6 ms·

Man, talk about a ship that has sailed. I was 100% anti-subscription pricing for a very long time. Eventually I realized, it's better for the software vendor an

Man, talk about a ship that has sailed. I was 100% anti-subscription pricing for a very long time. Eventually I realized, it's better for the software vendor and the customer. Final Cut Pro used to cost $999 upfront, now a teenager can use Final Cut on their iPad for $7/month, and subscribe only when they need it.

notpushkin 3y ago
If it's an option – good. If it's the only option – not so much.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  per seat (5 seat bundle) (annual pricing)
  - eclipticplane 3y ago
    (contact sales for pricing)
kwanbix 3y ago
The problem is when it adds up: you pay for FCP, for Adobe, for Office, for Figma, for X... at the end, you are paying 200 dollars per month in software (without counting Netflix, Spotify, hosting, etc).
- core-utility 3y ago
  This is true of buy-once software too. You used to pay a significantly higher cost for FCP, Adobe, Office, etc......
  - turnsout 3y ago
    And you would still be forced to upgrade every 2-3 years once people started to send you incompatible files!
doublerabbit 3y ago
Meanwhile, my mother uses photoshop and illustrator, she can't afford the ever increasing price of subscription services. She's in her 70's. It a distraught for her to think of losing access to her creatively outlet if she was to unable to afford the current subscription model. Subscriptions should be followed up with a perpetual license. She's just glad she forked out on CS2 when it was DVD based.
- methodical 3y ago
  Have you ever looked at Affinity (https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/ https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/)? I bought their universal license a year or so ago and would definitely recommend it over Adobe for anybody who doesn't necessarily need to use Adobe, it's a lifetime license and the product is pretty comparable to Photoshop/Illustrator for whatever a hobbyist could need. I would strongly recommend giving them a look if you haven't already.
  - doublerabbit 3y ago
    Thanks for the recommendation, I've not. Although as lovely as it would be. Sadly me knowing my mother she'd tell me its wonderful, use it once and go back to her old ways and keep telling me otherwise. She has her system of plugging in her digital camera, scanner for her prints and then work for hours. When windows 11 decided to update itself on her machine, it really threw her in to a spin. Luckily she was within the Ten Day "don't like" uninstall limit. That was my latest fiasco.
  - mh- 3y ago
    Just be aware: the workflow is entirely different for someone with a lot of Photoshop or Illustrator muscle memory. I couldn't figure out how to do a lot of stuff without googling (and then frequently still).
- LorenPechtel 3y ago
  What I like are the models that are subscription for update.
commoner 3y ago
That's not a fair comparison. Final Cut Pro's price on macOS has been $299.99 since 2011, and Apple sells a "Pro Apps Bundle for Education" available to everyone that includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and other macOS apps for $199.99 (https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/product/BMGE2Z/A/pro-apps-bundle-for-education https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/product/BMGE2Z/A/pro-apps-...). I'm sure a lot of users would appreciate a one-time payment option for Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro on the iPad, including teenagers who have some money saved up.
- hatsune 3y ago
  Especially consider the need to update your software for NLE is highly selective. H.264 and H.265 were used over the years for LongGOP, while ProRes and DNxHD/DNxHR were all supported a long time ago. There are no reasons to update unless you need latest blackmagic RAW or ProRes RAW, which are well beyond normal consumer realm. AV1 may be a new thing, but that's it. There are no continuous vital features updates like being able to read newer camera RAW files for ACR. I find a one-time payment much more suitable for FCP. With LPX and anything remotely in music production area the subscription just seems dumb. Omnisphere, Komplete, FL Studio, Cubase, Pro Tools, Ableton Live were all in the realm for decades, and while subscription did became a thing (especially for very expensive samples like Hollywood, Spitfire, etc.) features in a DAW are sufficient for a long life cycle in production, and mandating a subscription for "keeping latest" just seems odd.
Calavar 3y ago
That pricing sounds fair. Unfortunately, I feel that's the exception. Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 was $400 [1]. Now Dreamweawer Creative Cloud is $250 per year [2]. So after 1.75 years, you've already taken a loss. [1] https://prodesigntools.com/products/adobe-cs6-pricing-list.html https://prodesigntools.com/products/adobe-cs6-pricing-list.h... [2] https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html
- cmeacham98 3y ago
  I think Adobe's pricing is ridiculous, but this is uncharitable: 1. CS6 came out in 2012. According to the BLS calculator, $400 in 2012 is $532 today: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=400.00&year1=201205&year2=202307 https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=400.00&year1=2... 2. You're cherry picking the worst one, do the math for CS6 After Effects at $999 (~$1.3k today) vs $21/month and you only break even after >5 years.
  - cableshaft 3y ago
    Still possible to use CS6 today, it still works on Windows. So you would have definitely saved money by now if you still used it.
- core-utility 3y ago
  What would be more interesting is to compare over 10 years for someone who buys upgrades (CS2->CS3->CS4 etc.) as they come out. Additionally the individual Dreamweaver price is very high compared to "All Apps" plan at $660 per year.
  - znpy 3y ago
    > What would be more interesting is to compare over 10 years for someone who buys upgrades (CS2->CS3->CS4 etc.) as they come out. but nobody does that, really. most people i know skip entire versions of windows (eg: 7->10), let a lone individual software releases.
crazygringo 3y ago
