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Subscription fatigue is real, and I'm currently going through it, but it's not the existence of subscription-only model which nudges me to cancel a membership.

Subscription fatigue is real, and I'm currently going through it, but it's not the existence of subscription-only model which nudges me to cancel a membership. If I pay for something, I want the tool to work for me. I can't use an application if it tries to steal my attention all the time. An upgrade pop-up there, a reminder notification there, and the application wears me down. I like quiet applications. It's there. I'll use it. An unobtrusive promo button for a new feature is OK, but constant nudging for the same thing is tiring. Dropbox used to do that with document signatures, they stopped now AFAICS. If I pay for your application, please be patient and respectful, because the moment I feel that your application is more about getting my money than providing me services, I'm out. The value I get is in the service you provide via your application. Not the existence of said application, so stop treating your users as cows in line waiting to be milked. This is another reason I'm self hosting as much as possible. I'm willing to put in the work to maintain an application rather than seeing constant banners and pop-ups wedged in to milk me more.

Helmut10001 2mo ago
This sounds all like Mark Weiser's "Calm Technology" from 20 years ago [1]. I can't await when that future arrives! (I also self-host and have zero subscriptions, except the Proxmox community license - which is, beyond all, a free choice) [1]: https://calmtech.com/ https://calmtech.com/
- bayindirh 2mo ago
  > I can't await when that future arrives! I don't believe such future will arrive by itself, but we can build a calm tech stack for ourselves. I successfully pruned much of the noisier stuff from my environment, and cutting down subscriptions left and right. Unfortunately, some of the subscriptions are really useful, or I like how they present the thing I'm working on, so they stay for the time being. Thanks for the link. I'll be diving into this.
- gumby 2mo ago
  In theory we will delegate this to agents, but really companies can already do that (plenty of software does upgrade itself in backgroud (some doesn’t because the user may want to peg an older version). But really that cacophony of upgrades etc isn’t about user control, but just companies reminding you they exist. It’s spam, and like spam fighting, agents will not be able to handle it adequately.
  - Helmut10001 2mo ago
    Really, upgrading in the background is not calm technology to me: Windows Upgrades almost daily and my PC slows down, Firefox upgrades in the background and my tabs become unresponsive daily. I prefer the apt-Linux approach, even Ansible, or chocolatey. Anyway, I am not surprised that there are different definitions of what calm means (no offense!).
    - bayindirh 2mo ago
      I believe there are good ways and bad ways to the background updates. macOS and iOS doing updates when you are not looking is good because they store your app state most of the time. Some macOS programs' "We have downloaded the update, it'll update silently when you exit" is also nice and kind way of doing it. Firefox recently remedied its "We updated in the background but broke the runtime" problem for some months now on Linux and macOS, from which I observe. However nudging, aggressive updates, forcing user to stop or take breaks are not calm technology. I accept that wholeheartedly.
mort96 2mo ago
This is Nextcloud to me. I use it, but it constantly nags me about some software upgrade I need to do. People don't appreciate enough that releasing new software has a cost. Upgrading is risky and disruptive. Even on iOS, where app upgrades are as low effort as possible, they're a nuisance; I'm occasionally unable to open an app I need because it's mid-update. One time, I was using an app, closed it to get some information from another app, and when I wanted to go back to the first app I couldn't because it had started an auto update. Software updates are a necessary evil. As such, they should be as infrequent as is reasonably possible.
- bayindirh 2mo ago
  I manage an average sized Nextcloud instance, and see these mails every day, but I believe you can change their interval to something longer under your personal settings. Also, you can disable server notification on your client. If you want to go nuclear, you can disable update notifications altogether under administrative settings, I believe. On the other hand, I mostly charge my iOS devices at night, and they handle updates & backups when they are charging. I didn't see an app updating midday for years, I believe. Nextcloud is a bit too noisy on the app updates department, though, we can all agree on that.
  - mort96 2mo ago
    The thing is, I don't want to just "not update apps". If there's a security vulnerability which needs to be patched ASAP, I need to be told about it ASAP.
ryandrake 2mo ago
I don't understand how we all just stood by and let "monthly subscription" sneak in and become the dominant form of paying for software (and entertainment/media, too). Almost everything else in my life is a one time purchase. I pay for the thing, I use it forever. I would never buy a vacuum cleaner subscription. Or a pressure washer subscription. Why should I need to endlessly pay for software? The usual excuses from developers: 1. But I need to maintain the server and that's a monthly cost! Nope. Tethering your software to a server was your choice, not mine. I shouldn't have to pay for your decision. I have lots of perfectly good software on my computer that work fine without your server. 2. But it costs money to constantly be developing and publishing updates! Nope. Nobody is asking you to constantly change your software. Generally, I don't want your updates. The software met my needs when I bought it, and I don't want you to change it, and I certainly don't want to keep paying you just so you can keep changing it. We need to go back to treating software like it was something you bought in a box off a store shelf and that was it. No recurring payments. No updates. No accounts. No nagging. No telemetry. Just a box of bits that I hand over money for once.
- jfengel 2mo ago
  I think software developers feel that their work is never finished. Nothing is ever fully complete. The software always has bugs and security holes. It is always lacking critical features that you haven't gotten around to yet. I think it's pretty clear that management has taken advantage of that instinct. They keep upgrading software long after it really is fully finished. Nobody has wanted a new version of Microsoft Word for decades. But it took decades to reach that point. Most software hasn't reached it. We send out software barely good enough -- if that much. Because it takes a long time to actually get good, and if we waited that long, the company would have gone belly-up. And the customers seem content to buy good-enough software, in the hopes that the other bugs and features will get fixed. Obviously you should be able to opt out of all of that, and stick with a version you like. When enough customers do that, you stop, and move on to a new thing. But I do think it's inevitable that companies will sell you a Minimum Viable Product and charge you to complete it. Because that's how they are able to afford to get it out the door before they go bankrupt. And if they don't, somebody else will, and get the software out faster.

