5 ms·

Honestly this model of selling the consumer software in exchange for money that runs on their computer seems better than providing the software that only runs o

Honestly this model of selling the consumer software in exchange for money that runs on their computer seems better than providing the software that only runs on the company’s servers in exchange for data and ads.

zer8k 3y ago
I agree. SaaS was supposed to be a model that was highly beneficial for vendors selling to corporations. Once it penetrated the consumer market it became death by 1,000 cuts. Now everyone's life is loaded down subscriptions for things that 20 years ago would've been bought once. I miss the days of owning software. I guess I can be thankful it pushed me towards open source.
- heattemp99 3y ago
  Saas is also a way of combating piracy imo.
  - cratermoon 3y ago
    It is, with the downside that if the company goes out of business, the buyer is out of luck. See, e.g. VanMoof
    - antupis 3y ago
      Saas in hardware is kinda stupid if you cannot offer some real benefits eg game pass.
      - 0max 3y ago
        Playstation Plus with the streaming package really changed my view on gaming once I got fiber optic piped into my building. The hardware fan doesn't spin up when I stream Ghosts of Tsushima instead of playing locally, essentially turning my PS4 into a thin client for Sony's services. RIP Gamestop
  - zer8k 3y ago
    It also greatly exacerbates piracy. I'd be willing to bet movies, music, and certain software like CAD are seeing unprecedented levels of piracy after SaaS. Especially when SaaS enables companies like Netflix to betray their consumers.
    - sbuk 3y ago
      Professional-level ‘CAD’ has always been susceptible to piracy as it has always been criminally expensive. Music services are at about the right price, and if anything offer pretty good value when one considers that album prices were reaching the $20 mark.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Ye. On my phone I used some half-bad text editor, Acode, to view a patch I meeded to review on the fly. It shows ads and does an ad popup when you try to exit. Like, Google does not let you search their app store and filter by cost or spyware. It is hopeless to find some good utility tool without knowing its exact name. A simple text-editor should be free. I don't want to give some dev reccuring revenue to unlock Notepad level features.
  - mfashby 3y ago
    Try f droid store, all the apps there are required to be open source so there's fewer spy/malware. Or look for apps by secuso on the play store. Fwiw acode on f-droid doesn't seem to have ads. I strongly agree it shouldn't be this hard to find simple stuff.
  - andrepd 3y ago
    >Like, Google does not let you search their app store and filter by cost or spyware Why would they? But Aurora Store does: https://auroraoss.com/ https://auroraoss.com/
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  At least on Apple systems, I have always found paid good apps at fair prices for all my needs.
  - dmvdoug 3y ago
    Sadly, though, we’re starting to see a lot fewer Mac-assed apps[1] these days. [1] https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/03/20/mac-assed-mac-apps https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/03/20/mac-assed-mac-a...
JimtheCoder 3y ago
Maybe with Gen AI potentially lowering the cost of software development, it will be economically viable to go back to the "pay once and own" model...
xp84 3y ago
I don’t really care where it runs, or if it’s one-time purchase vs subscription. It’s just the “paying indirectly for ‘free’ software products” vs “paying for software” that I care about.
3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
...in exchange for data and ads, and money. That's the trick though, SaaS just keeps you hostage to the vendor and they can extract more value out of you. There are only two ways out of this: 1. The Internet becomes dangerous and unreliable for some reason, and we need to go back to treating software as a product for sale, rather than service for rent. 2. Regulation. Neither way is great. It suggests distress in the system and forcing behaviors which are not natural to it. On the other hand, what's natural to this system we've created is apparently massive centralization in the hands of corporations, and whenever anything in this network of dependencies breaks, the whole thing falls apart like a house of cards.
- dec0dedab0de 3y ago
  The third way out is to simply not participate. If something is SaaS only I pretend it doesn't exist.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > SaaS just keeps you hostage to the vendor and they can extract more value out of you It was also a solution to the problem of updates. You can't pay for continuous improvement with a traditional software product.
  - zer8k 3y ago
    I never had problem paying a company for patches. The problem companies had would be someone buying their software and then never buying updates. That's a product problem not a system problem. SaaS keeps the consumer captive in a permanent rental situation. The "it gives the customers a better experience" non-sense is false. One of the best case studies on this is Jetbrains. Sublime Text is still around too. It works. It just doesn't sell very well to SV shareholders. It'd be a lot easier if they just said "we're greedy assholes". Since that's what it actually is. Software had to be made right the first time when released on CD. Updates were paid and it was okay because they were usually major improvements. There's been a whole lot of propaganda made to make SaaS seem like a net win for the consumer but this is by-and-large not the case.
cratermoon 3y ago
This model still exists, somewhat. One factor that worked against it, from the standpoint of the software companies, was that there was no effective way to prevent copying and sharing (aka 'piracy'). Software companies put a lot of money and effort into trying to stop it, but every technical scheme was eventually cracked. The elaborate schemes that involved having a physical copy of the game's packaging annoyed users. Some schemes were downright abusive[1]. Even with modern DRM, the cost, complexity, and inability to completely lock down software installed on a device under the control of the user puts some companies off. So now we have software as a service, paid for with the user's attention (ads) or we have software that just stops working if the company's servers can't be reached. (Looking at you, VanMoof). 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_protection#Notable_payloads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_protection#Notable_payloa...
- flangola7 3y ago
  I don't want companies to be able to lock down a user's device. That isn't a business model that should be legitimized or allowed.
  - cratermoon 3y ago
    > I don't want companies to be able to lock down a user's device Neither do I, thus the cautionary tale of VanMoof. Software is now everywhere, in everything from your toaster to the electric grid. As a result, right-to-repair means right to reprogram. The owner needs to be able to fix bugs, change performance parameters, replace things that break. When my dad was working on cars, that meant put in a new carburetor, adjust the timing, clean the points - all physical parts. It's different today.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Also, if you wanted on-prem software, open source alternatives increasingly became an option. (As in the case of office suites, SaaS also allows for some collaboration and other options that couldn't really be done with desktop software installs. I never want to go back to mailing around copies of files and merging changes again.
haunter 3y ago
Aren't most video games still following this rule?
- cjs_ac 3y ago
  Given the rise of free-to-play-pay-to-win games, microtransactions and DLCs, no.

