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As software development works today, the subscription model is the only logical business model. Unless it's like a single player game where you only play throug
by z3t4 6y ago
As software development works today, the subscription model is the only logical business model. Unless it's like a single player game where you only play through or use once. Software today is an continuous process. When a software product ships it's far from finished. The subscription model is good for both users and developers, as it allows releasing a software product early, without a huge marketing and advertising budget. The incentive is not to make you buy it once, the incentive is to make you keep using it, by improving it, or keeping it good, take good care of customers, etc.
- setr 6y ago> The incentive is not to make you buy it once, the incentive is to make you keep using it, by improving it, or keeping it good, take good care of customers, etc. The problem is that this isn’t the only incentive, or rather, not a well-defined version of the incentive at play. The incentive is to simply keep the customer as a customer, over time. Multiple strategies will work, which includes being nice to the customer, but also includes lock-in strategies like data availability (proprietary format, no export), logic availability (custom proprietary language, stdlib, etc), etc That is, Jetbrains and Oracle both run on subscription models, with very different interpretations of how to process those incentives.
- trevyn 6y agoNot everything has to have a business model. Some people write code because they want to, and then give it away for free. If you plant a seed in the earth, it will give you food for free, too. Also, we’re starting to reach the point where money is an ineffective incentive.
- dismalpedigree 6y agoI am sure there are a handful of rent seeking startups trying to figure out how to make sure you pay a subscription for planting that seed also.
- sojournerc 6y agoI laughed, but then then felt sad about my deep cynicism. Merry Christmas!
- read_if_gay_ 6y agoNitpick: The seed’s business model is preserving existence of its species.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoI don't think it's good for -consumers- in the majority of cases and is only for those selling the software. I think anything else is rationalization in the mind of the developer. New versions should sell themselves as they provide security and feature upgrades if it's a good product.