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Commercial software has a more obvious reason to avoid breaking your stuff and to try and track down bugs.i Commercial software has an incentive to pump out ne

Commercial software has a more obvious reason to avoid breaking your stuff and to try and track down bugs.i Commercial software has an incentive to pump out new features to get more customers. Also, if someone is only working on something for a paycheck they may not be as thorough as someone working to solve their own problems, or satisfying their passions. Commercial software has an advantage when it comes to documentation, and being user friendly because they're the things no one wants to do.

systemvoltage 6y ago
This is not true though. It really depends on the company and their philosophy, whether they are publicly traded or what their executive team is like. Good companies know how to invest into their products and make them world class. In my previous job, we used a wind turbine simulation package developed by 25 engineers and it was so great - they really cared and fixed things. It was $50k/seat/annual license but we were almost like 2 different teams under the same company. "You scratch my back, I scratch yours". There are also a lot of companies that have lock-ins and generally awful attitude towards their own products. This also exists in the open source world - there is a lot of awful open source code out there.
bleepblorp 6y ago
> Commercial software has an incentive to pump out new features to get more customers. Not if it's SaaS. Vendors of rented software have no economic incentive to develop new features, or even fix bugs, because they get subscription fees without needing to do any work.
- notmyfuture 6y ago
  There is still competition to consider though. If a SaaS product has competitors that are more reliable, or more feature rich, they should win & retain more customers over time.
  - bleepblorp 6y ago
    Data lock-in, due to proprietary file formats, makes switching software extremely difficult, especially for companies that interchange data with outside entities. For instance, companies that do design and/or A/V work have no real alternatives to paying Adobe monthly--regardless of how little work Adobe puts into Creative Suite--because it's an industry standard and there are no alternatives that offer friction-free interoperability.
- bawolff 6y ago
  They still have to attract new customers, and investors really want to see growth not just a stable number of subscribers.

systemvoltage 6y ago

This is not true though. It really depends on the company and their philosophy, whether they are publicly traded or what their executive team is like. Good companies know how to invest into their products and make them world class. In my previous job, we used a wind turbine simulation package developed by 25 engineers and it was so great - they really cared and fixed things. It was $50k/seat/annual license but we were almost like 2 different teams under the same company. "You scratch my back, I scratch yours". There are also a lot of companies that have lock-ins and generally awful attitude towards their own products. This also exists in the open source world - there is a lot of awful open source code out there.

bleepblorp 6y ago

> Commercial software has an incentive to pump out new features to get more customers. Not if it's SaaS. Vendors of rented software have no economic incentive to develop new features, or even fix bugs, because they get subscription fees without needing to do any work.

notmyfuture 6y ago
There is still competition to consider though. If a SaaS product has competitors that are more reliable, or more feature rich, they should win & retain more customers over time.
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  Data lock-in, due to proprietary file formats, makes switching software extremely difficult, especially for companies that interchange data with outside entities. For instance, companies that do design and/or A/V work have no real alternatives to paying Adobe monthly--regardless of how little work Adobe puts into Creative Suite--because it's an industry standard and there are no alternatives that offer friction-free interoperability.
bawolff 6y ago
They still have to attract new customers, and investors really want to see growth not just a stable number of subscribers.