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Dear customers: we know. But our businesses are viable as subscription services, and not as one-off or ad-hoc puchase models. We know because we tried them. So

Dear customers: we know. But our businesses are viable as subscription services, and not as one-off or ad-hoc puchase models. We know because we tried them. So we're catering to the people who are OK with buying a subscription because there are enough of them. Sorry if that doesn't suit you.

golergka 4y ago
Buyers want to pay as little as possible and get as much as possible, and sellers want the opposite, on any possible market. It's silly to try and assign moral values to what is simply a conflict of interest.
lawgimenez 4y ago
This is how I feel as a happy customer of Fantastical calendar. The hate is just unwarranted.
- ChildOfChaos 4y ago
  But why is a calendar app a subscription service? That is ridiculous.
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    Well the calendar changes every year so that's a lot of maintenance work. /s
  - matwood 4y ago
    I think people underestimate how much maintenance work there is today. iOS alone adds features yearly that everyone expects the existing apps to support on day 1. While macos has fewer changes, same issue there. And calendars...smh. It would be great if MS and Google both followed some standard perfectly, but based on what I've seen from various calendar apps, they do not. Otherwise, the apps would not have such a hard time dealing with multiple calendars.
    - philipwhiuk 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar - it's pretty standardised actually.
      - matwood 4y ago
        The basics have been standardized many times. People who pay for something like Fanstastical aren't looking for just the basics - delegates for example. ICal also support vendor extensions that need support. HN of all places is one I wouldn't think would assume software maintenance is easy. But, it's where I saw people complain about the Uber app size until an Uber engineer showed up and explained the many screens for payments alone.
auveair 4y ago
> So we're catering to the people who are OK with buying a subscription because there are enough of them. Are there enough of them? Many services seems like they can only exist because many people forget to cancel their subscription.
- davidkuennen 4y ago
  I believe this to be untrue. People are very quick to unsubscribe to my app once they don't see a use for them for the paid version anymore.
  - amelius 4y ago
    There is also lock-in. In many services you will lose your data if you unsubscribe.
  - eastbound 4y ago
    As a B2B cloud vendor, I’d say 60% of my revenue comes from companies who don’t know are using our products. However, this is part of the business model which sponsors the creation of a product for the 10% who are intensively using our products. I think of this illegitimate money as seed funding, by large companies, who certainly hope that we’ll reach the feature level of IBM’s products. Given they spend a million a year for IBM’s products, I think they’re doing good by seeding startups like us, even if we fail (which we won’t).
- phphphphp 4y ago
  There’s many reasons someone may continue their subscription while they’re not actively using the product, so while some people may forget, it’s difficult to determine that without someone saying explicitly that they forgot — and many companies will refund unused subscriptions. I have subscriptions that remain active despite not actively using the product: I could save money by unsubscribing and resubscribing but the money saved isn’t worth the effort to re-subscribe each time I want to use it.
  - xg15 4y ago
xg15 4y ago
> But our businesses are viable as subscription services, and not as one-off or ad-hoc puchase models. Doesn't explain businesses that had been per-purchase for a long time and are now still switching to subscriptions though. (E.g. photoshop, jetbrains...)
- manigandham 4y ago
  Restate it as "more viable".
  - xg15 4y ago
    Yeah, I'll restate that as "more profitable", a.k.a. "we're greedy and if we can make more money by lowering the quality of our products and restricting the range of people who can use them, of course we'll do that."
    - manigandham 4y ago
      More profitable, of course. Why do you assume a corporation wouldn't do that? That doesn't mean the rest of your statement, but if that happened then competition in a free market would take care of it. Perhaps you can start the next billion-dollar Adobe?
- isoprophlex 4y ago
  Jetbrains actually aren't that user hostile: buy a yearly subscription now, and you get a perpetual licence for the current version.
- cplli 4y ago
  I wouldn't throw Jetbrains in the same boat. I quite like their pricing model. You get to keep the last version, so you're basically paying for updates in the end (which are worth it IMO). On top of that, you get a discount after the first year.
  - xg15 4y ago
    Yeah, Jetbrains' model is one of the better ones in that. At least your money doesn't completely vaporize with that, even though you'll still lose a year of features and improvements once you cancel.
deleted 4y ago
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amelius 4y ago
From a monetization-persepective, the only difference between a subscription model and a purchase model is that in the former there are always some people paying for something they do not want to have anymore.
- boffinism 4y ago
  In the former there are always some people paying for something they do not want enough to go through the effort of buying (although they may still consider it reasonable enough value to stick with given it requires no further effort to do so).
deleted 4y ago
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nixass 4y ago
First thing I see on "Shown HN:" threads after following the link is subscription "pricing" that pokes me in the eye. Terrible practice that I don't see a way out of, unfortunately.
deleted 4y ago
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ekianjo 4y ago
Your businesses are only viable as subscription services because they suck. We had software industries long before everyone was starting to ask for a monthly subscription. You are just making the lazy decision to extract the most value from your existing customers with rent building instead of trying to expand to new markets and services.
- acjacobson 4y ago
  I feel like this might be true, but if it is true wouldn't someone else take advantage of the fact? Competitors usually spring up when there is an advantage to be leveraged - and there usually is always an advantage when an incumbent is lazy or rent building.
jwr 4y ago
That sounds like a cynical take, but is actually close to the truth. The usual take is that businesses are "greedy" and subscription models are "lucrative". The word I'd rather use is "sustainable". Maintaining software (any software) is an ongoing process, not a one-time effort. It needs to be paid for on an ongoing basis. Even a tiny phone app needs regular maintenance work just to stay current with OS and tools development. It is unrealistic to expect to be able to pay once and use an app "forever". Source: I run a SaaS business. A related observation: we have unrealistic expectations of how cheap software should be. Software development is very expensive and has been becoming more expensive over the years, as system complexity grows and the pace of OS/platform updates increases. There are very few "mainstream" apps that can take advantage of economies of scale, and yet we still expect to be able to use hundreds of apps for cheap one-time payments. That leads to unsustainable business models and app churn. Myself, I'd rather have a small number of expensive (subscription-based) good applications that are sustainably developed and maintained over many years.
- muppetman 4y ago
  Windows 3.11, Office, Windows 95 etc seem to have done ok without monthly payments.
  - usrusr 4y ago
    And they were all funded in the paid update model. Subscription is a consequence of products running on the cloud (where you certainly wouldn't want to operate old versions for customers who refuse to update) and of the lifetime background updates established by app stores.
    - birksherty 4y ago
      That's exactly what should be. Pay to upgrade to major version, no subscription. Functioning app, fixing errors should be included in the selling price.
  - prirun 4y ago
    Monopolies are great! /s
FuriouslyAdrift 4y ago
On my orgs end... we LOVE support subscriptions (that include app update rights) but HATE license subscriptions. Tying the ability to run with a subscription model means we can't use it for anything business critical (as per legal, regulatory, or just common sense reasons).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

