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Ask HN: What are your thoughts on annual subscriptions for desktop software?
More and more desktop applications are adopting the annual subscription model (1password, Adobe products, Git Tower come to mind). Do you think that this is a money grab from companies, or a more sustainable software model for desktop developers?
I'm inclined to think that professional-level applications need ongoing maintenance and are never "done", so in certain circumstances it makes sense to pay an annual fee to get access to updates.
- Piskvorrr 8y agoI like what Jetbrains did: "after you pay a yearly subscription, the version that was current at that point will never expire for you." This means you can just pay once and keep using that version forever, without further ado or mucking about with licensing servers - but you do get some discounts for renewing the subscription and using the current version. OTOH, "now you pay forever or we pull the plug" is toxic: I do have some rather niche programs for which I have legitimately purchased licenses (and would even like to renew them) - but noooo: the maker went out of business, therefore their tools stopped working. What sort of backwards world is that?