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We believe privacy is important for creativity, so all content is stored 100% on-device. No cloud, although we plan to add some sharing/collaboration features l

We believe privacy is important for creativity, so all content is stored 100% on-device. No cloud, although we plan to add some sharing/collaboration features later on. As much as possible we'll use local-first principles on that, which might not surprise you since I'm a coauthor on the local-first paper. https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first.html https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first.html Subscription fatigue, yeah, I know. Hoping to write an article about this in our industry, but the reality is that this is what's sustainable for a small team that wants to avoid venture funding (and eventual acquisition "incredible journey" stuff) or monetizing by selling your personal data.

Closi 6y ago
It’s not subscription fatigue, it’s poor value. I mean it costs the same as a Netflix subscription, or alternatively 2 triple-A games. I get that you have set the price you think you need to sustain a team, but I really don’t get the value proposition to the customer and not sure this is thought through.
- adamwiggins 6y ago
  Guess it depends what you value! Personally I value deep thinking, making good decisions, and doing research higher than entertainment. Now whether the product is helpful enough with those things to be worth the price, well for that the market will decide :-)
  - hackstack 6y ago
    I think you've already gotten lots of feedback on pricing -- One thing I didn't see mentioned is that your website lacks a pricing page. Yes, you indicate the subscription price, and you hide a little note that says you can try it for free first... but here in the comments you said you have a "generous free tier" -- it would be useful to see information about that tier on your website. All that said, I'll join the chorus of skeptics over the $100/yr price. Apparently you have people willing to pay that, which is great, and hopefully a sign that you have built a good product -- maybe we on HN are just a bunch of cheap, cynical bastards.
    - bachmeier 6y ago
      > maybe we on HN are just a bunch of cheap, cynical bastards. I highly doubt that. I've seen a lot of advice to overprice on here, the idea being that you can never charge too much. "Double your price" is the most consistent advice on this site.
      - nodesocket 6y ago
        A point to the contrary, I also see (mostly developers) who try to optimize $5 monthly SaaS expenses (paid Docker Hub, GitHub vs self-hosted) wasting hours and hours of their time and energy. I come from an entrepreneur attitude, my time is my most precious commodity. I don't optimize minor expenses, I optimize the big picture, my time, outcomes, and most importantly income/revenue coming in.
    - corobo 6y ago
      Naw I’m shite with cash and 100 a year is still too much for this. Especially if it’s my device I already bought doing all the work. I understand folks gotta make a living but I feel the price is based on “Hey got away with it”. Best of luck but I’ll stick with my notes and scribbles on blank business cards and notepads For me Muse’s competitor is 100 (double sided where appropriate) cards for a fiver every month or two. I’ve never had my data held hostage for nonpayment either (I don’t know if they do this, I’m just not new to subscription models) https://i.imgsir.com/pbdo.jpg https://i.imgsir.com/pbdo.jpg Also if you do happen to use Evernote you know why I’m using business cards. So easy to digitise if I ever do need to
  - bosie 6y ago
    Will the USD100 subscription include a much needed mac app? Or is the plan to make (good?) decisions on a 10" ipad?
  - bachmeier 6y ago
    Out of character for me, my initial thought is that the pricing is probably right. The people willing to pay for a product like this are probably mostly willing to pay $100/year for it. I think there are legitimate concerns that the market for an app like this is small, but in that case, you probably want to capture as much profit per customer as possible. But hey this is just speculation...
  - techsupporter 6y ago
