4 ms·

Fully agree. I am a software developer myself. I can't imagine making a living by charging my customers just once, ever. It just doesn't make any business sense

by jwr 2y ago

Fully agree. I am a software developer myself. I can't imagine making a living by charging my customers just once, ever. It just doesn't make any business sense. Software needs to be maintained and developed, and just following the evolving technology (operating systems, libraries, environments) is a lot of work. On top of that, you need to fix bugs, provide support, and yes, develop new features. This is not feasible with a one-time purchase. For some reason many people like to play a game of pretending. The person buying pretends that it's a one-time purchase. The person selling pretends that it's a one-time payment. But then it turns out that a new version comes out every two years or so and you need to upgrade, so you end up paying. It's a subscription, but everybody pretends it isn't. For the software I use and rely on, I would much rather see a subscription model, which is sustainable.

tjoff 2y ago
It is not a subscription though. You are not hostage. You don't have to upgrade. You can keep using the old version if it serves your needs. Imagine your stance as a customer instead. Imagine being hostage to every single piece of software, completely at the whim of another business that can increase the prices and/or pivot away from your needs. You have to keep paying regardless of whether you want or need any of the features being introduced. Does it make business sense to allow for that risk? Both models work and it is getting tiresome to pretend that anything but a subscription model isn't sustainable. Yes, everyone gets the appeal of subscriptions from the perspective of selling software. But it is pretty disingenuous to not acknowledge the other side or pretend that the other doesn't work. You can't be that lazy with anything in life.
- jwr 2y ago
  > have to keep paying regardless of whether you want or need any of the features being introduced This here is the misunderstanding. A better way to phrase it is that you have to keep paying if you'd like the software to work. On most platforms just keeping up with the OS and library changes requires plenty of work and it is unreasonable to expect someone to do this without constant income. Now, when I'm a customer, I see things differently: if I use the software and I intend to rely on it, I want the developer to survive, so that they can maintain and develop the software in the long term. Paying a one-time fee will not result in a sustainable business, so the software will eventually die, disappear, or get acquired, none of which is good for me. Downvote me all you want (HN can be really narrow-minded at times), but when I look at new software that I intend to rely on, one of the main things I consider is whether the developer has a sustainable business model. If they don't, I don't want to invest my time into learning, migrating to, or integrating their software. Incidentally, I've been running a solo SaaS business for a number of years now. It's B2B only. Seeing the knee-jerk downvoting reaction here only convinces me that not providing any B2C plans was the right choice. I just give my service away for free to hobbyists.
  - tjoff 2y ago
    Yes, and often when the OS has had a major revision a new version comes out as a paid upgrade (or more often lately, a purchase includes upgrades and maintenance for a certain time). Though it is work the developer has to do regardless, if they want any new sales. And maintaining the software is orders of magnitudes cheaper than develop it from scratch so it is kind of weird to latch on to the maintenance aspect. If your sales paid for all the initial development then it will pay for maintenance. A bigger worry than the maintenance aspect is, will I recoup my initial investment? The cost will always be arbitrary, software costs nothing to "manufacture" so any one-off payments or subscriptions will only match the costs associated costs for a certain scale. I agree with what you say, sustainability is crucial. Doesn't follow that subscriptions are the only solution. Subscriptions-is-the-only-sustainable-model is the narrow-minded view I mostly see on HN. Undoubtedly because the audience are developers.
    - jwr 2y ago
      > Subscriptions-is-the-only-sustainable-model is the narrow-minded view I mostly see on HN. Undoubtedly because the audience are developers. :-) I am a developer, but more importantly I run my own business. I honestly have no idea how I could run a sustainable business on one-time purchases :-)

by jwr 2y ago

tjoff 2y ago

It is not a subscription though. You are not hostage. You don't have to upgrade. You can keep using the old version if it serves your needs. Imagine your stance as a customer instead. Imagine being hostage to every single piece of software, completely at the whim of another business that can increase the prices and/or pivot away from your needs. You have to keep paying regardless of whether you want or need any of the features being introduced. Does it make business sense to allow for that risk? Both models work and it is getting tiresome to pretend that anything but a subscription model isn't sustainable. Yes, everyone gets the appeal of subscriptions from the perspective of selling software. But it is pretty disingenuous to not acknowledge the other side or pretend that the other doesn't work. You can't be that lazy with anything in life.

jwr 2y ago
> have to keep paying regardless of whether you want or need any of the features being introduced This here is the misunderstanding. A better way to phrase it is that you have to keep paying if you'd like the software to work. On most platforms just keeping up with the OS and library changes requires plenty of work and it is unreasonable to expect someone to do this without constant income. Now, when I'm a customer, I see things differently: if I use the software and I intend to rely on it, I want the developer to survive, so that they can maintain and develop the software in the long term. Paying a one-time fee will not result in a sustainable business, so the software will eventually die, disappear, or get acquired, none of which is good for me. Downvote me all you want (HN can be really narrow-minded at times), but when I look at new software that I intend to rely on, one of the main things I consider is whether the developer has a sustainable business model. If they don't, I don't want to invest my time into learning, migrating to, or integrating their software. Incidentally, I've been running a solo SaaS business for a number of years now. It's B2B only. Seeing the knee-jerk downvoting reaction here only convinces me that not providing any B2C plans was the right choice. I just give my service away for free to hobbyists.
- tjoff 2y ago
  Yes, and often when the OS has had a major revision a new version comes out as a paid upgrade (or more often lately, a purchase includes upgrades and maintenance for a certain time). Though it is work the developer has to do regardless, if they want any new sales. And maintaining the software is orders of magnitudes cheaper than develop it from scratch so it is kind of weird to latch on to the maintenance aspect. If your sales paid for all the initial development then it will pay for maintenance. A bigger worry than the maintenance aspect is, will I recoup my initial investment? The cost will always be arbitrary, software costs nothing to "manufacture" so any one-off payments or subscriptions will only match the costs associated costs for a certain scale. I agree with what you say, sustainability is crucial. Doesn't follow that subscriptions are the only solution. Subscriptions-is-the-only-sustainable-model is the narrow-minded view I mostly see on HN. Undoubtedly because the audience are developers.
  - jwr 2y ago
    > Subscriptions-is-the-only-sustainable-model is the narrow-minded view I mostly see on HN. Undoubtedly because the audience are developers. :-) I am a developer, but more importantly I run my own business. I honestly have no idea how I could run a sustainable business on one-time purchases :-)