but when I look at an area like Photoshop or Illustrator, the competition keeps getting better. In some areas they aren’t even competing. The workflow of a game artist will have them going through a bunch of different products to get to an end result. A lot of those steps can have alternatives. If a vendor has some proprietary format that doesn’t work with anything else they never even get a user base. If a subscription is funding continuous development, and th company is doing a good job, and I use the software daily it doesn’t bother me. If I use it twice a year, I’m going to be looking hard at alternatives.

krylon 9y ago

> Also, I wonder whether this will lead to a slower development of the software. Before you’d have to create a leap forward to impress people to buy the new version, if the old version was still good enough. I am not sure if that would be bad, though. Often enough, I feel that software vendors either just change the UI so they can show non-technical people how "improved" their new version is (MS Office), or they introduce arbitrary incompatibilities, so you need the most recent version to edit files that have been created/modified with that new version (I'm looking at you, Autodesk!). With a subscription model, at least these vendors could focus on changes that actually provide value to their customers rather than making arbitrary changes just to make people buy a new version they might not really need.

laythea 9y ago

That is a good point, regarding the stunting of the software industry.