Exactly. If you used to need to use software for a weeklong project, you'd have to pirate it because there was no way to justify the cost. Now you just sign up for a month and then cancel. It's a huge improvement in flexibility and paying for what you use. Not to mention the software is always updated, so you don't need to worry about whether your image editor you purchased 7 years ago supports the RAW format of the camera that came out 2 years ago.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > Now you just sign up for a month and then cancel. Or you sign up and then Adobe does everything in its power to stop you from cancelling, including lying to your face: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10930079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10930079 (https://web.archive.org/web/20170324161306/http://www.geek.com/apps/adobe-will-try-anything-to-stop-a-creative-cloud-cancellation-1644869/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170324161306/http://www.geek.c...). Just because subscriptions can work out well doesn't mean they don't get abused by companies.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    I mean, that's one customer service rep who was being difficult (not necessarily representative of Adobe policy at all), and the user was trying to cancel a yearly subscription on the 365th day when it was already being charged for autorenewal that day. That's not even remotely representative of someone who signs up for a monthly subscription and then cancels it before the month is up. But yes, obviously you have to put it in your calendar to remember to cancel it. It's not that hard.
    - whelp_24 3y ago
      There are complaints all over the internet about this, it's not particularly isolated.
      - crazygringo 3y ago
        There are complaints about everything all over the internet. In my experience, I've never once had a problem cancelling SaaS. There will always be bad actors out there, and maybe Adobe has been one, and maybe they still are, but on the whole I haven't found SaaS to be any worse than anything else. And it's not really where the economic incentives lie -- someone who is cancelling is someone who is likely to sign up again in the future, so it's generally not in a business's best interests to piss them off.
slig 3y ago
I, for one, am very grateful for Adobe's shitty subscription model, as it has allowed companies like Serif to launch fantastic products with perpetual licenses.
- ghusto 3y ago
  Who to my dismay (though not surprise) have now also gone SaaS :( EDIT: I think I've misunderstood the V2 Universal License. Looks like it means I get access to all version 2 apps from Affinity.
badsectoracula 3y ago
That particular case feels better because the original price you mention was incredibly high, not because the model is better for the customer. Especially when more than 1 application does that.
akira2501 3y ago
Sure, as long as Adobe doesn't arbitrarily decide to permanently ban your account and no longer accept your money. Also, speaking of ships that have sailed, you could just as easily check out Final Cut Pro or Adobe subscriptions from some libraries for no additional fee.
znpy 3y ago
15 years ago most teenagers i knew had the full office suite, photoshop and most other softwares for free. I'm not gonna tell you how, but it's easy to imagine. Guess what, those people wouldn't have paid for a license anyway, so no real license money is lost. More importantly, it needs to be said that if you got an older computer you could just use an older version of the software, no problem. Now you can't do that anymore. You not only have to pay the 7$/month, you also need to buy a new ipad every once in a while. I'm still anti subscription. I do pay for software (paid 150 euros out of my personal pocket last year for a SecureCRT license and i love it). But the whole subscription thing is just BS.
- giobox 3y ago
  Its always been an open question to me in the case of Adobe if rampant piracy in the 2000s helped rather than hinder them. If these teenagers went on to work in industry, they already knew the adobe suite inside out and likely ended up advocating the software and buying licenses in the workplace... As you probably rightly state, almost none of the folks pirating the software would have converted to real sales anyway.
  - znpy 3y ago
    > Its always been an open question to me in the case of Adobe if rampant piracy in the 2000s helped rather than hinder them. it's not an open question, there are studies about how piracy helps industries (it was about media, it was financed by the EU, but when they got the results they didn't like it so they didn't advertised it much). if not for product advocacy, consider product training: training is expensive and takes time, and most teenagers would do that themselves for free on your product. so if you're a company and pick a product that's heavily pirated, chances are some random applicant already knows the product. how do you think microsoft office got so widespread ?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- swores 3y ago
wlesieutre 3y ago
But that's not how the subscription pricing goes. Final Cut Pro X was $299, not $999 so it's not even a good example. One the other end of the spectrum are all the mobile apps that start as a $2.99 one time purchase, add a bunch of features, and say "Actually it'll be $11.99/year forever thanks." When every app starts to do that it adds up fast.
- turnsout 3y ago
  It was $999 for many years, but has been $299 for over a decade now. But $299 might as well be $2999 for many people.
mrtksn 3y ago
It’s a no brainer, the vendor gets paid for the continued work they do and the user pays over time as long as they get value out of the product. However, For some apps it makes sense to have it as a one time payment - things like offline games or utilities the solve a problem and don’t need continuous updates. Other than that, subscriptions are the way to go because software is a service more than a final product.
macintux 3y ago
I have an iOS app that I love and rely upon, but it’s effectively abandonware because the developer didn’t charge enough. I too am pro-subscription: take my money, please.
- turnsout 3y ago
  Yes! I developed a paid (upfront) iOS app and had to abandon it because there was no way to fund further development.
daft_pink 3y ago
Until you look at Intuit, you used to be able to buy their accounting software and have the critical records for your business. Now their accounting software requires an internet connection and a subscription and puts your critical records behind a paywall and gives them access to your data for whatever purpose they want. And they keep ratcheting up the price and putting more and more features behind higher tier subscriptions.

