3 ms·
This was solved before subscriptions took over everything by having to pay for new major versions. You pay once and have a limited duration of updates, after th
by _Algernon_ 1y ago
This was solved before subscriptions took over everything by having to pay for new major versions. You pay once and have a limited duration of updates, after that you stick with the current version or pay again for the upgrade.
The benefit of doing it this way was that the user had a choice in upgrading which aligned incentives between users and developers.
The developer had to deliver tangible improvements in order to keep payments from existing users coming. These days they change the color scheme every six months, remove features, change the UI for no dicernable reason and label the whole changelog "Various changes and bug fixes" when the product is clearly a mature product that should be in maintenance mode with no significant changes required.
- johnny22 1y agothen there's no money for actual maintenance beyond that say a year.
- _Algernon_ 1y agoWhich is fine.
- trinix912 1y agoAnd also drives user-centric innovation. If I buy your app and you release a new major version, you have to convince me to buy it again. Which means putting in features I'd need as a user, not just the ones that look good on shareholder meetings.
- nomdep 1y agoWhich is why Once.com only offers free updates for a year
- RamblingCTO 1y agoYeah the "update for a year"/major version thing is the only way it can work. But only if there are no ongoing costs. I'm working on something like that: https://easyscreencap.com/ https://easyscreencap.com/ for the very reason that I don't see that I need to pay for such a thing monthly. However: the "updates for a year" vs yearly subscription difference feels so minimal at times tbh.