8 ms·

A trend rarely happens on only one side of the demand-supply axis. There is definitely a trend towards subscriptions, especially for SMBs, but enterprise and in

A trend rarely happens on only one side of the demand-supply axis. There is definitely a trend towards subscriptions, especially for SMBs, but enterprise and individuals as well. It's so much easier to pay a monthly or yearly fee then up front, especially for companies - both in terms of cashflow , accounting practices and stability. Some companies has gone that route that have customers on both sides of the aisle - adobe is one of them. Their choice alienated some part of their customers, but be sure that many others were glad for the change - probably big companies with shifting employee roster, or those who upgraded frequently.

tjoff 8y ago
Sure they do. 3D TVs and bent TVs are two glaring examples of something people never wanted. The only way companies could uphold that view was by ensuring that no manufacturer had sensible alternatives - effectively forcing people that wanted a TV to buy it. And then pretending that the sales were proof that people wanted it. It is the exact same with the majority of subscription services. For a company I get that it is easier. But easier for an individual? I walk twice around the earth before even considering a subscription service. It cannot be simpler than pay once and you are done for life. The reason as to why so few companies offer both is because it then becomes apparent how bad the subscription value is.
- ghaff 8y ago
  >It cannot be simpler than pay once and you are done for life. Although that's rarely the case. At some point, your OS upgrade--which you probably have to do for security reasons--breaks your five year old program. Or the program doesn't handle some new format or peripheral, etc. I don't really disagree with your basic point. I dislike money leaks. For online services of various types, I mostly have no choice but I at least want to minimize them with on-prem software--especially for things I only use every now and then.
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  Bent TV probably no since they are mostly viewed with other people, but ultra wide bent monitors are super nice, especially for gaming. I go this way instead of VR which seems to take time to 'get there' (also HW requirements are easier to pay for).
  - corndoge 8y ago
    VR is already here and better than you might expect
    - TomMarius 8y ago
      Is there something I missed? I wouldn't call Vive "here".
      - corndoge 8y ago
        I think Vive is pretty good and Rift is even better (I own both). What are your gripes with it?
        fossuser 8y ago
        Is the Rift better now? I had them both before the Rift had its non-xbox controllers. The Rift let in light through the nose, had no room scale (needed to be in a chair), and just generally seemed like a worse experience. Did things change or are there other reasons you like it? Are the controllers just that much better?
        giobox 8y ago
        Room scale support came to the Rift via addition of a third camera to your setup. It’s not quite as good as the Vive’s tracking but the difference is pretty small now, small enough that it largely doesn’t matter. The tracked hand controllers the Rift now has are arguably a little better than the more basic “baton” style controllers on the Vive, although I believe HTC do have a “Knuckle” controller on the way that adds more advanced hand tracking. The Rift is also significantly lighter and less sweaty on the head, its built in headphones are good enough you can avoid the additional weight of decent headphones, something the Vive pretty much requires. I do strongly think both systems are _way_ too early for anyone other than insane early adopter types. Given this, I think the Rift makes most sense for no other reason than it’s the cheapest. Both of them will make many people sick even after relatively short play sessions. Neither of them are “good” in my opinion, merely the best it seems the market has managed so far.
- Illniyar 8y ago
  err... are you implying that there are no alternatives in the market to 3D TVs and bent TVs? As far as I know 3D TVs have basically gone out of market[1] because no one bought them. It is actually the exact opposite of what you suggested - they could not start a trend, even thought they tried to force it on people, because there was no demand for it. [1]-https://www.cnet.com/news/shambling-corpse-of-3d-tv-finally-falls-down-dead/ https://www.cnet.com/news/shambling-corpse-of-3d-tv-finally-...
  - alehul 8y ago
    Seconding this. The markets aren't spectacularly and miraculously efficient, but they're efficient enough that products without demand will not last, with the exception of industry-wide collusion to remove the consumer-preferred option from the market. Game theory says the existence of a wanted-but-not-provided product probably won't last, however. And regardless of continuous cooperation of the participating suppliers, there can always be a new entrant. Anecdotal on the TV point, but I recently purchased a new TV... no bend, no 3D (didn't even see that as an option), no hassle. :)
  - tjoff 8y ago
    No? I'm saying that there were no alternatives during the hype. They didn't try to start a trend. They tried to make something up to warrant a new purchase.
  - setr 8y ago