golergka 4y ago

Buyers want to pay as little as possible and get as much as possible, and sellers want the opposite, on any possible market. It's silly to try and assign moral values to what is simply a conflict of interest.

lawgimenez 4y ago

This is how I feel as a happy customer of Fantastical calendar. The hate is just unwarranted.

ChildOfChaos 4y ago
But why is a calendar app a subscription service? That is ridiculous.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  Well the calendar changes every year so that's a lot of maintenance work. /s
- matwood 4y ago
  I think people underestimate how much maintenance work there is today. iOS alone adds features yearly that everyone expects the existing apps to support on day 1. While macos has fewer changes, same issue there. And calendars...smh. It would be great if MS and Google both followed some standard perfectly, but based on what I've seen from various calendar apps, they do not. Otherwise, the apps would not have such a hard time dealing with multiple calendars.
  - philipwhiuk 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar - it's pretty standardised actually.
    - matwood 4y ago
      The basics have been standardized many times. People who pay for something like Fanstastical aren't looking for just the basics - delegates for example. ICal also support vendor extensions that need support. HN of all places is one I wouldn't think would assume software maintenance is easy. But, it's where I saw people complain about the Uber app size until an Uber engineer showed up and explained the many screens for payments alone.

auveair 4y ago

> So we're catering to the people who are OK with buying a subscription because there are enough of them. Are there enough of them? Many services seems like they can only exist because many people forget to cancel their subscription.

