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It looks lovely, but charging a subscription for spell check, in-document search, and printing -- table stakes for a text editor -- is surely going to rub peopl

It looks lovely, but charging a subscription for spell check, in-document search, and printing -- table stakes for a text editor -- is surely going to rub people the wrong way.[1] [1]: https://www.craft.do/pricing#Features https://www.craft.do/pricing#Features

monkin 6y ago
Don’t forget about limited Markdown support.
- cratermoon 6y ago
  That's a bigger problem than not being able to send my file to printer. Looking at what Craft does, a paper version is going to be very "lossy", it's what Clay Shirky calls a "shearing" layer.
mortenjorck 6y ago
While much of the blame still falls on Apple for pushing developers toward subscriptions in the absence of a straightforward paid-upgrade mechanism, requiring a subscription for an app with no cloud dependencies remains an instant disqualification for me. It's buying into a promise that your monthly payments are going toward continuous improvement of the product – a promise that might be kept, or might not – and even if it is, for how long? If updates stall out after awhile, or if the new features don't solve anything for you, it's not like you can choose to skip an upgrade. And the more you use the product, the higher the barrier to switching away. I agree, Craft looks lovely, but there's no way I'm locking myself into its business model. I say this every time, but this is a solved problem. Developers of software like Sketch and Bitwig Studio have the right kind of subscription model, where you subscribe to updates, not access. If you don't care for the latest version, you can let your subscription lapse and keep using the last version you're licensed for. Apple has all the pieces necessary to simply gate App Store updates via subscription, but they apparently have no motivation to do so.
- _jal 6y ago
  Related, but the push to subscriptions coupled with my reaction has devalued my phone substantially. I just do not subscribe to many things. I don't like assigning myself future financial tasks, and I don't like dealing with recurring payments[1]. As a result, I've stopped using a bunch of things that went sub-only. There are more I'll be dropping. And this has moved a lot of things I did on my phone elsewhere. This, combined with the fact that the Iphone X (I have no need to upgrade it) is a bit too big, and the Screentime thing tells me I use it an average of 17 minutes a day, which is going to mainly be 2FA and texting with family. I mean, I kinda welcome this - I don't like phone dependency. And I expect I'm not the median case. But Apple's strategy has backfired with me. [1] I realize this is not strictly rational, and I have paid more for one-time-purchase software that I used once than a sub would have been. It doesn't matter.
  - hackerfromthefu 6y ago
    Completely agree! Subscriptions cost future hassles and distraction, as well as the money. I'm busy. No subscription, no deal :D
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    with 17 minutes a day you definitely are not the median case. i think you're more of an outlier these days (probably outside 3 sigma that people actually care about). I can see why you wouldn't want any subscription services.
- opsy2 6y ago
  Gating app store updates is not so simple- what about security patches or fixes when a new iOS version breaks everything? Still could work but isn't easy, and probably throws a wrench in the whole modern idea of continuous develop -> deploy.
  - novok 6y ago
    TBH I think it's fine to prevent access to updates that update the app to work with the updated OS. That is work and I think it's fair to charge for it.
cratermoon 6y ago
I don't believe printing is table stakes for an editor any more. Quality export to a printable format, yes. Directly sending an application document to the system print queue via some printing language (PostScript, PCL, DVI, PDF..), though, I don't see that as being a big thing anymore. I'm not saying the paperless office is here, but with everyone WFH and no access to the office color laser printer, who is generating much paper any more? You know what would be better? A feature to generate an epub or kindle document. https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/epub-kindle-and-multimarkdown-export-in-scrivener-3 https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/epub-kindle-and-mult...

monkin 6y ago

Don’t forget about limited Markdown support.

cratermoon 6y ago
That's a bigger problem than not being able to send my file to printer. Looking at what Craft does, a paper version is going to be very "lossy", it's what Clay Shirky calls a "shearing" layer.

mortenjorck 6y ago

While much of the blame still falls on Apple for pushing developers toward subscriptions in the absence of a straightforward paid-upgrade mechanism, requiring a subscription for an app with no cloud dependencies remains an instant disqualification for me. It's buying into a promise that your monthly payments are going toward continuous improvement of the product – a promise that might be kept, or might not – and even if it is, for how long? If updates stall out after awhile, or if the new features don't solve anything for you, it's not like you can choose to skip an upgrade. And the more you use the product, the higher the barrier to switching away. I agree, Craft looks lovely, but there's no way I'm locking myself into its business model. I say this every time, but this is a solved problem. Developers of software like Sketch and Bitwig Studio have the right kind of subscription model, where you subscribe to updates, not access. If you don't care for the latest version, you can let your subscription lapse and keep using the last version you're licensed for. Apple has all the pieces necessary to simply gate App Store updates via subscription, but they apparently have no motivation to do so.

_jal 6y ago
Related, but the push to subscriptions coupled with my reaction has devalued my phone substantially. I just do not subscribe to many things. I don't like assigning myself future financial tasks, and I don't like dealing with recurring payments[1]. As a result, I've stopped using a bunch of things that went sub-only. There are more I'll be dropping. And this has moved a lot of things I did on my phone elsewhere. This, combined with the fact that the Iphone X (I have no need to upgrade it) is a bit too big, and the Screentime thing tells me I use it an average of 17 minutes a day, which is going to mainly be 2FA and texting with family. I mean, I kinda welcome this - I don't like phone dependency. And I expect I'm not the median case. But Apple's strategy has backfired with me. [1] I realize this is not strictly rational, and I have paid more for one-time-purchase software that I used once than a sub would have been. It doesn't matter.
- hackerfromthefu 6y ago
  Completely agree! Subscriptions cost future hassles and distraction, as well as the money. I'm busy. No subscription, no deal :D
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  with 17 minutes a day you definitely are not the median case. i think you're more of an outlier these days (probably outside 3 sigma that people actually care about). I can see why you wouldn't want any subscription services.
opsy2 6y ago
Gating app store updates is not so simple- what about security patches or fixes when a new iOS version breaks everything? Still could work but isn't easy, and probably throws a wrench in the whole modern idea of continuous develop -> deploy.
- novok 6y ago
  TBH I think it's fine to prevent access to updates that update the app to work with the updated OS. That is work and I think it's fair to charge for it.

cratermoon 6y ago

I don't believe printing is table stakes for an editor any more. Quality export to a printable format, yes. Directly sending an application document to the system print queue via some printing language (PostScript, PCL, DVI, PDF..), though, I don't see that as being a big thing anymore. I'm not saying the paperless office is here, but with everyone WFH and no access to the office color laser printer, who is generating much paper any more? You know what would be better? A feature to generate an epub or kindle document. https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/epub-kindle-and-multimarkdown-export-in-scrivener-3 https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/epub-kindle-and-mult...