    > Guess it depends what you value! Personally I value deep thinking, making good decisions, and doing research higher than entertainment. At the risk of sounding brusque, that comes off as more than a little reductive. "Your choices are poor compared to mine." I don't think you meant it that way but text doesn't convey emotion. Regarding the what I value aspect: This is yet another (cool-looking) app that asks me to pour my creativity and thoughts into it yet charges me rent to keep them there, even though the app, as you say, does not have recurring costs to you. So now, if I want to invest my time and soul into making this my One True Creativity App and keep it, hypothetically, for the rest of my life, I'm looking at $4,000. Or even if I just keep it for the next decade (assuming it survives that long and the shutdown of the subscription doesn't yank my data away from me with it), that's a grand. I'm genuinely sorry but I'm not going to take that risk or pick up that expense. Sell me the app and I'll buy it; don't rent it to me.
    - dchuk 6y ago
      Apps that are worked on consistently have a very high recurring cost - people hours
      - ianai 6y ago
        Idea: flat charge to export the entire library to a standard or competing format. Could vary if the library is particularly large or end format proprietary. That way people who hate subscriptions or lock-in know they have an out and don’t have to lose anything.
      - Closi 6y ago
        True, but they also have a very low incremental cost per unit. It doesn’t really matter if you sell 10 at $100 or 100 at $10, and sometimes selling 100 at $10 is significantly easier.
      - jmnicolas 6y ago
        Do you really think this app will still need major work 5 years from now? As I said in another comment, work on version 2.0 (since 1.0 is probably not complete now) and put it in maintenance mode then, instead of cramming it with useless features.
- jkmcf 6y ago
  TBF, they've priced it at $70/year due to Apple's "tax", and Netflix has economies of scale Muse can only dream of. If you find value in their product, and use it frequently, is $100/yr that much? I haven't tried it yet, but superficially it seems much less trivial than Fantastical, which is a great product, but not worth $40/year. I personally hate subscriptions as currently implemented. I'd like to see pricing amortized over two years, and after that a reduced subscription price since you are primarily funding maintenance in many cases.
  - ianai 6y ago
    Yes 100/yr is absolutely too much.
  - jmnicolas 6y ago
    > is $100/yr that much Not everybody has Silicon Valley or even US salaries (I sure don't) and subscriptions quickly add up and become non trivial. At work we still have Office 2010 on most our workstations. Imagine how much we would have paid if we had an Office 365 subscription all those years (I'm not sure 365 even existed at the time of 2010 release but bear with me for the example).
jmnicolas 6y ago
> the reality is that this is what's sustainable for a small team No this is rent seeking imho : this software is already built there's no need to work on it full time for the next 10 years just to bloat it with mostly useless features. Sell it, make a profit, work on version 2.0 (1.0 is probably missing crucial things that will become apparent once it's battle tested), sell it again then put it in maintenance mode and go work on something else. Please apologize for the tone I'm not a native speaker so I don't know how to say it nicer. I don't intend to hurt your feelings, actually I hope you will succeed even if I won't subscribe.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  iOS doesn't do upgrade pricing very well, unfortunately.
  - techsupporter 6y ago
    I've seen this "One Weird Trick" done pretty well: sell the old version and the new version in a bundle and price the bundle "completion price" accordingly. Super Cool App v4 - $9.99 Super Cool App v5 - $12.99 Total Bundle Price - $22.98 Bundle Upgrade Price if you have v4 - $8.99
- halostatue 6y ago
  Apple does not provide viable iOS upgrade paths that permit charging. Muse 2 would have to be a separate app, and that would run into issues with “local first”. Muse would also not receive the purchases it needs if it had an up-front cost of $60 or more (which is what a typical app would cost on the Mac).
  - aryehof 6y ago
    Can you please describe what “local first” is, and the implications of it in regards to a separate app?
    - frank2 6y ago
rkagerer 6y ago
For the subscription model to be palatable to your consumer, they need to perceive you as providing some kind of meaningful ongoing value. In the case of Netflix that's obvious - new shows. Dropbox is a little more annoying, but there's still the premise the cloud component is fundamental to how their service works. "Daily admission to the software I installed" doesn't feel like much in the way of value, even if you are continuously investing into the product behind the scenes. The equation can even become negative (e.g. forced UI revamp, user hates it, now they feel like you're charging them to make their life worse). I get the cashflow appeal and business arguments, but I disagree it's the only way. I sold software online with a small bootstrapped team for over a decade under the plain old "buy it once" model, resisting the subscription fad even when the MBA's pushed to go that route, and made it work. My customers were always happy to buy the major version upgrades (every couple years or so) because it was really clear what new value they were getting.
