5 ms·

It’s not hard to find a T-shirt I can wear over and over again without having to keep paying for it. Nowadays it’s nearly impossible to find software that lets

It’s not hard to find a T-shirt I can wear over and over again without having to keep paying for it. Nowadays it’s nearly impossible to find software that lets you pay once at a reasonable price. So yeah, it is very frustrating to fight off subscriptions.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
carmen_sandiego 6y ago
So write your own software for your needs and sell it for a one off price? But you presumably won't because the incentive isn't great enough. Which is exactly why people milk subs. And if you're not willing to do it for the incentive of a one off price, why should anyone else be?
- Invictus0 6y ago
  And the end result of this whole thing is too-expensive software that no one is willing to pay for and doesn't get used, and no one's problem is actually solved. And then when the "startup" fails, the code is of course not turned into a library, and it all starts again.
  - carmen_sandiego 6y ago
    If you think an $x one-time payment is a great reward for making y, then make y and charge $x. Seems like a free opportunity to me. If it's really so simple, you can easily undercut those doing the subscription model. Unless, of course, $x is not actually that motivating a fee for the work. In which case, it's a bit entitled to expect others to work for a fee that doesn't spur you into action either.
    - Invictus0 6y ago
      It has nothing to do with entitlement. It has to do with the fruit of the labor not being worth the price necessary to remunerate that labor.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  > So write your own software for your needs and sell it for a one off price? Should he tailor his tshirt too? It is totaly fine to whine about something without fixing the industry by yourself. I for one don't like the movement of commercial software to forced cloud integration. Big or small business. What would have been shareware or naggware would today be SaaS and be gone the day the server shuts down.
  - carmen_sandiego 6y ago
    > Should he tailor his tshirt too? No, because t-shirts are already available for one-off prices. He's already willing to pay enough to motivate people to make them for him. He and/or wider society are not willing to pay enough to motivate people to make him one-time-purchase software, apparently.
- worldsayshi 6y ago
  Fells like the reason one off pricing is less common is because the model has felt broken since the time of Kazaa (file sharing app from way back), Napster etc. For some reason software is almost exclusively sold through app stores. I don't remember the last time I bought software that wasn't subscription based for a non mobile device. Ok, maybe one app.
  - carmen_sandiego 6y ago
    Well that and probably the pricing psychology of paying what would be your LTV as a subscriber up front. That’s also why I don’t agree subscription software is categorically detrimental but more of a trade off. The benefit is there for both parties: for the seller it’s easier to convert people because you’re only asking for the one month or one year price, for the buyer you’re at most out that same reduced price if the service doesn’t work out. The negative is of course that you don’t own it outright, but it seems a lot of people are happy with the trade off. Apart from HN.
yarcob 6y ago
I think the problem is that people are overestimating the benefits of subscriptions. Yes, subscriptions make recurring revenue. But so does pay-once software, as long as you don't stop getting new users. But your SaaS subscribers also churn, so you can't stop getting new customers there either. Pay-once has the huge advantage that the barrier to entry is much lower. I'm pretty sure that it's much easier to sell a 50€ app than a 10€ subscription. And that 10€ subscription means you need to keep your customers for at least 5 months. If they don't need your app anymore for some reason before that, you would have made more with the pay once app. I mean, if you have recurring costs per user, please go for a subscription. But folks shouldn't assume that pay once is unsustainable. You just get the full lifetime value of the customer up front and you don't have to worry about them churning!
- Xamayon 6y ago
  >I'm pretty sure that it's much easier to sell a 50€ app than a 10€ subscription. Very much this for me, I will go to great lengths to avoid using software with subscription fees. For example, I was fine with paying several thousand for the Adobe suite and upgrades in CS4-6.5 days but no way will I pay $50/month for the same software. The cost may be less upfront but I have an easier time justifying a single one time purchase than a continual unending string of fees. I don't use the software enough to justify the expense month after month so seeing the bill again and again wears on me until I cancel.
- samatman 6y ago
  There is a hidden problem here, which is app store policy (all of them, afaik). Setting up a subscription? Easy. Selling software once.. and just once? Also easy. But if you want to follow the classic version model, where users pay for upgrades? Now you have problems. The app stores see a new version as a completely new piece of software, so you have to build up reputation for it from the ground up, and if you want to overlap the old and new version for awhile, which is usually a good idea, you run the risk of people buying the old one by accident and getting mad at you. It's just not a use case which is supported anymore, and it should be.
  - 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

carmen_sandiego 6y ago

So write your own software for your needs and sell it for a one off price? But you presumably won't because the incentive isn't great enough. Which is exactly why people milk subs. And if you're not willing to do it for the incentive of a one off price, why should anyone else be?

