5 ms·

With today's employee turnover you'd lose an incredible amount of money not doing a subscription. Even Netflix Premium would be cheaper.

exe34 2y ago
Pretty sure most software were licensed per seat, not individual persons. The employee walks, but the seat remains.
- ghaff 2y ago
  In practice, though, you need to upgrade to stay current. For software that people use as a daily driver, subscriptions are not obviously more expensive in general.
  - exe34 2y ago
    that's where we disagree: you don't usually need to stay current. as long as it does the job, it's current enough. if there's new features available that would add value to the business, then you have a business case to buy a new license. 95% of software update haven't really added any value since the early 00s.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      I'm not sure I want to work at a company that nickels and dimes purchases to the degree that I'm running unsupported 20 year old software because someone in procurement doesn't think I need an upgrade unless I write up a business case for it. I assume they're equally cheap in many other ways.
      - exe34 2y ago
        and that's why we ended up with agile and alpha crapware released every week, breaking functionality that used to work and moving everything useful around until you can't find it.
      - AlbertCory 2y ago
        He didn't say "unsupported." He said no new features. I assume he meant "still fixing bugs."
        ghaff 2y ago
        So, in other words, you need to upgrade--or have a subscription. In fact, extended support agreements for some enterprise products are a premium offering that don't require moving up to the next version given the effort associated with backporting bug fixes for a fairly small base.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
        I'm not sure how that's implied, but: paying a subscription for them to fix bugs and keep up with all the churn under them seems reasonable to me.
        ghaff 2y ago
        And enterprise companies often do that. But that's different from pay once and you're done forever which was the original comment.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
        I went quite a ways up the parent chain without seeing anyone seriously proposing that. All executables become unusable eventually (except maybe for IBM mainframes), so "pay once and you're done forever" is inherently impossible. Unless you keep running every part of the hardware / software stack, which works only until some piece of hardware wears out.
        ghaff 2y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41208053 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41208053 exe34 15 hours ago | root | parent | prev | next [–] > $495 per application. it was a lifetime licence though. you can probably still run it today. Also: that's where we disagree: you don't usually need to stay current. as long as it does the job, it's current enough. if there's new features available that would add value to the business, then you have a business case to buy a new license. 95% of software update haven't really added any value since the early 00s. ----- Maybe I misinterpreted but the implication is I could run something from the early 00s without changes which--while true in some cases--I wouldn't do in general.

exe34 2y ago

Pretty sure most software were licensed per seat, not individual persons. The employee walks, but the seat remains.

ghaff 2y ago
In practice, though, you need to upgrade to stay current. For software that people use as a daily driver, subscriptions are not obviously more expensive in general.
- exe34 2y ago
  that's where we disagree: you don't usually need to stay current. as long as it does the job, it's current enough. if there's new features available that would add value to the business, then you have a business case to buy a new license. 95% of software update haven't really added any value since the early 00s.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    I'm not sure I want to work at a company that nickels and dimes purchases to the degree that I'm running unsupported 20 year old software because someone in procurement doesn't think I need an upgrade unless I write up a business case for it. I assume they're equally cheap in many other ways.
    - exe34 2y ago
      and that's why we ended up with agile and alpha crapware released every week, breaking functionality that used to work and moving everything useful around until you can't find it.
    - AlbertCory 2y ago
      He didn't say "unsupported." He said no new features. I assume he meant "still fixing bugs."
      - ghaff 2y ago
        So, in other words, you need to upgrade--or have a subscription. In fact, extended support agreements for some enterprise products are a premium offering that don't require moving up to the next version given the effort associated with backporting bug fixes for a fairly small base.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
        I'm not sure how that's implied, but: paying a subscription for them to fix bugs and keep up with all the churn under them seems reasonable to me.
        ghaff 2y ago
        And enterprise companies often do that. But that's different from pay once and you're done forever which was the original comment.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
        I went quite a ways up the parent chain without seeing anyone seriously proposing that. All executables become unusable eventually (except maybe for IBM mainframes), so "pay once and you're done forever" is inherently impossible. Unless you keep running every part of the hardware / software stack, which works only until some piece of hardware wears out.
        ghaff 2y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41208053 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41208053 exe34 15 hours ago | root | parent | prev | next [–] > $495 per application. it was a lifetime licence though. you can probably still run it today. Also: that's where we disagree: you don't usually need to stay current. as long as it does the job, it's current enough. if there's new features available that would add value to the business, then you have a business case to buy a new license. 95% of software update haven't really added any value since the early 00s. ----- Maybe I misinterpreted but the implication is I could run something from the early 00s without changes which--while true in some cases--I wouldn't do in general.