- ianai 6y ago
  Agree. Pay once and make well defined versions. Versions can definitely be done as in app purchases. Knowing I’m creating content I could lose access to if i cancel the subscription is a great reason to not purchase in the first place.
  - throwaway815190 6y ago
    Disagree. This puts pressure on the app developer to release versions with new features whether it makes sense for the app or not. I balk at yearly subscriptions to software too for the exact reason you state. But, I also realize that one time purchases don't keep the doors open indefinitely. I wish I had a magic solution for this conundrum, but I don't.
    - setr 6y ago
      The subscribe-for-continous-updates, and stuck at last-paid update (as long as you pay, you update; if you stop paying, you keep the app, with no further updates) seems like a pretty good model, as far as incentives go
bengale 6y ago
Just wanted to say I’ve got no issue with subscriptions as long as continual improvement is happening. Have you seen how agenda does their subscriptions? You pay yearly but the features they add while you’re subscribed stay unlocked even if you don’t renew but new features would be locked. I really like this model as it helps with not feeling like your money evaporates if the devs don’t keep improving the product.
eitland 6y ago
> Subscription fatigue, yeah, I know. Hoping to write an article about this in our industry, but the reality is that this is what's sustainable for a small team that wants to avoid venture funding (and eventual acquisition "incredible journey" stuff) or monetizing by selling your personal data. I've been thinking about this repeatedly for years, usually triggered by apps like this. I might even have written about it here or on my blog and I agree it is a hard problem. First, for anyone who wonders why do companies need recurring revenues after the initial version has been (I didn't either a decade ago): Releasing software into the wild is less fire-and-forget than one would think. Platform APIs change, security holes are found etc. Second: I have been trying to look for models - hoping to find some I truly enjoy - and I'll try to summarize the ones I can remember, with examples: - the original WhatsApp model: a tiny recurring charge. In an alternative world where they weren't bought and at about the same time - as network effects set in they could have started charging companies for API access, not to spam but tonrun helpsdesks, bots etc. Micropayments also looked promising. - The Jetbrains model: you pay a subscription but as long as you have paid for a minimum amount of time you get to keep the last version that was released while you were paying. - A similar model is used by the Agenda app. I almost never use it and yet I'm tempted to pay (again, I have done it before) because I love the business model. - then you have the commercial sponsor model where someone pays to be the default choice for something the end user would probably choose anyway: this worked really well for Mozilla and Opera for a number of years. - Then there is the old school pay one model, this often bleeds into one one of the above models as new more or less improved releases are pushed every year. - There are freemium models which are more or less free: some charge only for superficial features (reddit), other for one time upgrades to extra tools, other charge on a monthly basis for access to extra tools. I think I currently have 3 app subscriptions going, one for MeWe and one for Concepts and one for Paper Pro, and then there's a couple of newspapers, mandatory payments for the national broadcasting, there's Netflix and Spotify and payments to Hetzner for my hosted NextCloud instance and after that I really really don't want another subscription unless it is - very inexpensive - or is something I use everday, - or it replaces one of my existing ones. I've downloaded it to test now, but for now it looks like a OneNote competior priced at the same level as the entire Office 365 personal edition? Edit: I've tested it a bit now this looks extremely promising but the price is steep for an app and there is no option to pay monthly for a couple of months to test. At least you were generous with 100 reusable cards so I will continue testing it.

