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For 1), what exactly are you expecting to happen to enable this cloud backup to continue working? You pay once for someone to set up a hard drive in the "cloud

For 1), what exactly are you expecting to happen to enable this cloud backup to continue working? You pay once for someone to set up a hard drive in the "cloud" you can put your photos on? They charge you enough for a lifetime of transfer bandwidth? What happens when the hard drive dies? Do you want redundancy so that if one drive dies the photos aren't lost? Who pays the tech to go change out the first drive when it fails so it can recover before the others in the array also die? What's your personal risk aversion for losing this data? Even a two-drive RAID array can lose all of your data in some scenarios. For 2), you want an app that connects to all of your accounts. How does it do that? Usually by using web APIs or a third party interconnect like Plaid. What happens when they bank you use updated their API? Who is going to provide you with updates to keep all of these account connections working? --- Both scenarios you describe have ongoing maintenance. Things weren't SaaS when they existed solely on your local computer and continued working without constant maintenance, but your two examples that come to mind show how our expectations of technology have changed and we expect things to work online, backed-up, and to keep working even as integration partners, OS vendors, etc. update their systems.

teraflop 4y ago
I think the point is that you should be able to use one commodity service to handle your data storage and syncing needs. (Or maybe a couple different ones, if you're worried about your account getting terminated.) But that doesn't mean you should have to be nickel-and-dimed by subscriptions for every individual application you want to use.
- stetrain 4y ago
  Sure, I could build a photo app for a one-time purchase that lets you add your own credentials for S3, B2, etc. What’s the market size for users who will set this up themselves (versus going for a competing app that bundles the cloud storage), how many platforms will I have to develop for (Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android?) and will they promise to never complain when an OS update or API change breaks the app?
  - swatcoder 4y ago
    We did that for decades. Many products still do. The model is plenty well proven, and the markets well demonstrated, so this kind of rhetorical “well what do you expect?” stuff is unconstructive. There are reasons a business may prefer to provide their product as an SaaS, but it’s hardly some necessity.
    - stetrain 4y ago
      Yes, but that market mostly existed before everyone expected every app to be online and connected to other services, and since then the market has moved to SaaS. So if customers will pay more for a subscription that is inclusive of these details and maintenance, why would I choose the option that leaves me with less revenue and fewer customers?
    - lolinder 4y ago
      We did cloud backup as a single-purchase pluggable-into-any-provider desktop application for decades? I don't recall anything like that. The features OP is asking for in their not-SaaS product wishlist just plain didn't exist before SaaS. There was no cloud backup, there was no automatic account connection in your budgeting app. It's not obvious to me that things that require a connection to an always-on server (and some features really do require that) could be sustainably delivered in a one-time purchase model.
      - ensignavenger 4y ago
        Microsoft Money and Quicken absolutely had account syncing abilities in their one-time purchase software license budgeting apps.
        lolinder 4y ago
        Ah! I stand corrected.
    - count 4y ago
      Those decades didn't include the features, functionality, scalability, or user-friendliness required by the BILLIONS of people online now using services that weren't able to use them when they required you to do your own setup.
asdff 4y ago
Software should be maintained in an almost private trust model imo. Pay upfront for the license which generates a bunch of money for the developer upfront. That money along with all future revenues from new licenses are put into a trust that grows over time and is used to pay salaries for maintainers and to pay for server hardware. Maybe if you own your own hardware you could even have a side business of leasing your spare compute capacity and that perhaps could cover its costs.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  Nothing is stopping you from having such a model, but why would everyone need to do this?

teraflop 4y ago

I think the point is that you should be able to use one commodity service to handle your data storage and syncing needs. (Or maybe a couple different ones, if you're worried about your account getting terminated.) But that doesn't mean you should have to be nickel-and-dimed by subscriptions for every individual application you want to use.

stetrain 4y ago
Sure, I could build a photo app for a one-time purchase that lets you add your own credentials for S3, B2, etc. What’s the market size for users who will set this up themselves (versus going for a competing app that bundles the cloud storage), how many platforms will I have to develop for (Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android?) and will they promise to never complain when an OS update or API change breaks the app?
- swatcoder 4y ago
  We did that for decades. Many products still do. The model is plenty well proven, and the markets well demonstrated, so this kind of rhetorical “well what do you expect?” stuff is unconstructive. There are reasons a business may prefer to provide their product as an SaaS, but it’s hardly some necessity.
  - stetrain 4y ago
    Yes, but that market mostly existed before everyone expected every app to be online and connected to other services, and since then the market has moved to SaaS. So if customers will pay more for a subscription that is inclusive of these details and maintenance, why would I choose the option that leaves me with less revenue and fewer customers?
  - lolinder 4y ago
    We did cloud backup as a single-purchase pluggable-into-any-provider desktop application for decades? I don't recall anything like that. The features OP is asking for in their not-SaaS product wishlist just plain didn't exist before SaaS. There was no cloud backup, there was no automatic account connection in your budgeting app. It's not obvious to me that things that require a connection to an always-on server (and some features really do require that) could be sustainably delivered in a one-time purchase model.
    - ensignavenger 4y ago
      Microsoft Money and Quicken absolutely had account syncing abilities in their one-time purchase software license budgeting apps.
      - lolinder 4y ago
        Ah! I stand corrected.
  - count 4y ago
    Those decades didn't include the features, functionality, scalability, or user-friendliness required by the BILLIONS of people online now using services that weren't able to use them when they required you to do your own setup.

asdff 4y ago

Software should be maintained in an almost private trust model imo. Pay upfront for the license which generates a bunch of money for the developer upfront. That money along with all future revenues from new licenses are put into a trust that grows over time and is used to pay salaries for maintainers and to pay for server hardware. Maybe if you own your own hardware you could even have a side business of leasing your spare compute capacity and that perhaps could cover its costs.

cinntaile 4y ago
Nothing is stopping you from having such a model, but why would everyone need to do this?