zer8k 3y ago

I agree. SaaS was supposed to be a model that was highly beneficial for vendors selling to corporations. Once it penetrated the consumer market it became death by 1,000 cuts. Now everyone's life is loaded down subscriptions for things that 20 years ago would've been bought once. I miss the days of owning software. I guess I can be thankful it pushed me towards open source.

heattemp99 3y ago
Saas is also a way of combating piracy imo.
- cratermoon 3y ago
  It is, with the downside that if the company goes out of business, the buyer is out of luck. See, e.g. VanMoof
  - antupis 3y ago
    Saas in hardware is kinda stupid if you cannot offer some real benefits eg game pass.
    - 0max 3y ago
      Playstation Plus with the streaming package really changed my view on gaming once I got fiber optic piped into my building. The hardware fan doesn't spin up when I stream Ghosts of Tsushima instead of playing locally, essentially turning my PS4 into a thin client for Sony's services. RIP Gamestop
- zer8k 3y ago
  It also greatly exacerbates piracy. I'd be willing to bet movies, music, and certain software like CAD are seeing unprecedented levels of piracy after SaaS. Especially when SaaS enables companies like Netflix to betray their consumers.
  - sbuk 3y ago
    Professional-level ‘CAD’ has always been susceptible to piracy as it has always been criminally expensive. Music services are at about the right price, and if anything offer pretty good value when one considers that album prices were reaching the $20 mark.
rightbyte 3y ago
Ye. On my phone I used some half-bad text editor, Acode, to view a patch I meeded to review on the fly. It shows ads and does an ad popup when you try to exit. Like, Google does not let you search their app store and filter by cost or spyware. It is hopeless to find some good utility tool without knowing its exact name. A simple text-editor should be free. I don't want to give some dev reccuring revenue to unlock Notepad level features.
- mfashby 3y ago
  Try f droid store, all the apps there are required to be open source so there's fewer spy/malware. Or look for apps by secuso on the play store. Fwiw acode on f-droid doesn't seem to have ads. I strongly agree it shouldn't be this hard to find simple stuff.
- andrepd 3y ago
  >Like, Google does not let you search their app store and filter by cost or spyware Why would they? But Aurora Store does: https://auroraoss.com/ https://auroraoss.com/
carlosjobim 3y ago
At least on Apple systems, I have always found paid good apps at fair prices for all my needs.
- dmvdoug 3y ago
  Sadly, though, we’re starting to see a lot fewer Mac-assed apps[1] these days. [1] https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/03/20/mac-assed-mac-apps https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/03/20/mac-assed-mac-a...