    For about 5 years, any tv you found in an electronic store was 3D, and I have yet to find a single person who claims to like them. Today, every tv is a Smart TV, and yet again, I haven’t found anyone who thought they weren’t awful In cars theres the same issue with GPS systems: even luxury cars have awful interfaces. Presumably tesla’s is decent (never tried), but otherwise the only interface I’ve encountered yet that met the minimum requirement of a sensible response time (let alone everything else) is a luxury jeep. Mercedes, priuses, bmws, etc are all horrendous. In phones, the aux ports and phablets On the web, heavy js In games, complex 3D graphics (this is very slowly changing, as indie devs begin to realize games existed between 1980 and 2000) This type of event, where the producers collectively decide what the consumers want, and only produce it, and miss the mark by a mile, definetely exist (these are just things I’m irrated by recently), though I assume incompetence and babdwaggoning over any kind of real thinking going into this. (They didn’t try to force a trend, they just all thought it was the trend, due to whatever terrible research they all do; hell, I’d bet there was one or two marketing firms that were the root cause of most of these messes)
- wesd 8y ago
  >I walk twice around the earth before even considering a subscription service. I can't imagine going back not having music subscription service. I don't have to make a decision which album to buy anymore and I don't have to worry about my kids pirating music.
  - tjoff 8y ago
    That I agree. I've payed for spotify for nine years. But that's reasonable because it is streaming the music. As is netflix et al. Though I have yet to see a media subscription service with decent software. It would be much better if they could provide a decent API that people could integrate it. But that doesn't fit well with the lock-in, and lock-in is apparently the only thing worth doing.
  - asdff 8y ago
    That's because the music subscription service was designed from the ground up to be exactly unlike the previous music business model; in fact the spotify model boils down to legal napster. The problem is when something really has no reason to not be a one time purchase, like companies on instagram charging me $15 a month to send me three new pairs of socks twice a quarter, or maybe they mail me a wooden box once a month with some woodsy smelling beard oil, a leather flask, and a small axe. Software is moving this way too; but I'm still in the camp that would shell out $25 for a program as is that would still work on my machine decades later even if the company folds or puts out another version, than pay $2 a month for something that might not work at all or fundamentally change its functionality in a year.
    - fossuser 8y ago
      I've actually moved to preferring subscription software for things like 1Password (which moved from purchase to subscription). Software is a moving target where everything else is changing around it - OS, hardware, web infrastructure, etc. and having devs continuing development on a tool I'm using is useful. The subscription model in this case accurately reflects the reality and is better than randomly having to pay $45 on occasion to upgrade to a version that still works. I'd also argue that Spotify is better than legal Napster with its streaming and music playlist curation. Spotify may be the best software application I use on a regular basis.
- Nition 8y ago
  Agreed, and I'd add high-end smartphones with <5" screens, and non-"smart" TVs with decent picture quality as things that people still want but are forced into alternatives.
  - softawre 8y ago
    <5"? How small do you want? For me the 5" screen of the regular Pixel (2) is perfect.
    - Nition 8y ago
      Personally I like the size of the iPhone SE, which has a 4" screen. I've talked to people and seen a lot of discussion on it so I know I'm not the only one. The screen could be a bit larger if there was less bezel though: An iPhone SE size phone in the iPhone X style could have a 5" screen without getting any larger. That would be perfect.
    - steelframe 8y ago
      The Sony Xperia Z5 Compact got the screen size just about perfect for me at 4.6". If someone could build a phone with a Pixel 2 camera, a Z5C screen, the thickness of a V35 ThinQ, compatibility with Project Fi, and an audio jack, that would be my sweet spot.
      - Nition 8y ago
        Unfortunately the new Xperia XZ2 Compact is almost the same size as the original Xperia X, with the way phones keep getting larger.
- manigandham 8y ago
  Those companies that sell things people don't want will go out of business. Good luck only selling 3D TVs when the next company will just sell normal TVs for less and actually make money.
ghaff 8y ago
Adobe is arguably the poster child for a software company for which subscription vs. one-time licenses is a particularly polarizing question among its user base. For companies, it arguably didn't matter much and access to the current versions of the entire portfolio was probably a win for many. At the same time, some Adobe software was and is widely, but often casually, used by a fairly wide range of consumers who were fine with running programs that were a couple versions old given the price to upgrade. (This described me for a fairly long period of time.) That's really where subscriptions break down. You need to use something every now and then but you don't care if it's five years old as long as it still works. Of course, one-time purchase alternatives like Photoshop Elements are one option these days as are free programs like The GIMP.
