6 ms·

It is really hard to read through all that marketing nonsense. Not sure if I should cry or burst out in tears from laughing. In any case I can't stand all that

by runxel 6y ago

It is really hard to read through all that marketing nonsense. Not sure if I should cry or burst out in tears from laughing. In any case I can't stand all that false statements. Let's take this one for example: > Subscription demands constant improvement of our product and enables us to make $Product better for you — faster. In fact, the opposite is the case! Just look at Adobe. Or maybe CAD/BIM products, like Revit from Autodesk. The only thing that was new in this years version was slanted walls (!). Something competitors have for ~20 years already. So for me subscription basically is equivalent with the opposite. As soon companies decided to switch from the possibility to let me buy their software, as in "I own this thing and I can use it indefinitely." to "rent" their software, progress came to a grinding halt most times. The reason why this doesn't work like in the PR statement above is the way things work in real life. First you lock them customers in: all their files are now in your proprietary format. The presumption from above is, that you won't renew you subscription when you don't like the new yearly version – but then you can no longer access your files you need, since you do business! So cancelling of subscriptions basically never happens, turning your company into a gold mine. Yearly realases are bad btw and nobody likes them. Except shareholdes maybe.

buserror 6y ago
Completely agree here. I think subscribtions are bad for customers, AND THE DEVELOPERS too. Basically companies cut down on R&D instead of pushing on R&D to gain new upgrade and customers fees. I bought GraphicConverter [1] a zillion years ago, and I just upgraded to their v11, and so I paid them probably more than I've ever paid any other software -- BUT, they always come up with a list of improvement 5 pages long, and I've been using that stuff on/off for 20+ years. I have no problems pushing money their way, I know where that money is going ultimately. It certainly doesn't go in shareholder or marketing drone's pocket. [1]: https://www.lemkesoft.de/en/products/graphicconverter/ https://www.lemkesoft.de/en/products/graphicconverter/
- api 6y ago
  This is driven by the shift toward valuing companies entirely on recurrent revenue. I've been told that non-recurrent revenue is meaningless and is often ignored. Its just the latest business fad.
  - vikramkr 6y ago
    Its not a fad. Recurring revenue has always been worth than non recurring because valuations are forward looking and recurring revenue is lower risk. Look at smartphones. Just because someone bought a smartphone last year doesnt mean they'll buy one this year. That sale last year does not matter as much for your current valuation as if you sold a subscription
x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
Yep. Subscription models become a necessity when companies have a mature product and the feature set and stability changes don't apply pressure to update. Once the product is mature, people don't upgrade because it costs money and the old version does what they need it to do. That's a losing proposition for an MBA dominated world. So you counter that by making it so no one can ever own their software but they have to subscribe to it so you can continue to extract value.
Marsymars 6y ago
> In fact, the opposite is the case! Just look at Adobe. Well from some points of view, they're right - I had an Adobe CC subscription for a little while, and after six months of no improvements, I abandoned Adobe products entirely.
- tomnipotent 6y ago
  > after six months of no improvements Historical Adobe releases were years apart but you're unhappy with a couple of months because it's a subscription? I can't follow this logic. Below history is just Photoshop, and if anything it looks like change velocity has increased since it became subscription-based. https://adobe.fandom.com/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop_release_history https://adobe.fandom.com/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop_release_histor...
  - justinmeiners 6y ago
    > Historical Adobe releases were years apart Because they were new versions and they had to sell you on the upgrade. Presumably one of the advantages of subscriptions is they can make ongoing improvements regularly as opposed to big releases. They release updates now, they just don't have many new features.
    - trickldwn8nxjf 6y ago
      Blender costs nothing and is used extensively throughout the digital media industry. Presumably the advantages of a subscription is to cater to the meme “free == fascism”.
      - tomnipotent 6y ago
        Blender is great. I use it myself (3D resin printing). But I've also used similar software I had to pay for, which was much better than Blender overall. Same way Photoshop is better than Gimp, and Windows UI is still better than Gnome/KDE. Sometimes to get great software and experience, you have to pay for it. And that's ok, it doesn't make the free software, like Blender, any less eff'ing awesome.
interestica 6y ago
Adobe, please just fix bugs and stop taking away functionality. Exporting as SVG in Animate is under the "legacy" option and I figure they're going to take it away soon. There used to be multiple vector export options (svg, eps, fxg).
- ur-whale 6y ago
  They're just taking a leaf from Facebook and Apple's book and are walling off their ecosystem to keep you prisoner. And there ain't a darn thing you can do about it other than switching to Open-Source.
qppo 6y ago
You never owned the software, just purchased an indefinite license to use it. This has turned out to be ultimately unprofitable and has changed from infinite subscription terms to finite ones. I don't know why you think it hurts R&D. The alternative is a dead company.
- justinmeiners 6y ago
  > I don't know why you think it hurts R&D Because before they had to make the product a lot better to sell you on an upgrade. > The alternative is a dead company. Were software companies dead before 2013? Of course, it is legal and fair for them to run this particular business model. The other poster is just expressing that as a consumer they like it less.
  - qppo 6y ago
    Yes lots of them died before 2013. Conversely they're not charging you a massive one time update fee. They're charging many smaller fees for smaller updates which is more representative of the development costs of the product, where you'd have to split next years development on updates and bug fixes for customers that would never give you another dime. This is unsustainable for many software shops which is why many of them died. We're seeing such growth in SaaS today because pricing based on how much value your product creates for users, on a schedule that reflects how much it costs to deliver it is much better for everyone involved. Like Adobe is a good example of this. Their products are much better today than they used to be and more affordable for everyone. The real trouble is the CC runtimes which are just shitty software, the pricing model is not a problem.
    - justinmeiners 6y ago
      I understand and agree with basically all of that. All I'm saying is that in the old model there was a more urgent incentive for them to add great stuff. In certain circumstances this benefited consumers. There were plenty of companies that did just fine without Saas.

