4 ms·

Personally £7.99 a month for a piece of software I use 1 hour every 6 months is definitely not worth it. Though I'd pay £100 for it no questions asked. Subscri

Personally £7.99 a month for a piece of software I use 1 hour every 6 months is definitely not worth it. Though I'd pay £100 for it no questions asked. Subscription plans are stupid.

danans 6y ago
> Though I'd pay £100 for it no questions asked. Office 365 is a continually updated and enhanced product. They won't provide those updates and enhancements to you forever because your £100 won't pay for them. What you are asking for is their old downloaded/shrink-wrapped Classic Office product offering, which you can still get by paying a f themixed sum ($145 I think). But even in the old days, your £100 bought you a single program with very few updates if any. If you wanted new features or even security updates (when this became a thing), you needed to purchase a new license, for another £100. What if you don't want the new features or security updates? Well, perhaps it sucks, but the world of software is a far more complicated than it used to be and both the feature competition and security threats are steep, so no software vendor can afford to sit on and continually support an old version. Unchanging software isn't a product that becomes an antique like a 1959 Chevy. Rather it loses value over time as the world changes around it and it becomes less relevant. Eventually, they will stop updating your purchased software, and if you want to have new features and security protections, you will need to pay again. In the long run, that cost will converge with that of a subscription. This is why some people like open source software like Libreoffice as an alternative model, but as the OP highlights, it still needs an economic model to incentivize the enhancement of the software, and it would appear that the primary motivation of many users of the product is to not pay for an office software suite, not the higher ideal of a shared community software development model.
- 1_player 6y ago
  I get what you mean, but people still made a living selling software without monthly subscriptions before. If I had to use Office more, I'd pay the monthly price, but not for 2 hours a year. It being continuously developed still doesn't justify the price. I can afford it, but if I had to pay £7.99 x 6 = £47.94 for every hour of productivity I extract from a piece of software, I'd go bankrupt very quickly. That's why I called subscription plans stupid: it's unreasonably expensive for the amateur (like me) slice of the market. And being such a small time user, I don't care about the super new features of Office $CURRENT_YEAR. If I could buy Office for Linux 2020 for 100 pounds, I would, and it would be enough for me for the next decade, unless I'll move out of software engineering and go work as a lawyer or something.
  - danans 6y ago
    > I can afford it, but if I had to pay £7.99 x 6 = £47.94 for every hour of productivity I extract from a piece of software Why would you pay for 6 months of subscription for every hour you use it? If it's just an hour of use, you just pay for 1 month, so 7.99. Is there a 6 month minimum? > If I could buy Office for Linux 2020 for 100 pounds, I would, and it would be enough for me for the next decade, I get that that would be a great deal for you, but why would MS want to support your £100 Office for Linux purchase with security and feature updates for 10 years? Why even develop and release that product? It's not like they lack for people who will pay their Office 365 subscription fee. It would make as little sense for them to do that as it would for you to sign up for that subscription.

Personally £7.99 a month for a piece of software I use 1 hour every 6 months is definitely not worth it. Though I'd pay £100 for it no questions asked. Subscription plans are stupid.

danans 6y ago

> Though I'd pay £100 for it no questions asked. Office 365 is a continually updated and enhanced product. They won't provide those updates and enhancements to you forever because your £100 won't pay for them. What you are asking for is their old downloaded/shrink-wrapped Classic Office product offering, which you can still get by paying a f themixed sum ($145 I think). But even in the old days, your £100 bought you a single program with very few updates if any. If you wanted new features or even security updates (when this became a thing), you needed to purchase a new license, for another £100. What if you don't want the new features or security updates? Well, perhaps it sucks, but the world of software is a far more complicated than it used to be and both the feature competition and security threats are steep, so no software vendor can afford to sit on and continually support an old version. Unchanging software isn't a product that becomes an antique like a 1959 Chevy. Rather it loses value over time as the world changes around it and it becomes less relevant. Eventually, they will stop updating your purchased software, and if you want to have new features and security protections, you will need to pay again. In the long run, that cost will converge with that of a subscription. This is why some people like open source software like Libreoffice as an alternative model, but as the OP highlights, it still needs an economic model to incentivize the enhancement of the software, and it would appear that the primary motivation of many users of the product is to not pay for an office software suite, not the higher ideal of a shared community software development model.

1_player 6y ago
I get what you mean, but people still made a living selling software without monthly subscriptions before. If I had to use Office more, I'd pay the monthly price, but not for 2 hours a year. It being continuously developed still doesn't justify the price. I can afford it, but if I had to pay £7.99 x 6 = £47.94 for every hour of productivity I extract from a piece of software, I'd go bankrupt very quickly. That's why I called subscription plans stupid: it's unreasonably expensive for the amateur (like me) slice of the market. And being such a small time user, I don't care about the super new features of Office $CURRENT_YEAR. If I could buy Office for Linux 2020 for 100 pounds, I would, and it would be enough for me for the next decade, unless I'll move out of software engineering and go work as a lawyer or something.
- danans 6y ago
  > I can afford it, but if I had to pay £7.99 x 6 = £47.94 for every hour of productivity I extract from a piece of software Why would you pay for 6 months of subscription for every hour you use it? If it's just an hour of use, you just pay for 1 month, so 7.99. Is there a 6 month minimum? > If I could buy Office for Linux 2020 for 100 pounds, I would, and it would be enough for me for the next decade, I get that that would be a great deal for you, but why would MS want to support your £100 Office for Linux purchase with security and feature updates for 10 years? Why even develop and release that product? It's not like they lack for people who will pay their Office 365 subscription fee. It would make as little sense for them to do that as it would for you to sign up for that subscription.