JimtheCoder 3y ago

Maybe with Gen AI potentially lowering the cost of software development, it will be economically viable to go back to the "pay once and own" model...

xp84 3y ago

I don’t really care where it runs, or if it’s one-time purchase vs subscription. It’s just the “paying indirectly for ‘free’ software products” vs “paying for software” that I care about.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago

...in exchange for data and ads, and money. That's the trick though, SaaS just keeps you hostage to the vendor and they can extract more value out of you. There are only two ways out of this: 1. The Internet becomes dangerous and unreliable for some reason, and we need to go back to treating software as a product for sale, rather than service for rent. 2. Regulation. Neither way is great. It suggests distress in the system and forcing behaviors which are not natural to it. On the other hand, what's natural to this system we've created is apparently massive centralization in the hands of corporations, and whenever anything in this network of dependencies breaks, the whole thing falls apart like a house of cards.

dec0dedab0de 3y ago
The third way out is to simply not participate. If something is SaaS only I pretend it doesn't exist.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> SaaS just keeps you hostage to the vendor and they can extract more value out of you It was also a solution to the problem of updates. You can't pay for continuous improvement with a traditional software product.
- zer8k 3y ago
  I never had problem paying a company for patches. The problem companies had would be someone buying their software and then never buying updates. That's a product problem not a system problem. SaaS keeps the consumer captive in a permanent rental situation. The "it gives the customers a better experience" non-sense is false. One of the best case studies on this is Jetbrains. Sublime Text is still around too. It works. It just doesn't sell very well to SV shareholders. It'd be a lot easier if they just said "we're greedy assholes". Since that's what it actually is. Software had to be made right the first time when released on CD. Updates were paid and it was okay because they were usually major improvements. There's been a whole lot of propaganda made to make SaaS seem like a net win for the consumer but this is by-and-large not the case.

cratermoon 3y ago

This model still exists, somewhat. One factor that worked against it, from the standpoint of the software companies, was that there was no effective way to prevent copying and sharing (aka 'piracy'). Software companies put a lot of money and effort into trying to stop it, but every technical scheme was eventually cracked. The elaborate schemes that involved having a physical copy of the game's packaging annoyed users. Some schemes were downright abusive[1]. Even with modern DRM, the cost, complexity, and inability to completely lock down software installed on a device under the control of the user puts some companies off. So now we have software as a service, paid for with the user's attention (ads) or we have software that just stops working if the company's servers can't be reached. (Looking at you, VanMoof). 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_protection#Notable_payloads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_protection#Notable_payloa...

flangola7 3y ago
I don't want companies to be able to lock down a user's device. That isn't a business model that should be legitimized or allowed.
- cratermoon 3y ago
  > I don't want companies to be able to lock down a user's device Neither do I, thus the cautionary tale of VanMoof. Software is now everywhere, in everything from your toaster to the electric grid. As a result, right-to-repair means right to reprogram. The owner needs to be able to fix bugs, change performance parameters, replace things that break. When my dad was working on cars, that meant put in a new carburetor, adjust the timing, clean the points - all physical parts. It's different today.
ghaff 3y ago
Also, if you wanted on-prem software, open source alternatives increasingly became an option. (As in the case of office suites, SaaS also allows for some collaboration and other options that couldn't really be done with desktop software installs. I never want to go back to mailing around copies of files and merging changes again.

haunter 3y ago

Aren't most video games still following this rule?

cjs_ac 3y ago
Given the rise of free-to-play-pay-to-win games, microtransactions and DLCs, no.