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I believe a one-time fee for software is fundamentally unsustainable, and a relic of the past, when we had no networking and our operating systems did not evolv

by jwr 7y ago

I believe a one-time fee for software is fundamentally unsustainable, and a relic of the past, when we had no networking and our operating systems did not evolve quickly. Every piece of software needs maintenance and support. Also, a lot of people seem to forget that even if we pretended that support isn't necessary, just the existence of a standalone version imposes ongoing costs: there is more testing, and the scope of changes that can be made is more limited. Subscriptions are the only sustainable way of maintaining software in the long term. We can either accept that and move on, or keep pretending we "buy" software that will work forever, and then pay every year for a "major new version", which apart from the fundamentally fictional nature of the deal, results in developers cramming in new and unnecessary features instead of focusing on software quality.

scoutt 7y ago
> a relic of the past I could be a potential customer, since my company works on the embedded market and we design and manufacture all our PCBs. There was a time the company has a moment of big growth, and we looked into solutions like yours. The question was: what would happen if this guy (not specifically you, others similar to you) closes tomorrow? The answer generally was: you can export all your data and then you feed it into your local database. So the matter ended with: OK, we'll stick with our current database. Goodbye. At the end of the day we saw such services as a glorified data-entry/store/search database that hardly will suffer many modifications or require updates, and since pretty much of our distributors (apart from mouser, digikey, avnet, etc.) won't support data exchange and PO/Offers will be negotiated in the traditional way (also negotiating price reductions). No need for VC funding or anything else. We need to be able to open an schematic/BOM/whatever in 10 years and be able to operate as if it was just created yesterday, so much of the software we use is "a relic of the past" (in SaaS vendors eyes), but effective and "the way is supposed to be". Online/cloud or subscription-based CADs? Also kicked out of the door. With this I want to say that people like the article author seem to live in a little box, thinking on what they use daily as web-service-saas-whatever developers, without realizing the world is much bigger than they think it is.
FpUser 7y ago
"...I believe a one-time fee for software is fundamentally unsustainable..." It is pretty much sustainable. Except few natural cases SAAS is just a wet dream of vendors trying to have constant revenue stream the easy way. If software needs support/new features you pay for upgrades. Or not if the old version works just fine for you. In my case I use tons of software for which I only paid once (sometimes I pay for upgrades as well). If I had to pay monthly fee for each title I use I'd be spending insane amount of money.
JohnFen 7y ago
> I believe a one-time fee for software is fundamentally unsustainable I strongly disagree. I have always, up to this day, sold software on that model, and I will probably always do so. There's nothing unsustainable about it. What is true is that rent-seeking can be much more profitable. But fortunately for those of us who find it very distasteful, it's not necessary.
- masukomi 7y ago
  what do you do when you've saturated the market? one-time fee only works if you have a constant stream of new customers into your niche that is sufficient to pay your salary. with upgrades or subscriptions you can have a group of users who love what you do and are happy to support you without having to hope for new users and constantly market to get them.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > what do you do when you've saturated the market? If I want to continue active development on it, then I sell upgrades. If not, then I'll continue to do free maintenance releases, but my main business will be from different products. > one-time fee only works if you have a constant stream of new customers into your niche that is sufficient to pay your salary. You can continue to get income from existing customers. You just have to provide real value to them in exchange for it.

by jwr 7y ago

scoutt 7y ago

> a relic of the past I could be a potential customer, since my company works on the embedded market and we design and manufacture all our PCBs. There was a time the company has a moment of big growth, and we looked into solutions like yours. The question was: what would happen if this guy (not specifically you, others similar to you) closes tomorrow? The answer generally was: you can export all your data and then you feed it into your local database. So the matter ended with: OK, we'll stick with our current database. Goodbye. At the end of the day we saw such services as a glorified data-entry/store/search database that hardly will suffer many modifications or require updates, and since pretty much of our distributors (apart from mouser, digikey, avnet, etc.) won't support data exchange and PO/Offers will be negotiated in the traditional way (also negotiating price reductions). No need for VC funding or anything else. We need to be able to open an schematic/BOM/whatever in 10 years and be able to operate as if it was just created yesterday, so much of the software we use is "a relic of the past" (in SaaS vendors eyes), but effective and "the way is supposed to be". Online/cloud or subscription-based CADs? Also kicked out of the door. With this I want to say that people like the article author seem to live in a little box, thinking on what they use daily as web-service-saas-whatever developers, without realizing the world is much bigger than they think it is.

FpUser 7y ago

"...I believe a one-time fee for software is fundamentally unsustainable..." It is pretty much sustainable. Except few natural cases SAAS is just a wet dream of vendors trying to have constant revenue stream the easy way. If software needs support/new features you pay for upgrades. Or not if the old version works just fine for you. In my case I use tons of software for which I only paid once (sometimes I pay for upgrades as well). If I had to pay monthly fee for each title I use I'd be spending insane amount of money.

JohnFen 7y ago

> I believe a one-time fee for software is fundamentally unsustainable I strongly disagree. I have always, up to this day, sold software on that model, and I will probably always do so. There's nothing unsustainable about it. What is true is that rent-seeking can be much more profitable. But fortunately for those of us who find it very distasteful, it's not necessary.

masukomi 7y ago
what do you do when you've saturated the market? one-time fee only works if you have a constant stream of new customers into your niche that is sufficient to pay your salary. with upgrades or subscriptions you can have a group of users who love what you do and are happy to support you without having to hope for new users and constantly market to get them.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > what do you do when you've saturated the market? If I want to continue active development on it, then I sell upgrades. If not, then I'll continue to do free maintenance releases, but my main business will be from different products. > one-time fee only works if you have a constant stream of new customers into your niche that is sufficient to pay your salary. You can continue to get income from existing customers. You just have to provide real value to them in exchange for it.