- CPLX 8y ago
  I mean, let's be honest... the major change that happened for Adobe users wasn't the shift to a subscription model, it's the fact that they closed the widely used hosts file loophole that enabled pretty much anyone technically savvy to use the full OEM version of the software without paying for it. My assumption at the time was they had no choice to go to a subscription model at that time, because the other option would be to instantly demolish the finances of every broke graphic designer out there, which would possibly cause an exodus to a cheap or OSS option and risk their ability to stay the dominant player.
  - H1Supreme 8y ago
    I always assumed that the choice was made due to piracy. I don't have any stats, but Photoshop had to be near the top of the most pirated software list, if not at the top. On that side of the coin, I can't blame Adobe for going to the subscription model. On the other side, it's a real kick in the ass for casual users. I worked in Graphic Design for 15 years, and always kept a personal copy of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. I didn't upgrade every version, because right around CS2, the upgrades weren't worth it, imo. I still have a pre-subscription license that I hope keeps working, because as a person who only opens it up once a month, it's simply not worth the price for me.
Bartweiss 8y ago
As far as enterprise, certainly. There are real merits to subscription models, not only in accounting but in risk avoidance (you haven't paid up front) and support (the vendor has a cash incentive to keep you happy). There are obviously drawbacks too, like lock-in and the risk of a vendor collapsing, but in some cases it looks like a good decision. As far as consumer-facing? I'm not so sure. Lots of companies, especially the ones with protected IP or network effects, can kick their customers around quite a bit without shifting demand. I don't want Microsoft Office to be subscription based. I've never met anyone who does, unless what they actually wanted was the online storage subscription. (I know some people who initially said they did because they didn't want the menus to keep changing on them between editions, but then the subscription version developed the same problem.) But it's a real fight to avoid their implicit network when people keep sending me .xls files or formatting-dependent .docx or all the other things Open Office won't actually manage, so I (or rather my employers) end up paying the subscription. Spotify, Hulu, etc are more popular, but it's still fairly telling that no one offers direct purchase of TV shows in anything short of ultra-expensive box sets. Even buying music and movies outright has become increasingly tough to do. There are probably people who will save money even with a lifetime Spotify subscription, but I suspect people who don't vary their listening a lot lose out compared to direct purchase, and people with tastes not easily provided by one streaming service have definitely lost out. It basically looks like IP holders shied away from direct sales as soon as they couldn't inflate costs by overpricing a physical medium, and left consumers without a choice. The last category are I suppose subscriptions offering consumable products on a schedule, like Dollar Shave Club. These have more obvious value - there's no lifetime purchase possible, so it's not much different than a "reorder monthly" option. But even here they mostly seem to be succeeding by offering novelty or taking on markets that have been overpriced for ages. I'm not sure I can think of a consumer-facing subscription product equivalent to e.g. CircleCI - something that could be sold as a lifetime purchase, which is instead sold as a subscription - for which buyers voluntarily chose a subscription model.
- ghaff 8y ago
  TiVo has a lifetime subscription but I assume most people go for the monthly. Most consumer-oriented services (Spotify, Apple Music, Netflix, etc.) could be sold with a lifetime option but I suspect the balance sheet liability would be unattractive to most companies and the big upfront payment toward an ultimately unknowable future service would be unattractive for most consumers. (Will the company still exist? Will I still want the service? Will the company come out with a new and better service and put the one I paid for on legacy support?) >Even buying music and movies outright has become increasingly tough to do. Really? I admittedly don't do it a huge amount but my impression was that CDs and DVDs were still pretty readily available for purchase on both physical media and digitally.
Angostura 8y ago
Oh come now. Subscription software is simply a system by which software developers can ensure a continuous revenue stream, independent of the value of any ongoing development they do.
- ghaff 8y ago
  On the other hand, traditional licensing provides an incentive for companies to hold back feature enhancements and bug fixes to encourage users to pay for an upgrade to the next version.
  - Angostura 8y ago
    And yet the user still has the chance to make an informed choice as to whether to splash the cash for that feature or not.
scirocco 8y ago
Heck - even HPE are selling HW for a monthly bill based on actual consumption. https://www.hpe.com/us/en/services/flexible-capacity.html https://www.hpe.com/us/en/services/flexible-capacity.html

