when Google killed Reader it (should have) taught us that the interests of software developers and users are misaligned everything that's happened since just f

when Google killed Reader it (should have) taught us that the interests of software developers and users are misaligned everything that's happened since just further reinforces that lesson but it wasn't always that way when software was a product, that you sold, your relationship to the user/buyer was different if you put out an upgrade it had to be worth the money and the faff of installing it subscriptions (and free-with-ads) and auto-updates destroy that, devs no longer have to add value to keep getting paid. We mostly don't see this in games, which continue to be sold on the old model. I argue that "ad-supported" and "subscription", as software business models, eventually but inevitably turn developer and user into enemies. So if you want to avoid becoming your users' enemy, you should actually SELL software to them, rather than leasing or giving it away + selling ads. -- (transcription of a recent twitter thread) To that I'll add: if you doubt that subscription/ad-supported software companies are your enemy, just think about - Salesforce - Facebook - Slack's constant futzing with the UI that always makes things worse - Chrome constantly threatening to lock out ad blockers - Docker Desktop forcing you to upgrade to a newer version *that is broken* It's universal. (edit: formatting)