notpushkin 3y ago

If it's an option – good. If it's the only option – not so much.

yieldcrv 3y ago
per seat (5 seat bundle) (annual pricing)
- eclipticplane 3y ago
  (contact sales for pricing)

kwanbix 3y ago

The problem is when it adds up: you pay for FCP, for Adobe, for Office, for Figma, for X... at the end, you are paying 200 dollars per month in software (without counting Netflix, Spotify, hosting, etc).

core-utility 3y ago
This is true of buy-once software too. You used to pay a significantly higher cost for FCP, Adobe, Office, etc......
- turnsout 3y ago
  And you would still be forced to upgrade every 2-3 years once people started to send you incompatible files!

doublerabbit 3y ago

Meanwhile, my mother uses photoshop and illustrator, she can't afford the ever increasing price of subscription services. She's in her 70's. It a distraught for her to think of losing access to her creatively outlet if she was to unable to afford the current subscription model. Subscriptions should be followed up with a perpetual license. She's just glad she forked out on CS2 when it was DVD based.

methodical 3y ago
Have you ever looked at Affinity (https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/ https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/)? I bought their universal license a year or so ago and would definitely recommend it over Adobe for anybody who doesn't necessarily need to use Adobe, it's a lifetime license and the product is pretty comparable to Photoshop/Illustrator for whatever a hobbyist could need. I would strongly recommend giving them a look if you haven't already.
- doublerabbit 3y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation, I've not. Although as lovely as it would be. Sadly me knowing my mother she'd tell me its wonderful, use it once and go back to her old ways and keep telling me otherwise. She has her system of plugging in her digital camera, scanner for her prints and then work for hours. When windows 11 decided to update itself on her machine, it really threw her in to a spin. Luckily she was within the Ten Day "don't like" uninstall limit. That was my latest fiasco.
- mh- 3y ago
  Just be aware: the workflow is entirely different for someone with a lot of Photoshop or Illustrator muscle memory. I couldn't figure out how to do a lot of stuff without googling (and then frequently still).
LorenPechtel 3y ago
What I like are the models that are subscription for update.