tjoff 8y ago

Sure they do. 3D TVs and bent TVs are two glaring examples of something people never wanted. The only way companies could uphold that view was by ensuring that no manufacturer had sensible alternatives - effectively forcing people that wanted a TV to buy it. And then pretending that the sales were proof that people wanted it. It is the exact same with the majority of subscription services. For a company I get that it is easier. But easier for an individual? I walk twice around the earth before even considering a subscription service. It cannot be simpler than pay once and you are done for life. The reason as to why so few companies offer both is because it then becomes apparent how bad the subscription value is.

ghaff 8y ago
>It cannot be simpler than pay once and you are done for life. Although that's rarely the case. At some point, your OS upgrade--which you probably have to do for security reasons--breaks your five year old program. Or the program doesn't handle some new format or peripheral, etc. I don't really disagree with your basic point. I dislike money leaks. For online services of various types, I mostly have no choice but I at least want to minimize them with on-prem software--especially for things I only use every now and then.
saiya-jin 8y ago
Bent TV probably no since they are mostly viewed with other people, but ultra wide bent monitors are super nice, especially for gaming. I go this way instead of VR which seems to take time to 'get there' (also HW requirements are easier to pay for).
- corndoge 8y ago
  VR is already here and better than you might expect
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    Is there something I missed? I wouldn't call Vive "here".
    - corndoge 8y ago
      I think Vive is pretty good and Rift is even better (I own both). What are your gripes with it?
      - fossuser 8y ago
        Is the Rift better now? I had them both before the Rift had its non-xbox controllers. The Rift let in light through the nose, had no room scale (needed to be in a chair), and just generally seemed like a worse experience. Did things change or are there other reasons you like it? Are the controllers just that much better?
        giobox 8y ago
        Room scale support came to the Rift via addition of a third camera to your setup. It’s not quite as good as the Vive’s tracking but the difference is pretty small now, small enough that it largely doesn’t matter. The tracked hand controllers the Rift now has are arguably a little better than the more basic “baton” style controllers on the Vive, although I believe HTC do have a “Knuckle” controller on the way that adds more advanced hand tracking. The Rift is also significantly lighter and less sweaty on the head, its built in headphones are good enough you can avoid the additional weight of decent headphones, something the Vive pretty much requires. I do strongly think both systems are _way_ too early for anyone other than insane early adopter types. Given this, I think the Rift makes most sense for no other reason than it’s the cheapest. Both of them will make many people sick even after relatively short play sessions. Neither of them are “good” in my opinion, merely the best it seems the market has managed so far.
Illniyar 8y ago
err... are you implying that there are no alternatives in the market to 3D TVs and bent TVs? As far as I know 3D TVs have basically gone out of market[1] because no one bought them. It is actually the exact opposite of what you suggested - they could not start a trend, even thought they tried to force it on people, because there was no demand for it. [1]-https://www.cnet.com/news/shambling-corpse-of-3d-tv-finally-falls-down-dead/ https://www.cnet.com/news/shambling-corpse-of-3d-tv-finally-...
- alehul 8y ago
  Seconding this. The markets aren't spectacularly and miraculously efficient, but they're efficient enough that products without demand will not last, with the exception of industry-wide collusion to remove the consumer-preferred option from the market. Game theory says the existence of a wanted-but-not-provided product probably won't last, however. And regardless of continuous cooperation of the participating suppliers, there can always be a new entrant. Anecdotal on the TV point, but I recently purchased a new TV... no bend, no 3D (didn't even see that as an option), no hassle. :)
- tjoff 8y ago
  No? I'm saying that there were no alternatives during the hype. They didn't try to start a trend. They tried to make something up to warrant a new purchase.
- setr 8y ago
