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It was free with every NeXT workstation! This right here, I believe, is the biggest problem facing software today. How do you pay for it? End-users expect so

by ken 8y ago

It was free with every NeXT workstation! This right here, I believe, is the biggest problem facing software today. How do you pay for it? End-users expect software to cost $0, yet it takes a lot of time and effort to build anything. The most successful software projects and companies I see today are those which figured out innovative business models: advertising, hardware, free for open source / paid for business, make it all open source and get a job maintaining it. There's no one correct answer. For any business model you pick for your software today, half the world will be upset with you. I wish Mathematica was more affordable, but I can't fault someone for creating a sustainable business. As Joel Spolsky said, good software takes 10 years (at least!), and most software dies long before it gets 10 years of development, so we never even get the chance to see if it could have been good.

erikpukinskis 8y ago
> This right here, I believe, is the biggest problem facing software today. How do you pay for it? You find the people who are making money with it, find conveniences that those people would appreciate, and put them behind a paywall. Or, with the same group of people, offer them a support contract. Sell them the “premium” version of the software with 24-7 support and contractors who can solve any problem they might come across. Or, host the software as a service and let people pay for that. Or, host the software as a feee service and use your users’ data to market products at them. Or, use the software to solve a social or governmental problem, apply for grants to do more of that, and use some of the grant money to improve the software. Or you can always sell virtual hats. There are lots of ways to do it.
sytelus 8y ago
Business models are the most significant innovations for any business. Google or Maps or Gmail is jaw-droppingly expensive software but its sustainably free. There might be way for software like Mathematica. For example, having marketplace that sells professional plugins like aerodynamics simulation for aircrafts or autonomous trading library etc. You can also have special classroom edition that charges nominal amounts or the enterprise edition that has cloud and IT support. The large chunk of platform can potentially be free and open source.

by ken 8y ago

erikpukinskis 8y ago

> This right here, I believe, is the biggest problem facing software today. How do you pay for it? You find the people who are making money with it, find conveniences that those people would appreciate, and put them behind a paywall. Or, with the same group of people, offer them a support contract. Sell them the “premium” version of the software with 24-7 support and contractors who can solve any problem they might come across. Or, host the software as a service and let people pay for that. Or, host the software as a feee service and use your users’ data to market products at them. Or, use the software to solve a social or governmental problem, apply for grants to do more of that, and use some of the grant money to improve the software. Or you can always sell virtual hats. There are lots of ways to do it.

sytelus 8y ago

Business models are the most significant innovations for any business. Google or Maps or Gmail is jaw-droppingly expensive software but its sustainably free. There might be way for software like Mathematica. For example, having marketplace that sells professional plugins like aerodynamics simulation for aircrafts or autonomous trading library etc. You can also have special classroom edition that charges nominal amounts or the enterprise edition that has cloud and IT support. The large chunk of platform can potentially be free and open source.