commoner 3y ago

That's not a fair comparison. Final Cut Pro's price on macOS has been $299.99 since 2011, and Apple sells a "Pro Apps Bundle for Education" available to everyone that includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and other macOS apps for $199.99 (https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/product/BMGE2Z/A/pro-apps-bundle-for-education https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/product/BMGE2Z/A/pro-apps-...). I'm sure a lot of users would appreciate a one-time payment option for Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro on the iPad, including teenagers who have some money saved up.

hatsune 3y ago
Especially consider the need to update your software for NLE is highly selective. H.264 and H.265 were used over the years for LongGOP, while ProRes and DNxHD/DNxHR were all supported a long time ago. There are no reasons to update unless you need latest blackmagic RAW or ProRes RAW, which are well beyond normal consumer realm. AV1 may be a new thing, but that's it. There are no continuous vital features updates like being able to read newer camera RAW files for ACR. I find a one-time payment much more suitable for FCP. With LPX and anything remotely in music production area the subscription just seems dumb. Omnisphere, Komplete, FL Studio, Cubase, Pro Tools, Ableton Live were all in the realm for decades, and while subscription did became a thing (especially for very expensive samples like Hollywood, Spitfire, etc.) features in a DAW are sufficient for a long life cycle in production, and mandating a subscription for "keeping latest" just seems odd.

Calavar 3y ago

That pricing sounds fair. Unfortunately, I feel that's the exception. Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 was $400 [1]. Now Dreamweawer Creative Cloud is $250 per year [2]. So after 1.75 years, you've already taken a loss. [1] https://prodesigntools.com/products/adobe-cs6-pricing-list.html https://prodesigntools.com/products/adobe-cs6-pricing-list.h... [2] https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html

cmeacham98 3y ago
I think Adobe's pricing is ridiculous, but this is uncharitable: 1. CS6 came out in 2012. According to the BLS calculator, $400 in 2012 is $532 today: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=400.00&year1=201205&year2=202307 https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=400.00&year1=2... 2. You're cherry picking the worst one, do the math for CS6 After Effects at $999 (~$1.3k today) vs $21/month and you only break even after >5 years.
- cableshaft 3y ago
  Still possible to use CS6 today, it still works on Windows. So you would have definitely saved money by now if you still used it.
core-utility 3y ago
What would be more interesting is to compare over 10 years for someone who buys upgrades (CS2->CS3->CS4 etc.) as they come out. Additionally the individual Dreamweaver price is very high compared to "All Apps" plan at $660 per year.
- znpy 3y ago
  > What would be more interesting is to compare over 10 years for someone who buys upgrades (CS2->CS3->CS4 etc.) as they come out. but nobody does that, really. most people i know skip entire versions of windows (eg: 7->10), let a lone individual software releases.

crazygringo 3y ago

Exactly. If you used to need to use software for a weeklong project, you'd have to pirate it because there was no way to justify the cost. Now you just sign up for a month and then cancel. It's a huge improvement in flexibility and paying for what you use. Not to mention the software is always updated, so you don't need to worry about whether your image editor you purchased 7 years ago supports the RAW format of the camera that came out 2 years ago.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> Now you just sign up for a month and then cancel. Or you sign up and then Adobe does everything in its power to stop you from cancelling, including lying to your face: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10930079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10930079 (https://web.archive.org/web/20170324161306/http://www.geek.com/apps/adobe-will-try-anything-to-stop-a-creative-cloud-cancellation-1644869/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170324161306/http://www.geek.c...). Just because subscriptions can work out well doesn't mean they don't get abused by companies.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  I mean, that's one customer service rep who was being difficult (not necessarily representative of Adobe policy at all), and the user was trying to cancel a yearly subscription on the 365th day when it was already being charged for autorenewal that day. That's not even remotely representative of someone who signs up for a monthly subscription and then cancels it before the month is up. But yes, obviously you have to put it in your calendar to remember to cancel it. It's not that hard.
  - whelp_24 3y ago
    There are complaints all over the internet about this, it's not particularly isolated.
    - crazygringo 3y ago
      There are complaints about everything all over the internet. In my experience, I've never once had a problem cancelling SaaS. There will always be bad actors out there, and maybe Adobe has been one, and maybe they still are, but on the whole I haven't found SaaS to be any worse than anything else. And it's not really where the economic incentives lie -- someone who is cancelling is someone who is likely to sign up again in the future, so it's generally not in a business's best interests to piss them off.