  For about 5 years, any tv you found in an electronic store was 3D, and I have yet to find a single person who claims to like them. Today, every tv is a Smart TV, and yet again, I haven’t found anyone who thought they weren’t awful In cars theres the same issue with GPS systems: even luxury cars have awful interfaces. Presumably tesla’s is decent (never tried), but otherwise the only interface I’ve encountered yet that met the minimum requirement of a sensible response time (let alone everything else) is a luxury jeep. Mercedes, priuses, bmws, etc are all horrendous. In phones, the aux ports and phablets On the web, heavy js In games, complex 3D graphics (this is very slowly changing, as indie devs begin to realize games existed between 1980 and 2000) This type of event, where the producers collectively decide what the consumers want, and only produce it, and miss the mark by a mile, definetely exist (these are just things I’m irrated by recently), though I assume incompetence and babdwaggoning over any kind of real thinking going into this. (They didn’t try to force a trend, they just all thought it was the trend, due to whatever terrible research they all do; hell, I’d bet there was one or two marketing firms that were the root cause of most of these messes)
wesd 8y ago
>I walk twice around the earth before even considering a subscription service. I can't imagine going back not having music subscription service. I don't have to make a decision which album to buy anymore and I don't have to worry about my kids pirating music.
- tjoff 8y ago
  That I agree. I've payed for spotify for nine years. But that's reasonable because it is streaming the music. As is netflix et al. Though I have yet to see a media subscription service with decent software. It would be much better if they could provide a decent API that people could integrate it. But that doesn't fit well with the lock-in, and lock-in is apparently the only thing worth doing.
- asdff 8y ago
  That's because the music subscription service was designed from the ground up to be exactly unlike the previous music business model; in fact the spotify model boils down to legal napster. The problem is when something really has no reason to not be a one time purchase, like companies on instagram charging me $15 a month to send me three new pairs of socks twice a quarter, or maybe they mail me a wooden box once a month with some woodsy smelling beard oil, a leather flask, and a small axe. Software is moving this way too; but I'm still in the camp that would shell out $25 for a program as is that would still work on my machine decades later even if the company folds or puts out another version, than pay $2 a month for something that might not work at all or fundamentally change its functionality in a year.
  - fossuser 8y ago
    I've actually moved to preferring subscription software for things like 1Password (which moved from purchase to subscription). Software is a moving target where everything else is changing around it - OS, hardware, web infrastructure, etc. and having devs continuing development on a tool I'm using is useful. The subscription model in this case accurately reflects the reality and is better than randomly having to pay $45 on occasion to upgrade to a version that still works. I'd also argue that Spotify is better than legal Napster with its streaming and music playlist curation. Spotify may be the best software application I use on a regular basis.
Nition 8y ago
Agreed, and I'd add high-end smartphones with <5" screens, and non-"smart" TVs with decent picture quality as things that people still want but are forced into alternatives.
- softawre 8y ago
  <5"? How small do you want? For me the 5" screen of the regular Pixel (2) is perfect.
  - Nition 8y ago
    Personally I like the size of the iPhone SE, which has a 4" screen. I've talked to people and seen a lot of discussion on it so I know I'm not the only one. The screen could be a bit larger if there was less bezel though: An iPhone SE size phone in the iPhone X style could have a 5" screen without getting any larger. That would be perfect.
  - steelframe 8y ago
    The Sony Xperia Z5 Compact got the screen size just about perfect for me at 4.6". If someone could build a phone with a Pixel 2 camera, a Z5C screen, the thickness of a V35 ThinQ, compatibility with Project Fi, and an audio jack, that would be my sweet spot.
    - Nition 8y ago
      Unfortunately the new Xperia XZ2 Compact is almost the same size as the original Xperia X, with the way phones keep getting larger.
manigandham 8y ago
Those companies that sell things people don't want will go out of business. Good luck only selling 3D TVs when the next company will just sell normal TVs for less and actually make money.

ghaff 8y ago

Adobe is arguably the poster child for a software company for which subscription vs. one-time licenses is a particularly polarizing question among its user base. For companies, it arguably didn't matter much and access to the current versions of the entire portfolio was probably a win for many. At the same time, some Adobe software was and is widely, but often casually, used by a fairly wide range of consumers who were fine with running programs that were a couple versions old given the price to upgrade. (This described me for a fairly long period of time.) That's really where subscriptions break down. You need to use something every now and then but you don't care if it's five years old as long as it still works. Of course, one-time purchase alternatives like Photoshop Elements are one option these days as are free programs like The GIMP.

