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Utterly insane. If you write a piece of software you can only sell it once? That makes no sense. And a subscription means you are administering a server (or s

by imgabe 3y ago

Utterly insane. If you write a piece of software you can only sell it once? That makes no sense. And a subscription means you are administering a server (or some menagerie of “serverless” resources) which is an ongoing service that requires maintenance and cost, so that’s what people are paying for, a premium to not have to do that administration themselves. Like you just want people to suffer? It pains you if people make money without a sufficient amount of hardship?

danbruc 3y ago
Not sell it only once. Nobody would ever have bought an Office license if it would be priced at development costs. But lifetime revenue should be in a reasonable relation to development costs. And everything gets more complicated with expected support cost and updates and whatnot. I can not possibly mention all imaginable complications. Just take the general gist, if you are not working, then you should not be making money. And I do not want people to suffer, I want them to be better off. There are many people that actually do hard or badly paid work, software development is not one of them. If you overcharge your customers to be able to hang out at the beach half of the week, then you are just taking money away from them that they could otherwise spend on say higher priced vegetables improving the wages of seasonal workers. Maybe another way to see it is that I dislike people that are already well off not being satisfied. What if everyone wanted to only work four hours a day and earn $45k per month? Does this sound like an sustainable idea?
- imgabe 3y ago
  You are extremely confused about how markets work. People are not going to willingly pay above-market prices for vegetables just because they have extra money. The pay for seasonal workers is not going to change if someone is able to buy Devutils for $3 instead of $30. A year ago the software didn't even exist, so nobody was able to buy it and guess what, the pay for seasonal workers was pretty much the same. > What if everyone wanted to only work four hours a day and earn $45k per month? Does this sound like an sustainable idea? With sufficient automation, sure. The goal should be that we all have everything we need without anyone having to work.
  - danbruc 3y ago
    I completely agree with your last sentences but I guess this is still quite a bit in the future and I am not convinced that everyone would get what they need even if we would completely automate the economy. Even with complete automation there will still be limited resources and I would almost bet that some people will use all their powers to get some more stuff for themselves and the expense of everyone else. With regards to the seasonal workers, you are of course right. I replied to so many comments that probably most of them ended up not very clear. What I had in mind was that if you would not overpay in some area you would have more money left for other things, so you could more easily decide to buy things produced under better conditions with more fair wages or whatnot. You would probably also see less need to push back in case of price increases, say you could be more supportive of seasonal workers unionizing to demand better wages or whatever. So I did not want to say that wages have to increase, but not throwing money out of the window for app subscriptions would give you more freedom for other buying decisions that could lead to an improvement.

by imgabe 3y ago

danbruc 3y ago

Not sell it only once. Nobody would ever have bought an Office license if it would be priced at development costs. But lifetime revenue should be in a reasonable relation to development costs. And everything gets more complicated with expected support cost and updates and whatnot. I can not possibly mention all imaginable complications. Just take the general gist, if you are not working, then you should not be making money. And I do not want people to suffer, I want them to be better off. There are many people that actually do hard or badly paid work, software development is not one of them. If you overcharge your customers to be able to hang out at the beach half of the week, then you are just taking money away from them that they could otherwise spend on say higher priced vegetables improving the wages of seasonal workers. Maybe another way to see it is that I dislike people that are already well off not being satisfied. What if everyone wanted to only work four hours a day and earn $45k per month? Does this sound like an sustainable idea?

imgabe 3y ago
You are extremely confused about how markets work. People are not going to willingly pay above-market prices for vegetables just because they have extra money. The pay for seasonal workers is not going to change if someone is able to buy Devutils for $3 instead of $30. A year ago the software didn't even exist, so nobody was able to buy it and guess what, the pay for seasonal workers was pretty much the same. > What if everyone wanted to only work four hours a day and earn $45k per month? Does this sound like an sustainable idea? With sufficient automation, sure. The goal should be that we all have everything we need without anyone having to work.
- danbruc 3y ago
  I completely agree with your last sentences but I guess this is still quite a bit in the future and I am not convinced that everyone would get what they need even if we would completely automate the economy. Even with complete automation there will still be limited resources and I would almost bet that some people will use all their powers to get some more stuff for themselves and the expense of everyone else. With regards to the seasonal workers, you are of course right. I replied to so many comments that probably most of them ended up not very clear. What I had in mind was that if you would not overpay in some area you would have more money left for other things, so you could more easily decide to buy things produced under better conditions with more fair wages or whatnot. You would probably also see less need to push back in case of price increases, say you could be more supportive of seasonal workers unionizing to demand better wages or whatever. So I did not want to say that wages have to increase, but not throwing money out of the window for app subscriptions would give you more freedom for other buying decisions that could lead to an improvement.