slig 3y ago

I, for one, am very grateful for Adobe's shitty subscription model, as it has allowed companies like Serif to launch fantastic products with perpetual licenses.

ghusto 3y ago
Who to my dismay (though not surprise) have now also gone SaaS :( EDIT: I think I've misunderstood the V2 Universal License. Looks like it means I get access to all version 2 apps from Affinity.

badsectoracula 3y ago

That particular case feels better because the original price you mention was incredibly high, not because the model is better for the customer. Especially when more than 1 application does that.

akira2501 3y ago

Sure, as long as Adobe doesn't arbitrarily decide to permanently ban your account and no longer accept your money. Also, speaking of ships that have sailed, you could just as easily check out Final Cut Pro or Adobe subscriptions from some libraries for no additional fee.

znpy 3y ago

15 years ago most teenagers i knew had the full office suite, photoshop and most other softwares for free. I'm not gonna tell you how, but it's easy to imagine. Guess what, those people wouldn't have paid for a license anyway, so no real license money is lost. More importantly, it needs to be said that if you got an older computer you could just use an older version of the software, no problem. Now you can't do that anymore. You not only have to pay the 7$/month, you also need to buy a new ipad every once in a while. I'm still anti subscription. I do pay for software (paid 150 euros out of my personal pocket last year for a SecureCRT license and i love it). But the whole subscription thing is just BS.

giobox 3y ago
Its always been an open question to me in the case of Adobe if rampant piracy in the 2000s helped rather than hinder them. If these teenagers went on to work in industry, they already knew the adobe suite inside out and likely ended up advocating the software and buying licenses in the workplace... As you probably rightly state, almost none of the folks pirating the software would have converted to real sales anyway.
- znpy 3y ago
  > Its always been an open question to me in the case of Adobe if rampant piracy in the 2000s helped rather than hinder them. it's not an open question, there are studies about how piracy helps industries (it was about media, it was financed by the EU, but when they got the results they didn't like it so they didn't advertised it much). if not for product advocacy, consider product training: training is expensive and takes time, and most teenagers would do that themselves for free on your product. so if you're a company and pick a product that's heavily pirated, chances are some random applicant already knows the product. how do you think microsoft office got so widespread ?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
swores 3y ago

wlesieutre 3y ago

But that's not how the subscription pricing goes. Final Cut Pro X was $299, not $999 so it's not even a good example. One the other end of the spectrum are all the mobile apps that start as a $2.99 one time purchase, add a bunch of features, and say "Actually it'll be $11.99/year forever thanks." When every app starts to do that it adds up fast.

turnsout 3y ago
It was $999 for many years, but has been $299 for over a decade now. But $299 might as well be $2999 for many people.

mrtksn 3y ago

It’s a no brainer, the vendor gets paid for the continued work they do and the user pays over time as long as they get value out of the product. However, For some apps it makes sense to have it as a one time payment - things like offline games or utilities the solve a problem and don’t need continuous updates. Other than that, subscriptions are the way to go because software is a service more than a final product.

macintux 3y ago

I have an iOS app that I love and rely upon, but it’s effectively abandonware because the developer didn’t charge enough. I too am pro-subscription: take my money, please.

turnsout 3y ago
Yes! I developed a paid (upfront) iOS app and had to abandon it because there was no way to fund further development.

daft_pink 3y ago

Until you look at Intuit, you used to be able to buy their accounting software and have the critical records for your business. Now their accounting software requires an internet connection and a subscription and puts your critical records behind a paywall and gives them access to your data for whatever purpose they want. And they keep ratcheting up the price and putting more and more features behind higher tier subscriptions.