CPLX 8y ago
I mean, let's be honest... the major change that happened for Adobe users wasn't the shift to a subscription model, it's the fact that they closed the widely used hosts file loophole that enabled pretty much anyone technically savvy to use the full OEM version of the software without paying for it. My assumption at the time was they had no choice to go to a subscription model at that time, because the other option would be to instantly demolish the finances of every broke graphic designer out there, which would possibly cause an exodus to a cheap or OSS option and risk their ability to stay the dominant player.
- H1Supreme 8y ago
  I always assumed that the choice was made due to piracy. I don't have any stats, but Photoshop had to be near the top of the most pirated software list, if not at the top. On that side of the coin, I can't blame Adobe for going to the subscription model. On the other side, it's a real kick in the ass for casual users. I worked in Graphic Design for 15 years, and always kept a personal copy of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. I didn't upgrade every version, because right around CS2, the upgrades weren't worth it, imo. I still have a pre-subscription license that I hope keeps working, because as a person who only opens it up once a month, it's simply not worth the price for me.

Bartweiss 8y ago

As far as enterprise, certainly. There are real merits to subscription models, not only in accounting but in risk avoidance (you haven't paid up front) and support (the vendor has a cash incentive to keep you happy). There are obviously drawbacks too, like lock-in and the risk of a vendor collapsing, but in some cases it looks like a good decision. As far as consumer-facing? I'm not so sure. Lots of companies, especially the ones with protected IP or network effects, can kick their customers around quite a bit without shifting demand. I don't want Microsoft Office to be subscription based. I've never met anyone who does, unless what they actually wanted was the online storage subscription. (I know some people who initially said they did because they didn't want the menus to keep changing on them between editions, but then the subscription version developed the same problem.) But it's a real fight to avoid their implicit network when people keep sending me .xls files or formatting-dependent .docx or all the other things Open Office won't actually manage, so I (or rather my employers) end up paying the subscription. Spotify, Hulu, etc are more popular, but it's still fairly telling that no one offers direct purchase of TV shows in anything short of ultra-expensive box sets. Even buying music and movies outright has become increasingly tough to do. There are probably people who will save money even with a lifetime Spotify subscription, but I suspect people who don't vary their listening a lot lose out compared to direct purchase, and people with tastes not easily provided by one streaming service have definitely lost out. It basically looks like IP holders shied away from direct sales as soon as they couldn't inflate costs by overpricing a physical medium, and left consumers without a choice. The last category are I suppose subscriptions offering consumable products on a schedule, like Dollar Shave Club. These have more obvious value - there's no lifetime purchase possible, so it's not much different than a "reorder monthly" option. But even here they mostly seem to be succeeding by offering novelty or taking on markets that have been overpriced for ages. I'm not sure I can think of a consumer-facing subscription product equivalent to e.g. CircleCI - something that could be sold as a lifetime purchase, which is instead sold as a subscription - for which buyers voluntarily chose a subscription model.

ghaff 8y ago
TiVo has a lifetime subscription but I assume most people go for the monthly. Most consumer-oriented services (Spotify, Apple Music, Netflix, etc.) could be sold with a lifetime option but I suspect the balance sheet liability would be unattractive to most companies and the big upfront payment toward an ultimately unknowable future service would be unattractive for most consumers. (Will the company still exist? Will I still want the service? Will the company come out with a new and better service and put the one I paid for on legacy support?) >Even buying music and movies outright has become increasingly tough to do. Really? I admittedly don't do it a huge amount but my impression was that CDs and DVDs were still pretty readily available for purchase on both physical media and digitally.

Angostura 8y ago

Oh come now. Subscription software is simply a system by which software developers can ensure a continuous revenue stream, independent of the value of any ongoing development they do.

ghaff 8y ago
On the other hand, traditional licensing provides an incentive for companies to hold back feature enhancements and bug fixes to encourage users to pay for an upgrade to the next version.
- Angostura 8y ago
  And yet the user still has the chance to make an informed choice as to whether to splash the cash for that feature or not.

scirocco 8y ago

Heck - even HPE are selling HW for a monthly bill based on actual consumption. https://www.hpe.com/us/en/services/flexible-capacity.html https://www.hpe.com/us/en/services/flexible-capacity.html