Closi 6y ago

It’s not subscription fatigue, it’s poor value. I mean it costs the same as a Netflix subscription, or alternatively 2 triple-A games. I get that you have set the price you think you need to sustain a team, but I really don’t get the value proposition to the customer and not sure this is thought through.

adamwiggins 6y ago
Guess it depends what you value! Personally I value deep thinking, making good decisions, and doing research higher than entertainment. Now whether the product is helpful enough with those things to be worth the price, well for that the market will decide :-)
- hackstack 6y ago
  I think you've already gotten lots of feedback on pricing -- One thing I didn't see mentioned is that your website lacks a pricing page. Yes, you indicate the subscription price, and you hide a little note that says you can try it for free first... but here in the comments you said you have a "generous free tier" -- it would be useful to see information about that tier on your website. All that said, I'll join the chorus of skeptics over the $100/yr price. Apparently you have people willing to pay that, which is great, and hopefully a sign that you have built a good product -- maybe we on HN are just a bunch of cheap, cynical bastards.
  - bachmeier 6y ago
    > maybe we on HN are just a bunch of cheap, cynical bastards. I highly doubt that. I've seen a lot of advice to overprice on here, the idea being that you can never charge too much. "Double your price" is the most consistent advice on this site.
    - nodesocket 6y ago
      A point to the contrary, I also see (mostly developers) who try to optimize $5 monthly SaaS expenses (paid Docker Hub, GitHub vs self-hosted) wasting hours and hours of their time and energy. I come from an entrepreneur attitude, my time is my most precious commodity. I don't optimize minor expenses, I optimize the big picture, my time, outcomes, and most importantly income/revenue coming in.
  - corobo 6y ago
    Naw I’m shite with cash and 100 a year is still too much for this. Especially if it’s my device I already bought doing all the work. I understand folks gotta make a living but I feel the price is based on “Hey got away with it”. Best of luck but I’ll stick with my notes and scribbles on blank business cards and notepads For me Muse’s competitor is 100 (double sided where appropriate) cards for a fiver every month or two. I’ve never had my data held hostage for nonpayment either (I don’t know if they do this, I’m just not new to subscription models) https://i.imgsir.com/pbdo.jpg https://i.imgsir.com/pbdo.jpg Also if you do happen to use Evernote you know why I’m using business cards. So easy to digitise if I ever do need to
- bosie 6y ago
  Will the USD100 subscription include a much needed mac app? Or is the plan to make (good?) decisions on a 10" ipad?
- bachmeier 6y ago
  Out of character for me, my initial thought is that the pricing is probably right. The people willing to pay for a product like this are probably mostly willing to pay $100/year for it. I think there are legitimate concerns that the market for an app like this is small, but in that case, you probably want to capture as much profit per customer as possible. But hey this is just speculation...
- techsupporter 6y ago
  > Guess it depends what you value! Personally I value deep thinking, making good decisions, and doing research higher than entertainment. At the risk of sounding brusque, that comes off as more than a little reductive. "Your choices are poor compared to mine." I don't think you meant it that way but text doesn't convey emotion. Regarding the what I value aspect: This is yet another (cool-looking) app that asks me to pour my creativity and thoughts into it yet charges me rent to keep them there, even though the app, as you say, does not have recurring costs to you. So now, if I want to invest my time and soul into making this my One True Creativity App and keep it, hypothetically, for the rest of my life, I'm looking at $4,000. Or even if I just keep it for the next decade (assuming it survives that long and the shutdown of the subscription doesn't yank my data away from me with it), that's a grand. I'm genuinely sorry but I'm not going to take that risk or pick up that expense. Sell me the app and I'll buy it; don't rent it to me.
  - dchuk 6y ago
    Apps that are worked on consistently have a very high recurring cost - people hours
    - ianai 6y ago
      Idea: flat charge to export the entire library to a standard or competing format. Could vary if the library is particularly large or end format proprietary. That way people who hate subscriptions or lock-in know they have an out and don’t have to lose anything.
    - Closi 6y ago
      True, but they also have a very low incremental cost per unit. It doesn’t really matter if you sell 10 at $100 or 100 at $10, and sometimes selling 100 at $10 is significantly easier.
    - jmnicolas 6y ago
      Do you really think this app will still need major work 5 years from now? As I said in another comment, work on version 2.0 (since 1.0 is probably not complete now) and put it in maintenance mode then, instead of cramming it with useless features.
jkmcf 6y ago
TBF, they've priced it at $70/year due to Apple's "tax", and Netflix has economies of scale Muse can only dream of. If you find value in their product, and use it frequently, is $100/yr that much? I haven't tried it yet, but superficially it seems much less trivial than Fantastical, which is a great product, but not worth $40/year. I personally hate subscriptions as currently implemented. I'd like to see pricing amortized over two years, and after that a reduced subscription price since you are primarily funding maintenance in many cases.
- ianai 6y ago
  Yes 100/yr is absolutely too much.
- jmnicolas 6y ago
  > is $100/yr that much Not everybody has Silicon Valley or even US salaries (I sure don't) and subscriptions quickly add up and become non trivial. At work we still have Office 2010 on most our workstations. Imagine how much we would have paid if we had an Office 365 subscription all those years (I'm not sure 365 even existed at the time of 2010 release but bear with me for the example).

jmnicolas 6y ago

> the reality is that this is what's sustainable for a small team No this is rent seeking imho : this software is already built there's no need to work on it full time for the next 10 years just to bloat it with mostly useless features. Sell it, make a profit, work on version 2.0 (1.0 is probably missing crucial things that will become apparent once it's battle tested), sell it again then put it in maintenance mode and go work on something else. Please apologize for the tone I'm not a native speaker so I don't know how to say it nicer. I don't intend to hurt your feelings, actually I hope you will succeed even if I won't subscribe.