Helmut10001 2mo ago

This sounds all like Mark Weiser's "Calm Technology" from 20 years ago [1]. I can't await when that future arrives! (I also self-host and have zero subscriptions, except the Proxmox community license - which is, beyond all, a free choice) [1]: https://calmtech.com/ https://calmtech.com/

bayindirh 2mo ago
> I can't await when that future arrives! I don't believe such future will arrive by itself, but we can build a calm tech stack for ourselves. I successfully pruned much of the noisier stuff from my environment, and cutting down subscriptions left and right. Unfortunately, some of the subscriptions are really useful, or I like how they present the thing I'm working on, so they stay for the time being. Thanks for the link. I'll be diving into this.
gumby 2mo ago
In theory we will delegate this to agents, but really companies can already do that (plenty of software does upgrade itself in backgroud (some doesn’t because the user may want to peg an older version). But really that cacophony of upgrades etc isn’t about user control, but just companies reminding you they exist. It’s spam, and like spam fighting, agents will not be able to handle it adequately.
- Helmut10001 2mo ago
  Really, upgrading in the background is not calm technology to me: Windows Upgrades almost daily and my PC slows down, Firefox upgrades in the background and my tabs become unresponsive daily. I prefer the apt-Linux approach, even Ansible, or chocolatey. Anyway, I am not surprised that there are different definitions of what calm means (no offense!).
  - bayindirh 2mo ago
    I believe there are good ways and bad ways to the background updates. macOS and iOS doing updates when you are not looking is good because they store your app state most of the time. Some macOS programs' "We have downloaded the update, it'll update silently when you exit" is also nice and kind way of doing it. Firefox recently remedied its "We updated in the background but broke the runtime" problem for some months now on Linux and macOS, from which I observe. However nudging, aggressive updates, forcing user to stop or take breaks are not calm technology. I accept that wholeheartedly.

mort96 2mo ago

This is Nextcloud to me. I use it, but it constantly nags me about some software upgrade I need to do. People don't appreciate enough that releasing new software has a cost. Upgrading is risky and disruptive. Even on iOS, where app upgrades are as low effort as possible, they're a nuisance; I'm occasionally unable to open an app I need because it's mid-update. One time, I was using an app, closed it to get some information from another app, and when I wanted to go back to the first app I couldn't because it had started an auto update. Software updates are a necessary evil. As such, they should be as infrequent as is reasonably possible.

bayindirh 2mo ago
I manage an average sized Nextcloud instance, and see these mails every day, but I believe you can change their interval to something longer under your personal settings. Also, you can disable server notification on your client. If you want to go nuclear, you can disable update notifications altogether under administrative settings, I believe. On the other hand, I mostly charge my iOS devices at night, and they handle updates & backups when they are charging. I didn't see an app updating midday for years, I believe. Nextcloud is a bit too noisy on the app updates department, though, we can all agree on that.
- mort96 2mo ago
  The thing is, I don't want to just "not update apps". If there's a security vulnerability which needs to be patched ASAP, I need to be told about it ASAP.

ryandrake 2mo ago

I don't understand how we all just stood by and let "monthly subscription" sneak in and become the dominant form of paying for software (and entertainment/media, too). Almost everything else in my life is a one time purchase. I pay for the thing, I use it forever. I would never buy a vacuum cleaner subscription. Or a pressure washer subscription. Why should I need to endlessly pay for software? The usual excuses from developers: 1. But I need to maintain the server and that's a monthly cost! Nope. Tethering your software to a server was your choice, not mine. I shouldn't have to pay for your decision. I have lots of perfectly good software on my computer that work fine without your server. 2. But it costs money to constantly be developing and publishing updates! Nope. Nobody is asking you to constantly change your software. Generally, I don't want your updates. The software met my needs when I bought it, and I don't want you to change it, and I certainly don't want to keep paying you just so you can keep changing it. We need to go back to treating software like it was something you bought in a box off a store shelf and that was it. No recurring payments. No updates. No accounts. No nagging. No telemetry. Just a box of bits that I hand over money for once.

jfengel 2mo ago
I think software developers feel that their work is never finished. Nothing is ever fully complete. The software always has bugs and security holes. It is always lacking critical features that you haven't gotten around to yet. I think it's pretty clear that management has taken advantage of that instinct. They keep upgrading software long after it really is fully finished. Nobody has wanted a new version of Microsoft Word for decades. But it took decades to reach that point. Most software hasn't reached it. We send out software barely good enough -- if that much. Because it takes a long time to actually get good, and if we waited that long, the company would have gone belly-up. And the customers seem content to buy good-enough software, in the hopes that the other bugs and features will get fixed. Obviously you should be able to opt out of all of that, and stick with a version you like. When enough customers do that, you stop, and move on to a new thing. But I do think it's inevitable that companies will sell you a Minimum Viable Product and charge you to complete it. Because that's how they are able to afford to get it out the door before they go bankrupt. And if they don't, somebody else will, and get the software out faster.