Invictus0 6y ago
And the end result of this whole thing is too-expensive software that no one is willing to pay for and doesn't get used, and no one's problem is actually solved. And then when the "startup" fails, the code is of course not turned into a library, and it all starts again.
- carmen_sandiego 6y ago
  If you think an $x one-time payment is a great reward for making y, then make y and charge $x. Seems like a free opportunity to me. If it's really so simple, you can easily undercut those doing the subscription model. Unless, of course, $x is not actually that motivating a fee for the work. In which case, it's a bit entitled to expect others to work for a fee that doesn't spur you into action either.
  - Invictus0 6y ago
    It has nothing to do with entitlement. It has to do with the fruit of the labor not being worth the price necessary to remunerate that labor.
rightbyte 6y ago
> So write your own software for your needs and sell it for a one off price? Should he tailor his tshirt too? It is totaly fine to whine about something without fixing the industry by yourself. I for one don't like the movement of commercial software to forced cloud integration. Big or small business. What would have been shareware or naggware would today be SaaS and be gone the day the server shuts down.
- carmen_sandiego 6y ago
  > Should he tailor his tshirt too? No, because t-shirts are already available for one-off prices. He's already willing to pay enough to motivate people to make them for him. He and/or wider society are not willing to pay enough to motivate people to make him one-time-purchase software, apparently.
worldsayshi 6y ago
Fells like the reason one off pricing is less common is because the model has felt broken since the time of Kazaa (file sharing app from way back), Napster etc. For some reason software is almost exclusively sold through app stores. I don't remember the last time I bought software that wasn't subscription based for a non mobile device. Ok, maybe one app.
- carmen_sandiego 6y ago
  Well that and probably the pricing psychology of paying what would be your LTV as a subscriber up front. That’s also why I don’t agree subscription software is categorically detrimental but more of a trade off. The benefit is there for both parties: for the seller it’s easier to convert people because you’re only asking for the one month or one year price, for the buyer you’re at most out that same reduced price if the service doesn’t work out. The negative is of course that you don’t own it outright, but it seems a lot of people are happy with the trade off. Apart from HN.

yarcob 6y ago

I think the problem is that people are overestimating the benefits of subscriptions. Yes, subscriptions make recurring revenue. But so does pay-once software, as long as you don't stop getting new users. But your SaaS subscribers also churn, so you can't stop getting new customers there either. Pay-once has the huge advantage that the barrier to entry is much lower. I'm pretty sure that it's much easier to sell a 50€ app than a 10€ subscription. And that 10€ subscription means you need to keep your customers for at least 5 months. If they don't need your app anymore for some reason before that, you would have made more with the pay once app. I mean, if you have recurring costs per user, please go for a subscription. But folks shouldn't assume that pay once is unsustainable. You just get the full lifetime value of the customer up front and you don't have to worry about them churning!

Xamayon 6y ago
>I'm pretty sure that it's much easier to sell a 50€ app than a 10€ subscription. Very much this for me, I will go to great lengths to avoid using software with subscription fees. For example, I was fine with paying several thousand for the Adobe suite and upgrades in CS4-6.5 days but no way will I pay $50/month for the same software. The cost may be less upfront but I have an easier time justifying a single one time purchase than a continual unending string of fees. I don't use the software enough to justify the expense month after month so seeing the bill again and again wears on me until I cancel.
samatman 6y ago
There is a hidden problem here, which is app store policy (all of them, afaik). Setting up a subscription? Easy. Selling software once.. and just once? Also easy. But if you want to follow the classic version model, where users pay for upgrades? Now you have problems. The app stores see a new version as a completely new piece of software, so you have to build up reputation for it from the ground up, and if you want to overlap the old and new version for awhile, which is usually a good idea, you run the risk of people buying the old one by accident and getting mad at you. It's just not a use case which is supported anymore, and it should be.
- 6y ago