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> And if the author is reading Author here, reading, and thanks for this, I really enjoyed your comment. And the 'dual user story' problem (aka split-brain) is

> And if the author is reading Author here, reading, and thanks for this, I really enjoyed your comment. And the 'dual user story' problem (aka split-brain) is so true, I wish someone had told me about it earlier in my career. > That said, I'd love a product like 'Monarch Money' that was a) not subscription based and b) not cloud hosted We chose a subscription-based business model to try and align ourselves with users. If I had to write a second part of my article, I'd write something like "Your product becomes your business model". I've worked on enough "free" products to know that they lead to the very dynamics I criticize in my article (there's another comment in this thread that summarizes that quite nicely[1]). As for not cloud-based, I hope that's something we can deliver some day down the road, but for now, cloud-based products are the easiest way to deliver the type of cross-platform product we're trying to build. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24462452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24462452

ChuckMcM 6y ago
FWIW, I got to see the 'split brain' product team when Sun Micro decided to do a 386 based workstation and had the east coast team design the system software. Between their Systems Group and the west coast Systems Group much confusion was created. On the product, I'm not interested in a 'free' product, I'd pay you $300 for such a product and buy periodic updates for $100/year. I tend to do this will all 'tools' type applications (Illustration, CAD, Simulation, Etc.) I love having the company invested in making it something wonderful and open source products with their, by necessity, indiscriminate addition of developers, suffer for that reason[1]. My concern, especially with financial software, is that your cloud gets compromised and I and all of your customers are scrambling to avoid losses. Frankly I am amazed that people can get liability insurance for that sort of thing given the stakes! That said, Quicken and Intuit in general, really needs competition to help them focus. Edit: And per the summary comment. I am not suggesting a 'freemium' or ad supported model, just one that keeps the data where I can be assured that if someone else let's their guard down it won't compromise my data. That is the big weakness with 'cloud' in my mind. [1] FreeBSD tries really really hard and comes close, I expect it would really shine if it had a revenue stream to support a full time product management team and lead developers.
- Ozzie_osman 6y ago
  Ah sorry, I thought by "not a subscription" you just meant free. What you're saying makes sense and is definitely something worth thinking about. We do take security very seriously, of course, but I understand your concern about data still living in the cloud.
  - ChuckMcM 6y ago
    An interesting model here is Evernote which has the option of storing your notebooks in the cloud or locally.

ChuckMcM 6y ago

FWIW, I got to see the 'split brain' product team when Sun Micro decided to do a 386 based workstation and had the east coast team design the system software. Between their Systems Group and the west coast Systems Group much confusion was created. On the product, I'm not interested in a 'free' product, I'd pay you $300 for such a product and buy periodic updates for $100/year. I tend to do this will all 'tools' type applications (Illustration, CAD, Simulation, Etc.) I love having the company invested in making it something wonderful and open source products with their, by necessity, indiscriminate addition of developers, suffer for that reason[1]. My concern, especially with financial software, is that your cloud gets compromised and I and all of your customers are scrambling to avoid losses. Frankly I am amazed that people can get liability insurance for that sort of thing given the stakes! That said, Quicken and Intuit in general, really needs competition to help them focus. Edit: And per the summary comment. I am not suggesting a 'freemium' or ad supported model, just one that keeps the data where I can be assured that if someone else let's their guard down it won't compromise my data. That is the big weakness with 'cloud' in my mind. [1] FreeBSD tries really really hard and comes close, I expect it would really shine if it had a revenue stream to support a full time product management team and lead developers.

Ozzie_osman 6y ago
Ah sorry, I thought by "not a subscription" you just meant free. What you're saying makes sense and is definitely something worth thinking about. We do take security very seriously, of course, but I understand your concern about data still living in the cloud.
- ChuckMcM 6y ago
  An interesting model here is Evernote which has the option of storing your notebooks in the cloud or locally.