3 ms·

That's all true, but you also have to recognize the fact that the market for people like you is essentially saturated. To use a different example, this is why A

That's all true, but you also have to recognize the fact that the market for people like you is essentially saturated. To use a different example, this is why Adobe has abandoned selling boxed copies of Photoshop, and is moving to it's "Creative Cloud" rental scheme. That is the real benefit of web applications. It's not that they're easier for the user. That's a side benefit. The real benefit comes from the fact that you can turn what used to be a one-time purchase into an ongoing revenue stream. That's what Microsoft, Adobe, and all the other purveyors of boxed software are aiming towards. Looking at it that way, PC vs. web is just a proxy for buy vs. rent. And, like it or not, the "buy" option is slowly being driven from the market.

Silhouette 13y ago
That's all true, but you also have to recognize the fact that the market for people like you is essentially saturated. I don't accept that premise, and moving to Creative Cloud in Adobe's case is a great example of why not. As it happens, I use Creative Suite for work myself. My company paid a lot of money to buy it. There are plenty of things Adobe could have done that would have made it more valuable to us, and we would gladly have dropped the same money again to buy an upgrade that did a few of those things. But in several years, they haven't managed to do any of them, and so we haven't bought any of the most recent pre-CC versions. The fact that Adobe's Creative Suite revenue stream dried up in our case has nothing to do with buy vs. rent, it has to do with not adding anything of value to us in several years of development and therefore not being worth buying again. For exactly the same reason, plus the fact that we would never allow our data to effectively be held hostage, we aren't subscribing to Creative Cloud, so Adobe will probably never get any more money from us for that product line. PC vs. web is only a proxy for buy vs. rent if the purchase really was a one-off. For almost every piece of commercial software I use, that wouldn't necessarily be the case, and in fact the developers could easily add enough value that I'd pay them more money for an upgrade. The fact that they are pushing for the subscription model instead, even while doing funny maths that assumes I would have upgraded regularly to try and justify the cost, just demonstrates to me that they aren't actually confident that they know how to add that value and keep me paying them. And, like it or not, the "buy" option is slowly being driven from the market. I don't really accept that premise, either. Companies like Microsoft and Adobe have held near-unassailable leads in large and lucrative software markets for years. Of course they can abuse that position for a while to price gouge those who, rightly or wrongly, feel that they absolutely must have the latest versions of things to be able to work properly. It's even worthwhile for the software companies to offer the first hit for free, but in the end, what they're doing still isn't in the best interests of their customers. Sooner or later the market is going to figure that out, and sooner or later someone with a smarter plan is going to start providing a real alternative.

Silhouette 13y ago

That's all true, but you also have to recognize the fact that the market for people like you is essentially saturated. I don't accept that premise, and moving to Creative Cloud in Adobe's case is a great example of why not. As it happens, I use Creative Suite for work myself. My company paid a lot of money to buy it. There are plenty of things Adobe could have done that would have made it more valuable to us, and we would gladly have dropped the same money again to buy an upgrade that did a few of those things. But in several years, they haven't managed to do any of them, and so we haven't bought any of the most recent pre-CC versions. The fact that Adobe's Creative Suite revenue stream dried up in our case has nothing to do with buy vs. rent, it has to do with not adding anything of value to us in several years of development and therefore not being worth buying again. For exactly the same reason, plus the fact that we would never allow our data to effectively be held hostage, we aren't subscribing to Creative Cloud, so Adobe will probably never get any more money from us for that product line. PC vs. web is only a proxy for buy vs. rent if the purchase really was a one-off. For almost every piece of commercial software I use, that wouldn't necessarily be the case, and in fact the developers could easily add enough value that I'd pay them more money for an upgrade. The fact that they are pushing for the subscription model instead, even while doing funny maths that assumes I would have upgraded regularly to try and justify the cost, just demonstrates to me that they aren't actually confident that they know how to add that value and keep me paying them. And, like it or not, the "buy" option is slowly being driven from the market. I don't really accept that premise, either. Companies like Microsoft and Adobe have held near-unassailable leads in large and lucrative software markets for years. Of course they can abuse that position for a while to price gouge those who, rightly or wrongly, feel that they absolutely must have the latest versions of things to be able to work properly. It's even worthwhile for the software companies to offer the first hit for free, but in the end, what they're doing still isn't in the best interests of their customers. Sooner or later the market is going to figure that out, and sooner or later someone with a smarter plan is going to start providing a real alternative.