by runxel 6y ago

buserror 6y ago

Completely agree here. I think subscribtions are bad for customers, AND THE DEVELOPERS too. Basically companies cut down on R&D instead of pushing on R&D to gain new upgrade and customers fees. I bought GraphicConverter [1] a zillion years ago, and I just upgraded to their v11, and so I paid them probably more than I've ever paid any other software -- BUT, they always come up with a list of improvement 5 pages long, and I've been using that stuff on/off for 20+ years. I have no problems pushing money their way, I know where that money is going ultimately. It certainly doesn't go in shareholder or marketing drone's pocket. [1]: https://www.lemkesoft.de/en/products/graphicconverter/ https://www.lemkesoft.de/en/products/graphicconverter/

api 6y ago
This is driven by the shift toward valuing companies entirely on recurrent revenue. I've been told that non-recurrent revenue is meaningless and is often ignored. Its just the latest business fad.
- vikramkr 6y ago
  Its not a fad. Recurring revenue has always been worth than non recurring because valuations are forward looking and recurring revenue is lower risk. Look at smartphones. Just because someone bought a smartphone last year doesnt mean they'll buy one this year. That sale last year does not matter as much for your current valuation as if you sold a subscription

x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago

Yep. Subscription models become a necessity when companies have a mature product and the feature set and stability changes don't apply pressure to update. Once the product is mature, people don't upgrade because it costs money and the old version does what they need it to do. That's a losing proposition for an MBA dominated world. So you counter that by making it so no one can ever own their software but they have to subscribe to it so you can continue to extract value.

Marsymars 6y ago

> In fact, the opposite is the case! Just look at Adobe. Well from some points of view, they're right - I had an Adobe CC subscription for a little while, and after six months of no improvements, I abandoned Adobe products entirely.

tomnipotent 6y ago
> after six months of no improvements Historical Adobe releases were years apart but you're unhappy with a couple of months because it's a subscription? I can't follow this logic. Below history is just Photoshop, and if anything it looks like change velocity has increased since it became subscription-based. https://adobe.fandom.com/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop_release_history https://adobe.fandom.com/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop_release_histor...
- justinmeiners 6y ago
  > Historical Adobe releases were years apart Because they were new versions and they had to sell you on the upgrade. Presumably one of the advantages of subscriptions is they can make ongoing improvements regularly as opposed to big releases. They release updates now, they just don't have many new features.
  - trickldwn8nxjf 6y ago
    Blender costs nothing and is used extensively throughout the digital media industry. Presumably the advantages of a subscription is to cater to the meme “free == fascism”.
    - tomnipotent 6y ago
      Blender is great. I use it myself (3D resin printing). But I've also used similar software I had to pay for, which was much better than Blender overall. Same way Photoshop is better than Gimp, and Windows UI is still better than Gnome/KDE. Sometimes to get great software and experience, you have to pay for it. And that's ok, it doesn't make the free software, like Blender, any less eff'ing awesome.

interestica 6y ago

Adobe, please just fix bugs and stop taking away functionality. Exporting as SVG in Animate is under the "legacy" option and I figure they're going to take it away soon. There used to be multiple vector export options (svg, eps, fxg).

ur-whale 6y ago
They're just taking a leaf from Facebook and Apple's book and are walling off their ecosystem to keep you prisoner. And there ain't a darn thing you can do about it other than switching to Open-Source.

qppo 6y ago

You never owned the software, just purchased an indefinite license to use it. This has turned out to be ultimately unprofitable and has changed from infinite subscription terms to finite ones. I don't know why you think it hurts R&D. The alternative is a dead company.

justinmeiners 6y ago
> I don't know why you think it hurts R&D Because before they had to make the product a lot better to sell you on an upgrade. > The alternative is a dead company. Were software companies dead before 2013? Of course, it is legal and fair for them to run this particular business model. The other poster is just expressing that as a consumer they like it less.
- qppo 6y ago
  Yes lots of them died before 2013. Conversely they're not charging you a massive one time update fee. They're charging many smaller fees for smaller updates which is more representative of the development costs of the product, where you'd have to split next years development on updates and bug fixes for customers that would never give you another dime. This is unsustainable for many software shops which is why many of them died. We're seeing such growth in SaaS today because pricing based on how much value your product creates for users, on a schedule that reflects how much it costs to deliver it is much better for everyone involved. Like Adobe is a good example of this. Their products are much better today than they used to be and more affordable for everyone. The real trouble is the CC runtimes which are just shitty software, the pricing model is not a problem.
  - justinmeiners 6y ago
    I understand and agree with basically all of that. All I'm saying is that in the old model there was a more urgent incentive for them to add great stuff. In certain circumstances this benefited consumers. There were plenty of companies that did just fine without Saas.