saagarjha 6y ago
iOS doesn't do upgrade pricing very well, unfortunately.
- techsupporter 6y ago
  I've seen this "One Weird Trick" done pretty well: sell the old version and the new version in a bundle and price the bundle "completion price" accordingly. Super Cool App v4 - $9.99 Super Cool App v5 - $12.99 Total Bundle Price - $22.98 Bundle Upgrade Price if you have v4 - $8.99
halostatue 6y ago
Apple does not provide viable iOS upgrade paths that permit charging. Muse 2 would have to be a separate app, and that would run into issues with “local first”. Muse would also not receive the purchases it needs if it had an up-front cost of $60 or more (which is what a typical app would cost on the Mac).
- aryehof 6y ago
  Can you please describe what “local first” is, and the implications of it in regards to a separate app?
  - frank2 6y ago

rkagerer 6y ago

For the subscription model to be palatable to your consumer, they need to perceive you as providing some kind of meaningful ongoing value. In the case of Netflix that's obvious - new shows. Dropbox is a little more annoying, but there's still the premise the cloud component is fundamental to how their service works. "Daily admission to the software I installed" doesn't feel like much in the way of value, even if you are continuously investing into the product behind the scenes. The equation can even become negative (e.g. forced UI revamp, user hates it, now they feel like you're charging them to make their life worse). I get the cashflow appeal and business arguments, but I disagree it's the only way. I sold software online with a small bootstrapped team for over a decade under the plain old "buy it once" model, resisting the subscription fad even when the MBA's pushed to go that route, and made it work. My customers were always happy to buy the major version upgrades (every couple years or so) because it was really clear what new value they were getting.

ianai 6y ago
Agree. Pay once and make well defined versions. Versions can definitely be done as in app purchases. Knowing I’m creating content I could lose access to if i cancel the subscription is a great reason to not purchase in the first place.
- throwaway815190 6y ago
  Disagree. This puts pressure on the app developer to release versions with new features whether it makes sense for the app or not. I balk at yearly subscriptions to software too for the exact reason you state. But, I also realize that one time purchases don't keep the doors open indefinitely. I wish I had a magic solution for this conundrum, but I don't.
  - setr 6y ago
    The subscribe-for-continous-updates, and stuck at last-paid update (as long as you pay, you update; if you stop paying, you keep the app, with no further updates) seems like a pretty good model, as far as incentives go

bengale 6y ago

Just wanted to say I’ve got no issue with subscriptions as long as continual improvement is happening. Have you seen how agenda does their subscriptions? You pay yearly but the features they add while you’re subscribed stay unlocked even if you don’t renew but new features would be locked. I really like this model as it helps with not feeling like your money evaporates if the devs don’t keep improving the product.

eitland 6y ago

> Subscription fatigue, yeah, I know. Hoping to write an article about this in our industry, but the reality is that this is what's sustainable for a small team that wants to avoid venture funding (and eventual acquisition "incredible journey" stuff) or monetizing by selling your personal data. I've been thinking about this repeatedly for years, usually triggered by apps like this. I might even have written about it here or on my blog and I agree it is a hard problem. First, for anyone who wonders why do companies need recurring revenues after the initial version has been (I didn't either a decade ago): Releasing software into the wild is less fire-and-forget than one would think. Platform APIs change, security holes are found etc. Second: I have been trying to look for models - hoping to find some I truly enjoy - and I'll try to summarize the ones I can remember, with examples: - the original WhatsApp model: a tiny recurring charge. In an alternative world where they weren't bought and at about the same time - as network effects set in they could have started charging companies for API access, not to spam but tonrun helpsdesks, bots etc. Micropayments also looked promising. - The Jetbrains model: you pay a subscription but as long as you have paid for a minimum amount of time you get to keep the last version that was released while you were paying. - A similar model is used by the Agenda app. I almost never use it and yet I'm tempted to pay (again, I have done it before) because I love the business model. - then you have the commercial sponsor model where someone pays to be the default choice for something the end user would probably choose anyway: this worked really well for Mozilla and Opera for a number of years. - Then there is the old school pay one model, this often bleeds into one one of the above models as new more or less improved releases are pushed every year. - There are freemium models which are more or less free: some charge only for superficial features (reddit), other for one time upgrades to extra tools, other charge on a monthly basis for access to extra tools. I think I currently have 3 app subscriptions going, one for MeWe and one for Concepts and one for Paper Pro, and then there's a couple of newspapers, mandatory payments for the national broadcasting, there's Netflix and Spotify and payments to Hetzner for my hosted NextCloud instance and after that I really really don't want another subscription unless it is - very inexpensive - or is something I use everday, - or it replaces one of my existing ones. I've downloaded it to test now, but for now it looks like a OneNote competior priced at the same level as the entire Office 365 personal edition? Edit: I've tested it a bit now this looks extremely promising but the price is steep for an app and there is no option to pay monthly for a couple of months to test. At least you were generous with 100 reusable cards so I will continue testing it.