davidkuennen 4y ago
I believe this to be untrue. People are very quick to unsubscribe to my app once they don't see a use for them for the paid version anymore.
- amelius 4y ago
  There is also lock-in. In many services you will lose your data if you unsubscribe.
- eastbound 4y ago
  As a B2B cloud vendor, I’d say 60% of my revenue comes from companies who don’t know are using our products. However, this is part of the business model which sponsors the creation of a product for the 10% who are intensively using our products. I think of this illegitimate money as seed funding, by large companies, who certainly hope that we’ll reach the feature level of IBM’s products. Given they spend a million a year for IBM’s products, I think they’re doing good by seeding startups like us, even if we fail (which we won’t).
phphphphp 4y ago
There’s many reasons someone may continue their subscription while they’re not actively using the product, so while some people may forget, it’s difficult to determine that without someone saying explicitly that they forgot — and many companies will refund unused subscriptions. I have subscriptions that remain active despite not actively using the product: I could save money by unsubscribing and resubscribing but the money saved isn’t worth the effort to re-subscribe each time I want to use it.
- xg15 4y ago

xg15 4y ago

> But our businesses are viable as subscription services, and not as one-off or ad-hoc puchase models. Doesn't explain businesses that had been per-purchase for a long time and are now still switching to subscriptions though. (E.g. photoshop, jetbrains...)

manigandham 4y ago
Restate it as "more viable".
- xg15 4y ago
  Yeah, I'll restate that as "more profitable", a.k.a. "we're greedy and if we can make more money by lowering the quality of our products and restricting the range of people who can use them, of course we'll do that."
  - manigandham 4y ago
    More profitable, of course. Why do you assume a corporation wouldn't do that? That doesn't mean the rest of your statement, but if that happened then competition in a free market would take care of it. Perhaps you can start the next billion-dollar Adobe?
isoprophlex 4y ago
Jetbrains actually aren't that user hostile: buy a yearly subscription now, and you get a perpetual licence for the current version.
cplli 4y ago
I wouldn't throw Jetbrains in the same boat. I quite like their pricing model. You get to keep the last version, so you're basically paying for updates in the end (which are worth it IMO). On top of that, you get a discount after the first year.
- xg15 4y ago
  Yeah, Jetbrains' model is one of the better ones in that. At least your money doesn't completely vaporize with that, even though you'll still lose a year of features and improvements once you cancel.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

amelius 4y ago

From a monetization-persepective, the only difference between a subscription model and a purchase model is that in the former there are always some people paying for something they do not want to have anymore.

boffinism 4y ago
In the former there are always some people paying for something they do not want enough to go through the effort of buying (although they may still consider it reasonable enough value to stick with given it requires no further effort to do so).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

nixass 4y ago

First thing I see on "Shown HN:" threads after following the link is subscription "pricing" that pokes me in the eye. Terrible practice that I don't see a way out of, unfortunately.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ekianjo 4y ago

Your businesses are only viable as subscription services because they suck. We had software industries long before everyone was starting to ask for a monthly subscription. You are just making the lazy decision to extract the most value from your existing customers with rent building instead of trying to expand to new markets and services.

acjacobson 4y ago
I feel like this might be true, but if it is true wouldn't someone else take advantage of the fact? Competitors usually spring up when there is an advantage to be leveraged - and there usually is always an advantage when an incumbent is lazy or rent building.

jwr 4y ago

That sounds like a cynical take, but is actually close to the truth. The usual take is that businesses are "greedy" and subscription models are "lucrative". The word I'd rather use is "sustainable". Maintaining software (any software) is an ongoing process, not a one-time effort. It needs to be paid for on an ongoing basis. Even a tiny phone app needs regular maintenance work just to stay current with OS and tools development. It is unrealistic to expect to be able to pay once and use an app "forever". Source: I run a SaaS business. A related observation: we have unrealistic expectations of how cheap software should be. Software development is very expensive and has been becoming more expensive over the years, as system complexity grows and the pace of OS/platform updates increases. There are very few "mainstream" apps that can take advantage of economies of scale, and yet we still expect to be able to use hundreds of apps for cheap one-time payments. That leads to unsustainable business models and app churn. Myself, I'd rather have a small number of expensive (subscription-based) good applications that are sustainably developed and maintained over many years.

muppetman 4y ago
Windows 3.11, Office, Windows 95 etc seem to have done ok without monthly payments.
- usrusr 4y ago
  And they were all funded in the paid update model. Subscription is a consequence of products running on the cloud (where you certainly wouldn't want to operate old versions for customers who refuse to update) and of the lifetime background updates established by app stores.
  - birksherty 4y ago
    That's exactly what should be. Pay to upgrade to major version, no subscription. Functioning app, fixing errors should be included in the selling price.
- prirun 4y ago
  Monopolies are great! /s

FuriouslyAdrift 4y ago

On my orgs end... we LOVE support subscriptions (that include app update rights) but HATE license subscriptions. Tying the ability to run with a subscription model means we can't use it for anything business critical (as per legal, regulatory, or just common sense reasons).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]