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Ignoring all the issues around ownership, corporations being untrustworthy, etc., I think one of the biggest problems is that subscription costs aren't flexible

Ignoring all the issues around ownership, corporations being untrustworthy, etc., I think one of the biggest problems is that subscription costs aren't flexible enough and require too much micromanagement. You use a program 24/7 for a month straight? That'll be $10. You need to use a program just for a single 5-minute task in a whole month? That'll be $10. You literally don't touch a program for a month? That'll be $10. Or you can unsubscribe, and then resubscribe, over and over again.

jimkleiber 4y ago
I've been exploring a pay what you want model for a subscription. Would you prefer something like this? Or more about just putting in more options for selecting based on one's usage? something else?
- bytehowl 4y ago
  TBH, as I'm on the pay2own team, I haven't given it that much thought. However, I think some sort of pay-as-you-go model would be the most fair. For every minute the software is active in (user interaction or processing some task), the user would get charged X. I think determining the correct X might be quite difficult, but I guess that's why marketing departments exist.
- mhitza 4y ago
  Something like what AWS does seems reasonable, charge per consumption/usage not fixed priced per user/feature. For example, if you average user spends 10 hours a week using your software, bake that time into the price point, unless usage is correlated with load/compute on your backend, in which case use measurement metric to price things.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  The issue with subscriptions for me is unrelated to the price. All subscriptions are bad. They require constant budgeting and attention. They usually come with forced upgrades, or a forced cloud component. They make it too easy to get nickel and dimed to death. If I can't pay a one-time price for the software, it's a nonstarter. I'm totally fine with paying for updates later, as long as I'm not forced into them.
  - jimkleiber 4y ago
    What about a subscription that doesn't auto-renew? So if you want to continue to use it, you pay again? Or does that still frustrate you because you want to "own" it rather than "rent" it? If you're answer is yes, that's ok with me, just curious :-)
phrom 4y ago
I agree with the micromanagement, but I don't see how subscription costs are less flexible than a buy once model. You can choose to have a single price, or multiple price points, in either payment model.

jimkleiber 4y ago

I've been exploring a pay what you want model for a subscription. Would you prefer something like this? Or more about just putting in more options for selecting based on one's usage? something else?

bytehowl 4y ago
TBH, as I'm on the pay2own team, I haven't given it that much thought. However, I think some sort of pay-as-you-go model would be the most fair. For every minute the software is active in (user interaction or processing some task), the user would get charged X. I think determining the correct X might be quite difficult, but I guess that's why marketing departments exist.
mhitza 4y ago
Something like what AWS does seems reasonable, charge per consumption/usage not fixed priced per user/feature. For example, if you average user spends 10 hours a week using your software, bake that time into the price point, unless usage is correlated with load/compute on your backend, in which case use measurement metric to price things.
JohnFen 4y ago
The issue with subscriptions for me is unrelated to the price. All subscriptions are bad. They require constant budgeting and attention. They usually come with forced upgrades, or a forced cloud component. They make it too easy to get nickel and dimed to death. If I can't pay a one-time price for the software, it's a nonstarter. I'm totally fine with paying for updates later, as long as I'm not forced into them.
- jimkleiber 4y ago
  What about a subscription that doesn't auto-renew? So if you want to continue to use it, you pay again? Or does that still frustrate you because you want to "own" it rather than "rent" it? If you're answer is yes, that's ok with me, just curious :-)

phrom 4y ago

I agree with the micromanagement, but I don't see how subscription costs are less flexible than a buy once model. You can choose to have a single price, or multiple price points, in either payment model.